13/11/2025
The passion for music was passed on to me by my mother. From a young age, she took me to countless concerts, I even saw Édith Piaf live when I was just eight years old. Exactly 57 years ago today, the legendary English band Pink Floyd performed in Switzerland for the very first time. They played in Abtwil near Zurich and my mother took me along with her.
I recall that there were strobe lights flashing throughout the entire concert and I thought they must be crazy!
Two days later, we saw them again in a Swiss town called Neuchâtel, at a small venue called The Spot Bar, which could hold no more than 300 people. The Spot Bar went on to become a legendary music venue, also hosting artists like John Lee Ho**er, the Bee Gees, Procol Harum, and the Moody Blues.
As for Pink Floyd, one of my favourite songs of theirs is “The Great Gig in the Sky.” …And of course, there’s the story of the best £30 Pink Floyd ever spent.
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 got to go sometime.
In 1973, I was 20 and was mesmerized by this track from Pink Floyd, it was on their The Dark Side of the Moon album.
Pink Floyd first played The Great Gig in the Sky – then titled The Mortality Sequence – at the Brighton Dome in January 1972, more than a year before it was finally released on The Dark Side Of The Moon, and getting the song to the finish line was quite the journey.
Built around a Richard Wright piano solo, The Great Gig in the Sky was originally embellished by a reading of The Lord’s Prayer and a recording of author and satirist Malcolm Muggeridge pontificating. Work on the studio version began at Abbey Road as the middle of the year approached, but touring, holidays and other commitments kept the band distracted.
Eventually Roger Waters completed work on the song – a typically sensitive contemplation of death – which began with Wright's solemn keyboards and gave the unsuspecting listener little indication of the wild ride they were about to enjoy. And what a ride it was: one of The Dark Side Of The Moon's most memorable sections, provided by someone who wasn't even in the band.
25-year-old singer Clare Torry was working as a staff songwriter for EMI when the call came. She wasn't a big Pink Floyd fan, but engineer Alan Parsons had worked with her before, having originally heard her sing on a Pick Of The Pops covers album, and brought her into the studio on January 21, 1973, to see what she might bring to the track.
"When I arrived they explained the concept of the album to me and played me Rick Wright’s chord sequence," said Torry. "They said: 'We want some singing on it,' but didn’t know what they wanted. So I suggested going out into the studio and trying a few things. I started off using words, but they said: 'Oh no, we don’t want any words.' So the only thing I could think of was to make myself sound like an instrument, a guitar or whatever, and not to think like a vocalist. I did that and they loved it.
"I did three or four takes very quickly, it was left totally up to me, and they said: 'Thank you very much.' In fact, other than Dave Gilmour, I had the impression that they were infinitely bored with the whole thing, and when I left I remember thinking to myself: 'That will never see the light of day.'"
Torry was wrong, of course, and the band knew they'd captured the purest of magic. The vocal you hear on the album was stitched together from those takes, and the result was a jaw-dropping wail that elevated the track to near-celestial heights.
“We wanted to put a girl on there, screaming orgasmically," Gilmour recalled. "Alan had worked with her previously, so we gave her try. And she was fantastic. We had to encourage her a little bit, we gave her some dynamic hints: ‘Maybe you’d like to do this piece quietly, and this piece louder.’"
Torry was paid a £30 session fee, double the usual rate because it was recorded on a Sunday, and only became aware her parts were used when she saw the album at a local record shop and spotted her name in the credits. "If I’d known then what I know now I would have done something about organising copyright or publishing," she told Mojo in 1998. "I would be a wealthy woman now."
It's possible Clare Torry may well be a wealthy woman now. Six years after that interview she sued Pink Floyd – while remaining on good terms with the band – arguing that her contribution to The Great Gig in the Sky constituted co-authorship. She petitioned the High Court for royalties she believed were due, a half-share of copyright ownership, and a 50% share of past and future income. The band and record company EMI settled out of court – although details of the out-of-court settlement were never disclosed – and the song is now credited to both Wright and Torry.
And that's gotta be a nice little earner.
Filmed live on 20 October 1994 at Earls Court, London, UK. Restored & re-edited in 2019 from the original tape masters.OUT NOW Pink Floyd at Pompeii – MCMLXX...
