Who is singing on the Pink Floyd song ‘Great Gig in the Sky’?
The prog tag has never felt quite right for 1970s behemoths Pink Floyd. Progressive, yes, but their jazzy space rock centred on mood and emotional affect over fantasy lyricism, scored by an understated mastery of soaring guitar solos and textured synths. None of this shared any creative proximity to the likes of Yes or Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s tedious technical showboating.
No pointy wizard hats or ballet on ice for Pink Floyd, frontman and principal songwriter Roger Waters was busy plumbing the darker depths of the human condition, poetically examining madness and alienation to mete out biting social critique that only grew more timely with punk’s insurrection bringing the whole prog parody crashing down.
Following original creative captain Syd Barrett’s official departure after 1968’s A Saucerful of Secrets, the band stumbled across a string of average LPs that hinted at greatness amid mushy compositions and unfocused conceptual ideas. With momentum picking up on 1971’s Meddle, it took The Dark Side of the Moon two years later to truly spell the beginning of their golden album run for the rest of the decade.
Over 50 years later, the album is still heady, deep, moving, and sincerely transportive. Armed with a thematic laser-focus, Pink Floyd’s cerebral study of existential terror is scored by unforgettable moments, from David Gilmour’s electrifying fretwork on ‘Time’, ‘On the Run’s’ hypnotic EMS Synthi AKS sequencers, and the eerie opening/closing 9/8 thumping heartbeat motif—all exquisite sonic landmarks and chapters across the album’s cosmic terrain. One of the record’s most defining songs, however, boasts an astonishing session vocalist whose name is often little-known even by longtime fans.
So, who is singing on ‘The Great Gig in the Sky’?
What became known as ‘The Great Gig in the Sky’ began as a chord progression sketch from keyboardist Richard Wright, provisionally dubbed ‘The Mortality Sequence’ or ‘The Religion Song’. Early in 1972, the work in progress was played as a simpler organ piece peppered with extracts from the Bible and speeches from the conservative journalist Malcolm Muggeridge.
Toward the end of The Dark Side of the Moon sessions, Pink Floyd sought to include the instrumental on the record and wanted a powerhouse female voice to howl on top. Remembering the vocal work Clare Torry had cut at EMI Studios for a series of covers albums, engineer Alan Parsons arranged for a booking on January 21st, 1973. “There was a bit of direction given: they said, ‘Sorry, we’ve got no words, no melody line, just a chord sequence—just see what you can do with it’,” he recalled on 1995’s Making Music. “She was only there for a couple of hours. As I remember, she did two or three tracks, from which we assembled the best bits for a master version.”
Paid a flat £30 fee and presuming she wouldn’t make the final cut, Torry only realised her vocals had made it when she saw the credits on The Dark Side of the Moon‘s liner notes in a record store. Legal action would hit Pink Floyd in 2004 for songwriting royalties, resulting in an out-of-court settlement and all future composition credits shared by Wright and Torry.
Torry’s creative relationship with Pink Floyd wouldn’t end there. In November 1973, she performed ‘The Great Gig in the Sky’ at London’s Rainbow Theatre with the band and returned for their 1990 Knebworth show. Waters recruited Torry for several of his solo concerts, plus the When the Wind Blows soundtrack and Radio KAOS LP, and she was also lead vocals on The Alan Parsons Project’s ‘Eye’ in 1979.
