There’s the clink of a cash register. A clink of coins. A tearing up of receipts. A sweeping bass line built on just eight notes. And finally David Gilmour’s opening game (‘Money! Go away…‘). So begins Pink Floyd’s first true international signature song and their ticket to the stadium league.
No one could have predicted this impending acclaim when Roger Waters arrived at Abbey Road in June 1972 with the bones of the song: an awkward 7/4 composition that tested both Nick Mason and guest tenor saxophonist Dick Parry.
“It’s Roger’s reef,” Gilmour remarked. “Roger came in with the verses and lyrics Money more or less completed. We made up middle sections, guitar solos and all that stuff. We also invented some new riffs – we created a 4/4 progression for the guitar solo and had the poor saxophonist play in 7/4 time.”
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“Occasionally,” Waters reflected, “I’d do things and Dave would say, ‘No, that’s wrong. There should be another bar. That’s only seven’. I’d say, ‘Well, that’s it.’ Some of my songs have bars of unusual length. When you play Money On an acoustic guitar it’s more of a blues thing.”
For the studio recording, Waters re-recorded the sound effects he had originally created in his garden shed by dropping coins into a bowl his wife used to mix sound, while Mason drilled holes in old British pennies and threaded them onto strings to create a distinctive metallic gap.
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But the song’s most dazzling moment came from Gilmour. The guitarist would refer to this in a self-ironic way Money As “nice white English architecture students getting funky,” there was searing soul in his solo, making the song adrenaline-pumping at the three-minute mark and then losing its impact at 3:48 in the “dry” section.
While Floyd’s management quickly realized Money As it was a potential “monster hit”, the band members themselves were ambivalent, feeling that the tricky time signature would slow it down, and they were also jealous of Led Zeppelin’s refusal to issue singles or reach out to radio.
“We didn’t think anything would happen Money,” remarked Rick Wright. “And suddenly it just happened.”
And how. Released on May 7, 1973 – two months after the main album The dark side of the moon had topped that billboard Diagram – Money climbed to No. 13 in the US, announcing Floyd as a rock heavyweight and making Waters’ wealth-baiting lyrics ring a little hollow. With Money Her locker found the band giving speeches at shows around the world.
“It was quite a shock,” Gilmour said, “to be confronted with people on the front lines all screaming for us to play.” Money – whereas earlier our slightly more awestruck audience sat in absolute silence, waiting for the next pin to drop.
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Money (re-recorded 1981) – YouTube
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Unusual, Money was re-recorded by Gilmour for the Pink Floyd compilation album in 1981. A collection of great dance songs. The band had recently signed with Columbia Records, but Capitol still owned the US rights to the original 1973 studio version The dark side of the moon and flatly refused to grant a license Money to their rival.
To get around this hurdle, Columbia asked the band to re-record the track from scratch, but Gilmour and Waters weren’t on speaking terms and Mason and Wright weren’t available, so the guitarist re-recorded the song from scratch, playing every part himself except for the saxophone, which was handled by Dick Parry.
Gilmour’s new version was as faithful a reproduction as possible, although his drums lacked Mason’s oomph and the bass seemed rather shallow compared to Waters’ flashier original.
Roger Waters – Money (Official Lyric Video, DSOTM REDUX) – YouTube
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Fifty years later MoneyWhen Waters showed up, he came into his own, releasing an unexpected new version as part of his Redux re-recording of The dark side of the moon.
The lively rhythm of the original was gone, replaced by a slow, brooding acoustic arrangement. The original’s most iconic instrumentation – Gilmour’s guitar and Parry’s saxophone – was gone, replaced by spooky strings and an ominous piano. Gilmour’s voice was gone, replaced by a gravelly new voice from Waters. And the middle section now contained an apocalyptic spoken word poem.
“The original Dark side of the moon “It feels, in some ways, like an elder being’s lament about the human condition,” Waters said. “But Dave, Rick, Nick and I were so young when we made it, and when you look at the world around us, the message obviously didn’t stick. So I started thinking about what the wisdom of an 80-year-old could bring to a reinterpretation.”
https://www.loudersound.com/music/tracks-singles/pink-floyd-money
