On this date in 1972 Pink Floyd began recording Dark Side Of The Moon. Here are 10 things you might not know:
The first song to be recorded on this date was Us and Them.
The concept of the album is mental health and the fragility of life. The title, Dark Side of the Moon, is nothing to do with outer space but rather the archaic idea that one's mental state fluctuated around the phases of the Moon.
Pink Floyd almost had to abandon that title, however, because another band, Medicine Head, released an album with the same title in spring 1972. Pink Floyd had to scrabble around looking for an alternative title, and came up with Eclipse. However, the Medicine Head album bombed and didn't make the UK Top 40, which meant Pink Floyd could use the title after all.
The cover art is by graphic artist George Hardie. His brief was to come up with a "simple and bold" design. He went with a beam of white Light shining through a prism and splitting into the colours of the spectrum. Well. Almost. Six out of seven, anyway. The colour indigo does not appear in the artwork.
Before coming up with the final cover art, Hardie considered using an image of the Marvel Comic character the Silver Surfer.
The band tried out the album, in its entirety, on live audiences more than a year before the album was released. The first performance was at Brighton Dome on 20 January 1972, although what Roger Waters called a “severe mechanical and electric horror” prevented them from performing the whole thing that night, they played it on the other dates of that tour.
The album was recorded at Abbey Road studios. Roger Waters decided to record interviews with people working at the studio at the time, asking them everything from their favourite colour to their feelings about mental illness and death, an incorporate some of the replies into the recording. The line “There is no dark side of the moon, really. Matter of fact, it’s all dark. The only thing that makes it look light is the Sun” came from doorman Gerry O’Driscoll. Waters interviewed Paul McCartney as well, but didn’t use any of his replies as McCartney “found it necessary to perform, which was useless, of course. He was trying to be funny, which wasn’t what we wanted at all.” However, The Beatles did find their way onto some versions of the album. The song Ticket to Ride was being played as O’Driscoll delivered his classic line, which appears at the end of the track Eclipse.
Dark Side of the Moon is the fourth best selling album of all time, after Michael Jackson’s Thriller, AC/DC’s Back in Black and the soundtrack of The Bodyguard featuring Whitney Houston. It has spent over 900 weeks on the American charts and is certified 14× platinum in the United Kingdom.
While recording the album, the band would take breaks to watch the TV show Monty Python’s Flying Circus. They were such big fans of the show that when they heard the Monty Python team were having difficulty raising the funds to make a film, they stumped up 10% of the movie’s budget from the proceeds of Dark Side of the Moon. So they were at least partly responsible for Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
While on the subject of films, it’s commonly said that the album can be played alongside Wizard of Oz, starting the record at the moment the MGM lion roars for the third time, the music synchronises with the action on screen. For example, The Great Gig In The Sky coincides with the tornado which carries Dorothy to Oz, and the final heartbeats on the album play just as the Tin Man reveals he doesn't have a Heart. This idea was first put forward by Charles Savage in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette in 1995. The pairing is sometimes referred to as The Dark Side of the Rainbow, the Dark Side of Oz or The Wizard of Floyd. However, the band deny that there was ever any connection. Alan Parsons said: "a complete load of eyewash ... If you play any record with the sound turned down on the TV, you will find things that work." As far as he was concerned it’s merely apophenia the tendency to perceive connections between unrelated things. Drummer Nick Mason commented, “It’s absolute nonsense. It has nothing to do with The Wizard Of Oz. It was all based on The Sound Of Music.”
Beta
(Combat Team Series #2)
Steff was abducted by an evil alien race, the Orbs, at fourteen. Used as a weapon for years, he eventually escapes, but his problems are just beginning. How does a man support himself when his only work experience is a paper round and using an Orb bio-integrated gun?
Warlord is an alien soldier who knows little but war. When the centuries-old conflict which ravaged his planet ends, he seeks out another world where his skills are still relevant. There are always wars on Earth, it seems. However, none of Earth's powerful armies want him.
Natalie has always wanted to visit England and sees a chance to do so while using her martial arts skills, but there are sacrifices she must make in order to fulfil her dream.
Maggie resorted to crime to fund her sister's medical care. She uses her genetic variant abilities to gain access to the rooms of wealthy hotel guests. The Ballards look like rich pickings, but they are not what they seem. When Maggie targets them, little does she know that she is walking into a trap.
Hotel owner Hamilton Lonsdale puts together a combat team to pit against those of other multi-millionaires. He recruits Warlord, Natalie, Maggie and Steff along with a trained gorilla, a probability-altering alien, a stockbroker whose work of art proved to be much more than he'd bargained for, a marketing officer who can create psionic forcefields, a teleporting member of the landed gentry, and a socially awkward fixer. This is Combat Team Beta.
Steff never talks about his time with the Orbs, until he finds a woman who lived through it, too. Steff believes he has finally found happiness, but it is destined to be short-lived. He is left with an unusual legacy which he and Team Beta struggle to comprehend; including why something out there seems determined to destroy it.
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