| This is about the bad things money can bring.
Ironically, it made them lots of cash, as the album sold over 34
million copies. |
| This is often misinterpreted as a tribute to
money. Many people thought the line "Money, it's a gas," meant they
considered money a very good thing. |
| Roger Waters wrote this, but the lead vocal is
David Gilmour. |
| The song begins in an unusual 7/4 time
signature and lots of studio effects. They were using a new 16-track
recorder, which allowed them to layer sounds much easier, but
complex studio techniques like this still took a long time to do in
1973, as there weren't digital recorders and samplers available like
we have today. If you wanted to copy and paste something, you had to
do it the hard way - with a razor blade and splicing tape. |
| Roger Waters put together the cash register
tape loop that plays throughout the song. It also contains the
sounds of tearing paper and bags of coins being thrown into an
industrial food-mixing bowl. The intro was recorded by capturing the
sounds of an old cash register on tape, and meticulously splicing
and cutting the tape in a rhythmic pattern to make the "cash
register loop" effect. |
| The album was engineered by famed British
producer and studio genius Alan Parsons at Abby Road Studios.
Parsons later started his own band called The Alan Parsons Project
and scored a hit in the '80s with "Eye In The Sky." He remains a
much sought after music engineer and producer today. (thanks, Dave -
Marieta, GA, for above 3) |
| Bands like The Beatles had used tape loops,
but never like this. The tape loop used on this was about 20 feet
long, and if you've ever seen a reel-to-reel tape machine, you can
imagine how hard it was to keep it playing. In order to get the
right tension and continuously feed the machine, they set up the
loop in a big circle using microphone stands to hold it up. It was
fed through the tape machine and played throughout the song. |
| The lyrics contain a naughty word. "Bulls--t"
was left in the original release, but their record company quickly
put out a version with the word removed, which became known as the
"Bull Blank" version. |
| Along with "Us And Them," this is one of 2
songs on the album to use a saxophone, which was played by Dick
Parry. The band wanted to experiment with new sounds on these
sessions. |
| As happens throughout Dark Side Of The Moon,
random voices come in at the end. Waters drew up flashcards with
deep philosophical questions on them, then showed them to people
around the studio and taped their answers. The ones they liked made
the album. Among the people questioned: a doorman, a roadie, and
Paul McCartney. |
| Due to a record company dispute, they had to
re-record this for their 1981 greatest hits album, A Collection
Of Great Dance Songs (the title is a joke. You can't dance to
Floyd). There are very subtle differences between this version and
the original. |
| If you start the CD on the 3rd roar of the MGM
lion, this begins just as the film goes to color in The Wizard Of
Oz. |
| Like many of their songs, this was not
released as a single in the UK, where singles were perceived as a
sellout. |
| A cultural difference in the song: the
reference to the "football team." In America, the sport is known as
soccer. |
| There is a scene in The Wall where the
main character (Pink) is a student in school, and the teacher
catches him writing a poem instead of doing the work he was supposed
to be doing. The teacher reads the poem out loud, and it is this
song. He makes the student look like a fool and everyone in the
classroom laughs at him. The teacher then tells him "It's rubbish
laddy, now get back to work!" It probably symbolizes the way that we
are raised almost uniform-like throughout our entire lives, starting
in school. This is a theme of the movie. (thanks, Derek - Raleigh,
NC) |
| The line, "Money, so they say, is a root of
all evil today" is a paraphrase from the New Testament - 1 Timothy
6:10: "For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil." (thanks,
Mike - Lunar surface) |
| In 2002, a group called The Easy Star
All-Stars recorded a Reggae version of the album called Dub Side
Of The Moon. On this song, the sounds of money were replaced by
sounds of someone smoking from a water-based marijuana delivery
device (OK, a bong). |
| A group called Reloaded, made up of former
Guns N' Roses members with Scott Weiland from The Stone Temple
Pilots as lead singer, recorded this for the 2003 movie The
Italian Job. The group eventually changed their name to Velvet
Revolver. |
| The cash register loop and bass line at the
introduction to this song are used in a radio show that plays in the
US, The Dave Ramsey Show. The show offers financial advice to
struggling people, so the song ties in well. (thanks, Collin -
Texas, TX) |
