Деньги: История песни Pink Floyd

Song by Pink Floyd

"Money" is a song by English rock band Pink Floyd from their 1973 album The Dark Side of the Moon. Written by Roger Waters, it opened side two of the original album. Released as a single, it became the band's first hit in the United States, reaching number 10 in Cash Box magazine and number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100. Distinctive elements of the song include its unusual time signature, and the tape loop of money related sound effects (such as a ringing cash register and a jingle of coins). These effects are timed right on the beats, and act as a count in at the beginning to set the tempo and are heard periodically throughout the song. The song was regularly performed by Pink Floyd and played on most tours since 1972, and has since been performed by David Gilmour and Waters on their respective solo tours. Gilmour re recorded the song in 1981, while Waters released a re recording of the song in 2023.

"Money" has been described as a progressive rock, blues rock, and hard rock song. Much of the song has an unusual time signature, Waters wrote the central riff on an acoustic guitar, and chose the time signature as it fitted the "bluesy feel" of the song. The form and chord progression are based on the standard twelve bar blues in the key of B minor, with the vocal melody and nearly all of Gilmour's soloing based on the pentatonic and blues scales. Two twelve bar verses are followed by a twenty bar instrumental section that features a blues style tenor saxophone solo played by Dick Parry, along with keyboard, bass and drums and a further two bar intro in leading to the guitar solo, which is structured like a twelve bar blues, but doubled to a twenty four bar length. Waters wrote the lyrics to demonstrate irony and criticising the power of money and the capitalism system generally. "Money interested me enormously," Waters remarked on the twentieth anniversary of Dark Side. "I remember thinking, 'Well, this is it and I have to decide whether I'm really a socialist or not.' I'm still keen on a general welfare society, but I became a capitalist. You have to accept it. I remember coveting a Bentley like crazy. The only way to get something like that was through rock or the football pools. I very much wanted all that material stuff." In another interview, he said he was "sure that the free market isn't the whole answer my hope is that mankind will evolve into a more co operative and less competitive beast.

"Money" begins with the rhythmic sequence of sound effects that is heard throughout the first several bars. This was created by splicing together recordings Waters had made of clinking coins, a ringing cash register, tearing paper, a clicking counting machine and other items to construct a seven beat effects loop. As recorded by the band, the song has a "bluesy, transatlantic feel", unlike Waters' original demo version, which he later described as "prissy and very English". As heard on Classic Albums: Pink Floyd – The Making of The Dark Side of the Moon, the demo is in the key of G sharp minor, as opposed to the B minor of the final version. Dick Parry added his saxophone solo on 27 October. The group didn't know many other musicians and asked Parry as he was an old friend of Gilmour. Gilmour sang the lead vocal, which was also double tracked, including scat singing in response to some improvised guitar lines during the outro. Various voices can be heard talking as the track fades out into the next song, "Us and Them". Roger Waters asked people who were present in the studio at the time random questions, and recorded their responses to add to the song. Paul McCartney, who happened to be in the studio at the time of the recording, was questioned as well but his answer never made the final cut. However, Wings' guitarist Henry McCullough did contribute the line "I don't know, I was really drunk at the time". Other lines included roadie Peter Watts's wife Patricia: "I was definitely in the right. That geezer was cruising for a bruising" and roadie Chris Adamson: "So after, I was yelling and screaming and telling him why it wasn't coming up on fader eleven. It came to a heavy blow, which sorted the matter out."

The single was released in the US on 7 May 1973 in a shorter version, with most of the saxophone and guitar solos edited out. A special promotional single was released for radio stations containing a stereo and mono mix on, with the word "bullshit" intended to be censored. However, the stereo mix accidentally contained the uncensored version, so a new pressing had to be issued. "Money" was Pink Floyd's first major hit in the US, reaching a peak of No. 13 in the Billboard Hot 100. It also topped the charts in France and was a top ten hit in Austria.

The song was re recorded for the 1981 Pink Floyd album, A Collection of Great Dance Songs, because Capitol Records refused to licence the track to Columbia Records in the United States. With the help of co producer James Guthrie, David Gilmour re recorded the song, providing the vocals and playing all the instruments except saxophone, where Parry reprised his role. This recording was released as a single. The quadraphonic version was also released on the LP Quadrafile, a demonstration record released in 1976. This release was intended to allow the listener to compare the same material as heard in 4 different quadraphonic encoding formats: SQ, QS Regular Matrix, CD 4 and UD 4. Atom Heart Mother, The Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here were also released in the SQ format.

"Money" has been regularly performed by Pink Floyd throughout their career. The first performance was at The Dome, Brighton on 20 January 1972 as part of the "Dark Side of the Moon" suite, but this was abandoned after a few bars due to problems with the taped sound effects. After a delay, the group decided to play "Atom Heart Mother" instead. The first complete performance was the following day at the Guildhall, Portsmouth. It was performed regularly along with the rest of "Dark Side of the Moon" up until the concert at Knebworth Park on 5 July 1975. It was then performed as an encore on the 1977 "In The Flesh" tour. These later performances would typically last as long as twelve minutes, with the song's solo being elongated with multiple additional sections. Pink Floyd performed the song during the tours supporting A Momentary Lapse of Reason, and The Division Bell, after Waters had left the group. Gilmour played the song regularly during his 1984 US tour in support of the solo album About Face and the song would be expanded up to 12 minutes. He also played the song regularly during his Rattle That Lock Tour in 2015 and 2016 and again was expanded. Waters has also regularly included it on his solo tours, including those for The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking and Radio K. A. O. S. For the American part of his In the Flesh tour, it was sung by Doyle Bramhall II, while for the European part it was sung by Chester Kamen. For The Dark Side of the Moon Live, it was sung by Dave Kilminster. "Money" was also performed by Waters at Live Earth's Concert at Giants Stadium on 7 July 2007. "Money" was performed during Pink Floyd's reunion show, for which Waters rejoined the band (after more than two decades), at the Live 8 concert in London in 2005, along with "Breathe" (including the reprise that follows "Time"), "Wish You Were Here" and "Comfortably Numb". Unusually for a live Pink Floyd performance, at Live 8 the band kept the song's solo to three choruses, as it is on the album.

"Money" is the only song from The Dark Side of the Moon to make its appearance on the Billboard Top 100 list of 1973, where it was ranked 92. The song was also ranked No. 69 on the list of "The 100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time" of Rolling Stone. This song avoids more typical Pink Floyd themes such as paranoia, insanity, the meaning of life, and the passage of time. Instead, the lyrics criticise crass materialism. The commercial success of "Money" as a single changed Pink Floyd's career, moving them from a cult band to major stars. This caused problems at gigs, as audiences wanted to hear the song and not lengthy instrumental passages that had been a key part of concerts to that point.

The music video for "Money" features scenes of various ways of making and spending money, and includes brief close ups of a coin spinning, coins flowing in a mint, gold ingots in a bank, and a record copy of The Dark Side of the Moon on a turntable. In addition, the video also includes shots of the album making its way down a conveyor belt in a factory/distribution plant. It also has shots of people living in apparent poverty, as well as shots of gramophone records and audio equipment being destroyed by explosives during the song's bridge.

In early 2023, Waters announced that for the 50th anniversary of The Dark Side of the Moon, he would be doing a full re recording of the record without the rest of Pink Floyd that would re address the political and emotional statements on that record. The record's name, cover, and lead single, the re recording of "Money" was released on 21 July 2023. The track also had a lyric video released alongside it. Unlike the original track, the new version of "Money" has been described as being "eerie" and having ominous, near whispering and crooning vocals from Waters. Furthermore, it is also notably slower than the original and features a spoken word segment in the middle, which "only adds to the surrealism". The track overall has also been described as being more bluesy than rock and drawn comparisons to Leonard Cohen.