[8][9] The song, written and composed by the original vocalist/guitarist Syd Barrett, is the opening track on their debut album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (1967).
The song was seen as Pink Floyd's first foray into space rock[1] (along with "Interstellar Overdrive"), although band members later disparaged this term.
[citation needed] The song opens with the voice of one of their managers at the time, Peter Jenner, reading the names of planets, stars and galaxies through a megaphone.
In the live version heard on Ummagumma (1969), the post-Barrett band, with David Gilmour on guitar, normalised the introduction into straight E and E♭ major chords, also normalising the timing of the introduction,[11] but, in 1994, Gilmour began performing a version closer to the original (as heard on Pulse) that he carried into his solo career.
The track is the band's only overt "space rock" song, though a group-composed, abstract instrumental was titled "Interstellar Overdrive".
[12] Waters, in an interview with Nick Sedgewick, described "Astronomy Dominé" as "the sum total" of Barrett's writing about space, "yet there's this whole fucking mystique about how he was the father of it all".
Gilmour played the song at some of his appearances during his solo 2006 tour, again sharing the lead vocal with fellow Floyd member Wright.
This was the only song on the 1994 tour with Gilmour, Mason and Wright performing without backing musicians, with only Guy Pratt adding bass guitar and vocals.
The song was also played by Gilmour and his solo band (which included Wright with Pratt on bass guitar and Steve DiStanislao on drums) at the Abbey Road Studios sessions, which has been released as part of a CD/DVD On an Island package.