The Great Gig in the Sky

"The Great Gig in the Sky" is the fifth track[nb 1] on The Dark Side of the Moon, a 1973 album by English rock band Pink Floyd.

[nb 2] The Great Gig in the Sky was released as a digital single on February 10, 2023, to promote The Dark Side of the Moon 50th Anniversary box set.

During the first half of 1972, it was performed live as a simple organ instrumental, accompanied by spoken-word extracts from the Bible and snippets of speeches by Malcolm Muggeridge, a British writer known for his conservative religious views.

[5] The band began casting around for a singer, and studio engineer Alan Parsons suggested Clare Torry, a 25-year-old songwriter and session vocalist he had worked with on a Top of The Pops covers album.

The responses of doorman Gerry O'Driscoll and the wife of their road manager Peter Watts were used, as well as other spoken parts throughout the album ("I've always been mad", "That geezer was cruisin' for a bruisin").

(At 3:33, faintly) I never said I was frightened of dying.In a 1973 review of The Dark Side of the Moon, Loyd Grossman of Rolling Stone described "The Great Gig in the Sky" as a track [Pink Floyd] could have "shortened or dispensed with".

[14] In 2004, Clare Torry sued Pink Floyd and EMI for songwriting royalties, on the basis that her contribution to "The Great Gig in the Sky" constituted co-authorship with Richard Wright.

[2] An early incarnation of the song, titled "The Mortality Sequence" and lacking the vocals later contributed by Clare Torry, was performed by Pink Floyd during the 1972 shows of their Dark Side of the Moon Tour.

On the Delicate Sound of Thunder video, with footage from June and August 1988, the vocals are shared by Rachel Fury, Durga McBroom and Margret Taylor.

When the Floyd's manager, Steve O'Rourke, died in 2003, Gilmour, Wright, and Mason played "Fat Old Sun" and "The Great Gig in the Sky" at his funeral.

"The Great Gig in the Sky" made a return in his Us + Them Tour (2017–18), performed by lead vocalists of American band Lucius Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig.

The song was occasionally performed in the final legs of his Rattle That Lock Tour, most notably in the Amphitheatre of Pompeii on 7 and 8 July 2016, with Lucita Jules, Louise Clare Marshall and Bryan Chambers sharing the vocals.

The band was not involved in this version, but Clare Torry again did the vocal with Rick Wright on keyboards, Neil Conti on drums and Lati Kronlund on bass.