DSOTM - The Great Gig in the Sky - Meaning? (1 Viewer)

[Holadem]

I experience conflicting emotions listening to this song (which btw is easily one of the strangest songs I have ever heard). It's somewhat depressing, but in a bitter sweet way. Someone mutters somthing about not being afraid of death at the begining. It feels like it's about death... and also life. And the lady... I can't make up my mind as to what she is expressing, desperation, bliss, anger? Perhaps all of the above? It's not often that music make me think...

--
Holadem

 

[John Wes]

Like most of the songs from DSOTM, they were all a work in progress when they went into the recording studio. Most of them had been worked through starting from a year earlier, during live performances.

The song (The band called it the religious part of the disc..a bit of a joke by them.) was made from the simple piano piece written by Wright and then added to by Parsons and the rest of the band during the recording of it.

Parson's had talked the band into listening and hiring a local woman by the name of Clare Torry to do a bit of background vocals. She was spotted in a local choir...

The band and Parson's would then direct her vocals on The Great Gig in the sky....

Louder, softer, more sex appeal, and so forth........amazing piece of work when it was done. The rest is history. Those amazing vocals are probably the most famous ooh's and ah's in history.

She was paid around $75.00 for her work....


In that song, about 2/3's (around 3:35 into the song) the way through, she says something...In the stereo version it's almost buried. You can almost make it out. In the SACD 5.1 version, it's been brought out a bit and comes from the left rear channel....and in the quad...it originats from the whole front stage and you can hear her quite clearly.........

Trivia question...What does she say?

 

[Wayne Bundrick]

I don't think it's Clare but rather a woman who was at the party where all the other little voice snippets were also recorded. It sounds like the same woman who says "he was crusin' for a bruisin'" at the end of Money.

Anyway, the voice says "I never said I was frightened of dying." Do I win a prize?

 

[John Wes]

Wayne..you win.....(prize?)..

By the way, you could be right but I've been under the impression that it was Clare Torry...... Gained from one of my radio shows, not sure which one.......

Clare, too, was asked all them questions on the cards that Waters had made up. Along with anyone who was in and around the studios. Including Paul and Linda McCartney....(none of their answers were used that I'm aware of..)