The Dark Side of the Moon

• 1. Introduction

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  The Dark Side of the Moon is the 1973 album by the English band Pink Floyd. As of January 2026 it had charted for 996 weeks on the US Billboard album chart. Records rarely last that long, and this one did not set out to be comfortable listening. Its subjects are madness, greed, death and the relentless tick of time. It was made by four musicians worn down by an arduous touring life, with the memory of a former bandmate's breakdown hanging over the project. Its sound came from tape, synthesisers and a surprising cast of ordinary voices. How did a band turn exhaustion and unease into a single unbroken piece of music? Who are the people talking between the songs? And what did the musicians themselves make of the success that followed?

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• 2. Madness On Tour

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  Pink Floyd released Meddle in 1971, and that December the band assembled for a tour of Britain, Japan and the United States. At a meeting in drummer Nick Mason's North London home, bassist Roger Waters suggested that a new album could grow out of the tour. His subject was whatever it is that makes people mad. He wanted the album to dwell on the pressures of the band's arduous lifestyle. It would also deal with the mental health problems of Syd Barrett. Barrett, a founding member, had left in 1968, and David Gilmour had taken his place as guitarist.

  The band had touched on a similar idea in 1969 with a concert suite called The Man and The Journey. This time the approach was meant to be plainer. Gilmour told Rolling Stone that earlier lyrics had been "a little too indirect", and that the feeling now was that the words would be "very clear and specific".

  In a small studio in a garden shed at his home in Islington, Waters built demo tracks. Some of the material was already lying around. The opening line of "Breathe" came from an earlier piece by Waters and Ron Geesin, written for the soundtrack of The Body. The basic structure of "Us and Them" came from "The Violent Sequence", which keyboardist Richard Wright had composed for the film Zabriskie Point.

  The working title was Dark Side of the Moon, an allusion to lunacy rather than astronomy. The band then discovered that another group, Medicine Head, had already used it, so they switched for a while to Eclipse. The new material premiered at The Dome in Brighton on the 20th of January 1972. After Medicine Head's album failed commercially, the band went back to its original preference.

  For the road, the band bought new speakers, a PA system, a 28-track mixing desk with four-channel quadraphonic output, and a custom-built lighting rig. Nine tonnes of kit travelled in three lorries. They rehearsed at a London warehouse owned by the Rolling Stones and at the Rainbow Theatre in Finsbury Park. It was the first time the band had taken an entire album on tour.

  On the 17th of February 1972, the piece was played for the press at the Rainbow Theatre, more than a year before release. It was then called Dark Side of the Moon: A Piece for Assorted Lunatics. Michael Wale of The Times said it was "bringing tears to the eyes. It was so completely understanding and musically questioning." Derek Jewell of The Sunday Times wrote that "The ambition of the Floyd's artistic intention is now vast." Melody Maker was cooler, saying the sound effects "often left me wondering if I was in a bird-cage at London Zoo."

  The public praised the tour that followed. The songs were played in the same order as on the finished album. There were differences, though. "On the Run" had no synthesisers yet, and readings from the Bible stood where Clare Torry's vocals would later sit on "The Great Gig in the Sky".

  A lengthy tour through Europe and North America let the band improve the scale and quality of its shows. Work on the record stalled in late February, when the band went to France to record music for Barbet Schroeder's film La Vallée. Next came concerts in Japan, then a return to France in March to complete the film. After more North American shows, they flew to London and resumed recording in May and June. A further run of concerts followed, and the band came back to London on the 9th of January 1973 to finish the album.

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• 3. Ten Tracks, Two Sides

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  Each side of the vinyl album plays as one continuous piece of music, and its five tracks follow stages of human life. Waters said the sweep of the whole thing was about "empathy". "Speak to Me" and "Breathe" together set out the dull, futile routines of daily life and the ever-present threat of madness. Their advice is "Don't be afraid to care".

  "On the Run" is a synthesiser-driven instrumental set in an airport. It evokes the stress and anxiety of modern travel, and in particular Wright's fear of flying. "Time" examines how the passing of years can take control of a life, and it warns people who stay fixed on mundane pursuits. The reprise of "Breathe" then retreats into solitude. Side one closes with "The Great Gig in the Sky", a soulful metaphor for death from Wright and Clare Torry.

  Side two opens with "Money", which begins with cash-register sound effects and mocks greed and consumerism with sarcastic lyrics. It became the band's most commercially successful track, and other artists covered it. "Us and Them" turns to the senselessness of war, to people absorbed by materialism, and to the isolation of the depressed. It uses simple opposites to describe personal relationships. "Any Colour You Like" takes on the illusion of choice in society.

  "Brain Damage" looks at mental illness brought on by placing fame and success above the needs of the self. The line "and if the band you're in starts playing different tunes" reflects Barrett's breakdown. The album ends with "Eclipse", which urges listeners to recognise the traits all humanity shares.

  On some pressings, one last surprise waits after "Eclipse". An orchestral version of the Beatles' "Ticket to Ride" is faintly audible over the closing heartbeats.

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• 4. Inside Abbey Road

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  The album was recorded at EMI Studios in London, now Abbey Road Studios, over roughly 60 days spread across 1972 and early 1973. The band was assigned staff engineer Alan Parsons. He had been assistant tape operator on Atom Heart Mother in 1970, and he had gained experience as a recording engineer on the Beatles albums Abbey Road and Let It Be.

  Studer A80 16-track recorders gave the band a real advantage over their earlier eight- and four-track recordings. Even so, they often used so many tracks that second-generation copies were needed to free up space. Mix supervisor Chris Thomas later recalled that when mixing began there were only two or three drum tracks. There were one or two guitar tracks, one each for keyboard and bass, and one or two for effects. He said the band had been "very, very efficient in the way they'd worked."

  The first track recorded was "Us and Them", on the 31st of May 1972. Seven days later came "Money". For it, Waters made effects loops from the sounds of money-related objects, including coins thrown into a mixing bowl in his wife's pottery studio. He added tearing paper, a ringing cash register and a clicking adding machine. Spliced together, these formed a 7-beat loop in an unusual time signature. The loop was later adapted to four tracks to create a "walk around the room" effect in the quadraphonic version. Parsons later said he was unhappy with that quadraphonic mix and blamed a lack of time and a shortage of multitrack tape recorders.

  "Time" and "The Great Gig in the Sky" were recorded next. A two-month break followed while the band saw their families and prepared for a US tour. The sessions were frequently interrupted. Waters, a supporter of Arsenal, would stop work to watch his team play. The band sometimes paused to watch Monty Python's Flying Circus on television while Parsons worked on the tracks. Gilmour remembered that "when we were on a roll, we would get on."

  Back from the US in January 1973, the band recorded "Brain Damage", "Eclipse", "Any Colour You Like" and "On the Run", and fine-tuned earlier work. Four female vocalists sang on "Brain Damage", "Eclipse" and "Time". Saxophonist Dick Parry was booked for "Us and Them" and "Money". With the director Adrian Maben, the band also filmed studio footage for Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii.

  Mason built a rough version of "Speak to Me" at home before finishing it in the studio. The track works as an overture, cross-fading elements from other pieces on the album. A piano chord played backwards helps swell the build-up of effects, which leads straight into "Breathe". Mason received a rare solo composing credit for it.

  The band also brought prominent synthesisers into their sound. They tried an EMS VCS 3 on "Brain Damage" and "Any Colour You Like", and a Synthi A on "Time" and "On the Run". Assistant engineer Peter James ran around the studio's echo chamber during "On the Run". A bass drum was specially treated to imitate a human heartbeat. It is heard on "Speak to Me", "On the Run", "Time" and "Eclipse", and most clearly at the start and end of the album.

  Parsons double tracked vocals and guitars, which let Gilmour harmonise with himself. Gilmour and Wright, whose voices sound alike, also blend on "Us and Them" and "Time". In the quadraphonic mix of "On the Run", a Hammond B3 organ played through a Leslie speaker swirls around the listener. The track was so intricately layered that studio engineers and all four band members had to operate the console's faders at once.

  The clocks that open "Time" were never meant for the album at all. Parsons had recorded each timepiece at an antique clock shop as a quadraphonic test, and the band later used elements of that material.

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• 5. Voices In The Dark

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  Clare Torry was a session singer and songwriter, and a regular at Abbey Road. When the band decided they wanted a female vocalist for "The Great Gig in the Sky", Parsons, who liked her voice, suggested her. The band explained the album's concept but could not say exactly what she should do. Gilmour, in charge of the session, asked her to express emotions rather than sing words.

  On a Sunday night, in a few takes, Torry improvised a wordless melody to go with Wright's emotive piano solo. She was embarrassed by her own exuberance in the recording booth and wanted to apologise. The band were impressed but did not tell her so. Her takes were edited together, and she left believing her vocals would not make the final cut. She only learned otherwise when she picked up the album at a local record store and saw her name in the credits. Her payment was her standard session fee of £30.

  In 2004, Torry sued EMI and Pink Floyd for 50% of the songwriting royalties. She argued that her contribution was substantial enough to count as co-authorship. The case was settled out of court for an undisclosed sum, and all pressings after 2005 credit Wright and Torry jointly.

  In the final week of recording, Waters asked staff and others at Abbey Road to answer questions printed on flashcards. Each person sat in front of a microphone in a darkened Studio 3. The first questions were light, such as "What's your favourite colour?" and "What's your favourite food?" Then came the album's central themes of madness, violence and death. "When was the last time you were violent?" was followed at once by "Were you in the right?" Some of the replies were edited into the final mix.

  Roadie Roger "The Hat" Manifold was recorded in a conventional sit-down interview. Waters asked him about a violent encounter with a motorist, and he replied "... give 'em a quick, short, sharp shock..." Asked about death, he said "Live for today, gone tomorrow, that's me..." Another roadie, Chris Adamson, supplied the album's first spoken words. He confessed that he had been mad for years and blamed it on working with bands.

  Road manager Peter Watts, father of the actress Naomi Watts, contributed the repeated laughter on "Brain Damage" and "Speak to Me". He also supplied the line "I can't think of anything to say". His second wife, Patricia "Puddie" Watts, now Patricia Gleason, gave the line about the "geezer" who was "cruisin' for a bruisin", used between "Money" and "Us and Them". She also spoke the words "I never said I was frightened of dying" halfway through "The Great Gig in the Sky".

  Paul and Linda McCartney were interviewed, but their answers were judged to be "trying too hard to be funny" and went unused. Their Wings bandmate Henry McCullough did make it onto the record, with the line "I don't know, I was really drunk at the time."

  Several of the most memorable replies came from the studios' Irish doorman, Gerry O'Driscoll. One was "I know I've been mad, I've always been mad, like most of us have." His last remark closes the album: "There is no dark side in the moon really. Matter of fact, it's all dark." Parsons said O'Driscoll went on to add a line about the sun. The band were too delighted with the first line, and continuing would have been an anticlimax.

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• 6. Mix And Sleeve

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  Once the flashcard sessions were done, producer Chris Thomas was hired to provide "a fresh pair of ears" for the final mix. His background was in music rather than engineering. He had worked with the Beatles producer George Martin, and he knew the band's manager, Steve O'Rourke.

  The band were said to have disagreed over the mix. Waters and Mason preferred a "dry" and "clean" sound that made more use of the non-musical elements. Gilmour and Wright wanted something subtler and more "echoey". Thomas remembered it differently: "There was no difference in opinion between them." Whatever the truth, his intervention produced a compromise that satisfied both Waters and Gilmour. He also perfected the timing of the echo on "Us and Them".

  The album was completed and signed off at Abbey Road on the 9th of February 1973. Gilmour recalled the first listen to the finished album as "a moment of great joy and of satisfaction and the feeling of achievement that we'd really gone that extra mile". Waters took a reel-to-reel copy home and played it for his wife, who burst into tears at the end. He remembered thinking, "This has obviously struck a chord somewhere."

  The sleeve came from Hipgnosis and the artist George Hardie. EMI had been confused by earlier Hipgnosis covers for Atom Heart Mother and Obscured by Clouds, because they carried no lettering or words. Designers Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey Powell could ignore such complaints, since the band employed them. For this album, Wright asked for something "smarter, neater - more classy", as simple as the artwork on a Black Magic chocolate box.

  Thorgerson drew on a photograph he had found in a 1963 physics textbook, showing white light passing through a prism and emerging as the visible spectrum. He also drew on an illustration by Alex Steinweiss, the inventor of album cover art. It had been made for the New York Philharmonic's 1942 performance of Beethoven's Emperor Concerto. Hipgnosis offered seven designs, and all four band members chose the prism. Waters said, "There were no arguments. We all pointed to the prism and said 'That's the one'."

  The prism stands for three things: the band's stage lighting, the album's lyrics, and Wright's request for something "simple and bold". The beam of light shows six colours, with indigo missing from the usual seven. At Waters' suggestion, the spectrum runs on into the gatefold, where a visual version of the heartbeat also appears. The back cover shows a second prism recombining the light, so shops could arrange the sleeve in interesting layouts.

  Inside were two posters and two pyramid-themed stickers. One poster showed concert pictures of the band overlaid with scattered letters spelling PINK FLOYD. The other was an infrared photograph of the Great Pyramids of Giza by Powell and Thorgerson. The band were so confident in Waters' lyrics that, for the first time, they printed them on the sleeve.

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• 7. Release And Sales

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  The London Planetarium hosted a press reception on the 27th of February 1973, and every band member except Wright stayed away. The quadraphonic mix was not finished, so they boycotted the event. Guests met four life-sized cardboard cut-outs of the band, and the stereo mix played over a poor-quality public address system.

  The press was enthusiastic anyway. Roy Hollingworth of Melody Maker found side one "so utterly confused with itself it was difficult to follow" but praised side two. Steve Peacock of Sounds wrote, "I don't care if you've never heard a note of the Pink Floyd's music in your life, I'd unreservedly recommend everyone to The Dark Side of the Moon". In Rolling Stone, Loyd Grossman called it a record whose richness "not only invites, but demands involvement". Robert Christgau found the ideas clichéd and the music pretentious, yet still called it a "kitsch masterpiece".

  Capitol Records released the album in the US on the 1st of March 1973, and Harvest Records followed in the UK on the 16th of March. It was an instant chart success in Britain and across Western Europe, and by the following month it was gold in the US. The band played it throughout their March US tour, including a midnight show at Radio City Music Hall in New York on the 17th of March for an audience of 6,000. The album reached number one on the Billboard Top LPs & Tape chart on the 28th of April 1973. In Canada it stayed in the top three for 22 weeks.

  Much of the early American success is credited to Capitol. Its newly appointed chairman, Bhaskar Menon, wanted to reverse the weak sales of Meddle. Meanwhile, the band and O'Rourke had quietly been negotiating a new contract with Clive Davis of Columbia Records. This was the last album they owed Capitol. Menon launched a huge advertising campaign anyway, including radio-friendly cuts of "Us and Them" and "Time".

  In the UK, the band had not issued a single since "Point Me at the Sky" in 1968. Even so, "Money" came out as a single on the 7th of May, with "Any Colour You Like" on the B-side. It reached number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 in July 1973. The mono side of the radio promotional copy had a swear word cut short, but the stereo side left it in. That version was withdrawn, and disc jockeys were told to throw the first copy away. A double A-side of "Time" and "Us and Them" followed on the 4th of February 1974. Menon's push for a renewal failed. At the start of 1974 the band signed with Columbia for a reported advance of $1M, while Harvest kept them in Britain and Europe.

  The album held the US number one spot for only a week. Yet it stayed on the Billboard 200 for 736 nonconsecutive weeks, from the 17th of March 1973 to the 16th of July 1988. It returned in 1991 when the Top Pop Catalog Albums chart began. After a methodology change in 2009 let catalogue titles into the Billboard 200, it came back at number 189 on the 12th of December that year.

  The album was released before platinum certification began in 1976, so it stayed at gold until the 16th of February 1990, when it was certified 11 times platinum. On the 4th of June 1998 it reached 15 times platinum. That makes it the band's biggest seller in the US. The Wall is certified 23 times platinum, but as a double album that equals 11.5 million sales. In the UK the album is certified 14 times platinum. In 2007, one in every fourteen Americans under 50 was estimated to own a copy. By 2013 worldwide sales were about 45 million, and in 2017 it was the highest-selling album in the UK never to reach number one.

  Gilmour credited the success to the combination of music, lyrics and cover art. Mason said the band felt it was their best work yet but were surprised by how it sold. In his words, it was "not only about being a good album but also about being in the right place at the right time".

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• 8. Afterlife

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  The money changed the band members' lives in different ways. Richard Wright and Roger Waters bought large country houses, and Nick Mason became a collector of upmarket cars. The group were fans of Monty Python, and some of the profits went into the production of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Parsons earned a Grammy nomination for Best Engineered Recording, Non-Classical, and went on to form The Alan Parsons Project. Looking back in 2003, he said he was frustrated that the band made untold millions while many of the people involved in the record did not.

  The Grammy Hall of Fame inducted the album in 1999. The Library of Congress later chose it for preservation in the United States National Recording Registry as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Rolling Stone ranked it number 43 on its 2003 and 2012 lists of the 500 greatest albums, and number 55 in 2020. That is the band's highest placement on the list. In 2006, viewers of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation voted it their favourite album, and in 2007 VH1 named it the fourth-greatest album cover.

  Writers have compared it with Radiohead's 1997 album OK Computer. Ben Schleifer argued that both records share the theme that the creative individual loses the ability to function in the modern world. Steven Hyden, in a 2018 book, paired it with Led Zeppelin IV. He wrote that Led Zeppelin looked outward toward conquering the world, while Pink Floyd looked inward toward "overcoming your own hang-ups".

  Other musicians have tackled the album whole. The New York dub collective Easy Star All-Stars released Dub Side of the Moon in 2003. The bluegrass band Poor Man's Whiskey plays the suite as Dark Side of the Moonshine. In 2009 the Flaming Lips remade it track by track, with Henry Rollins and Peaches as guests. The jam band Phish played a semi-improvised version of the entire album on the 2nd of November 1998 in West Valley City, Utah. Milli Vanilli even opened their own track "Money" with the tape loops from Pink Floyd's.

  In the 1990s, fans noticed that playing the album alongside the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz produced apparent moments of synchronicity. Dorothy begins to jog at the lyric "no one told you when to run" in "Time". She balances on a fence during "balanced on the biggest wave" in "Breathe". She puts her ear to the Tin Man's chest as the closing heartbeats sound. Parsons and members of the band denied any connection. Parsons called the idea "a complete load of eyewash" and said that with any record and the TV sound turned down, "you will find things that work."

  The album was remixed for its 30th anniversary in 2003. The band passed over the quadraphonic mix Parsons had made for EMI and had James Guthrie create a new 5.1 surround mix on SACD. That edition sold more than 800,000 copies and won four Surround Music Awards. Its cover, designed by a team including Thorgerson, photographs a custom-made stained glass window built to match the proportions of the original prism. For the 50th anniversary in 2023, a box set added surround mixes, including a new Dolby Atmos mix, plus a photo book and a live recording from Wembley in 1974.

  That October, Waters released The Dark Side of the Moon Redux, recorded without the other members of Pink Floyd. It features spoken word sections and slower arrangements with no guitar solos. Waters said he felt "not enough people recognised what it's about, what it was I was saying then". A 2024 reissue of the 50th Anniversary edition on two clear vinyl LPs plays on only one side of each disc, leaving the other side free for UV artwork.

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