(Credits: Far Out / Album Cover / Apple Music)
Sat 15 November 2025 5:00, UK
Despite being one of the loftiest and most ambitious artistic ideas of all time, everything about Pink Floyd‘s The Dark Side Of The Moon makes sense.
The title alone is one of the most evocative in all music, alluding to this idea of uncharted territory, which, once the songs entered the fray, proved to be true. Then the simple yet iconic album artwork so clearly spoke to this idea that Pink Floyd’s music would take the otherwise monochromatic and splash it with psychedelic colour. All three of these artistic elements combine to make one coherent masterpiece.
But while the precision of the overall idea makes it feel as though it has fallen from the sky and landed in Gilmour’s lap, the truth is, the band had to carve it out of the stone. The name obviously derived from the line that sits on the record’s penultimate track ‘Brain Damage’: “I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon!” Roger Waters sings, in a song loosely referencing their former bandmate Syd Barrett. But the wider context of that line wasn’t immediately apparent to the band.
“Of course, understanding that the Dark Side of the Moon was not yet the title of the album as far as anyone was concerned,” David Gilmour explained. But then, Roger Waters decided he wanted to splice different real-life voices on the album. Voices of the general public, answering existential questions that would give the album’s interlude a more profound edge.
Gilmour explained, “We wrote a series of questions on cards and put them on a music stand, one question on each card, and got people into the studio and told them to read the first question and answer it. Then they could remove that card and see the next question and answer that, but they couldn’t look through the cards, so they didn’t really know what the thread of the questions was going to be until they got into it. We interviewed quite a few people that way, mostly roadies and roadies’ girlfriends, and Gerry the Irish doorman at Abbey Road.”
It was Gerry who gave the band a multitude of artistic riches on the record. It’s his voice that can be heard at the very beginning of the epic track ‘The Great Gig In The Sky’, talking about not being afraid of death, and being at peace with the idea. It was a perfect monologue for the perfect track. But his contribution didn’t end there.
Gilmour continued, “So they were actually asking people, ‘What does the other side of the moon mean?’ And Gerry the Irish doorman said, ‘There is no da’k side o’ de moon really, it’s all da’k.’ And stuff like that, when you put it into a context on the record, suddenly developed its own much more powerful meaning.”
Gerry’s voice accidentally became a part of the album in such an integral way. The open-hearted innocence of his outlook on the world can be heard on ‘The Great Gig In The Sky’, and his overall take on darkness may have slotted the last jigsaw piece in place. With his perspective on the title, he finished this mammoth painting that became one of the greatest works of existential art.
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