Whilst the whole album (Dark Side of the Moon) is a masterpiece and has occupied many days of my life in listening time, and caused many tears to be shed, the backstory to this particular song from the album makes it all the more powerful. Singer Clare Torry:
“I said: ‘Well, what do you want?’ And basically, they had no idea,” she says in this clip. Worse still, even after listening to the tune a couple of times, Torry herself couldn’t determine a vocal angle, either.
She decided on a simple approach: “Go into the studio, put the cans on and have a little go.” Torry started with some rudimentary scatting, “and they said: ‘No, no, no. We don’t want any words.’ Well, that really stumped me. I thought: ‘Well, I really don’t know what they want, so OK, best feet forward.’ I thought: I have to pretend to be an instrument. And that gave me an avenue to explore.”
---
---
My other favourite, and #1 Floyd track, and an absolute masterpiece.. Echoes. Incredible piece of music, just before Dark Side when they really found their grove as a band. Takes me back to my teenage years and smoking under the stars in the still of night, wondering just what the fuck is going on here.
