[3][4] It features heavily processed vocals, layers of synthesizers, acoustic guitars as well as a wide range of tape effects.

The track was built upon a basic throbbing sound made by an EMS VCS 3 followed by a one-repeat echo which Waters would have played originally on bass guitar.

On the original LP, the song segued from the first 5 parts of the suite "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" and closed the first side.

Although the introduction of the song (when the acoustic guitar enters) does not actually change time signatures, it does sustain each chord for three measures, rather than two or four, resulting in a nine-bar intro where an even number of bars might be expected.

[6] The music video was animated by Gerald Scarfe which was initially a backdrop film for when the band played the track on their 1977 In the Flesh tour.

The fanciful video begins with what appears to be a giant mechanical Horned Toad crawling across a rocky terrain.

A cylinder disturbingly cracks and oozes blood while a cuboid unfolds itself and the scene goes into girders laden with decayed corpses and rats (with one of them looking emaciated).

A view of a barren landscape with a tower that extends from the horizon that morphs into a screaming unnatural form, which then stops to pant for a few seconds before viciously decapitating an unsuspecting man in the foreground.

Despite being pulled at by the bloody masses, the monolith survives and synchronizing with the synthesized sound at the end of the track, it flies upwards high above the clouds into space where it fits securely into a hole in a massive floating ovoid object.

As a result, the band had to wear headphones and listen to a click-track which, in turn, meant that there was very little room left for improvisation.