The Great Gig in the Sky

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The Great Gig in the Sky is a piece of music from 1973 by the rock band Pink Floyd that was released on the album The Dark Side of the Moon .

description

The piece is an instrumental composition by Richard Wright with a vocal part by singer and co-author Clare Torry . Torry sings no text in this part, but uses her voice like a musical instrument for melodic improvisation. Richard Wright's piano part at the beginning and at the end is also characteristic of the piece.

Despite the missing lyrics, it can be seen that The Great Gig in the Sky is about death . This can be heard in the short spoken text by Gerry O'Driscoll, the caretaker of Abbey Road Studios, in the opening part of the piece, who speaks the following sentence: “And I am not frightened of dying. Any time will do; I don't mind. Why should I be frightened of dying? There's no reason for it - you've gotta go sometime. " (in German: "And I'm not afraid of dying. Anytime is right, I don't care. Why should I be afraid of dying? There is no reason for it - you have to leave at some point"). Towards the end of the piece you can hear a woman's voice saying: "I never said I was frightened of dying." ("I never said I was scared of dying.")

Before the album was released, there were earlier concert versions of the piece under the name The Mortality Sequence , which did not contain any vocal interludes, but instead contained various speaking parts that also related to the subject of death. Later versions of The Great Gig in the Sky were released on the live album Pulse and the concert video Delicate Sound of Thunder . Instead of Torry's voice, they contain vocal interludes from various backing singers, including Rachel Fury, Sam Brown , Durga McBroom and Margret Taylor. The original song was used in the films CRAZY - Verrücktes Leben and The Silicon Valley Story , among others . In the early 1990s, a cover version of the piece was recorded for the setting of a commercial for the pain reliever Nurofen , for which Clare Torry sang the vocal part again.

Clare Torry as co-author

In 2005, Clare Torry , who had only received £ 30 for their recording, filed a lawsuit against the band and their record company to be recognized as co-author of the piece. The court followed their reasoning and an out-of-court settlement was reached, the details of which were not made public. In the booklet of the DVD Pulse (2006), Torry is listed as a co-author of the piece.

Participating musicians

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ rocknuts.net: Song of the Day: Pink Floyd - “The Great Gig In The Sky”
  2. ↑ The Great Gig in the Sky on the website of "Brother Franziskus"
  3. ↑ Contactmusic.com: Pink Floyd Singer Wins Settlement From Band . April 13, 2005