99 Fun Facts About Pink Floyd

Pink Floyd took their name from two American musicians who played which style of music?

Blues: the band's co-founder combined the first names of two Carolina bluesmen, Pink Anderson and Floyd Council.

In which city was Pink Floyd formed in 1965?

London: Waters and Mason lodged with a Highgate tutor who built light machines, and the band even played gigs as Leonard's Lodgers.

Which guitarist did Pink Floyd bring in as a fifth member in December 1967, months before their frontman left?

David Gilmour, a childhood friend of the frontman, was brought in to cover for him on stage, and by early 1968 the frontman was out.

What was Pink Floyd's first single, released in March 1967?

Arnold Layne was based on a real thief who stole women's underwear from the washing lines where the band members' mothers housed student lodgers.

The album title The Piper at the Gates of Dawn comes from a chapter of which children's book?

The Wind in the Willows: in chapter seven, Rat and Mole search for a missing baby otter and find him asleep at the hooves of the god Pan.

Recording their 1967 debut album, Pink Floyd worked down the hall from which band making a landmark album?

The Beatles were making Sgt. Pepper next door, and Pink Floyd were invited in to watch them record 'Lovely Rita'.

After leaving Pink Floyd in 1968, the band's original frontman eventually retreated to which English city?

Cambridge: he moved back in with his mother, painted and gardened for decades, and preferred to be called by his real first name, Roger.

What is on the cover of the band's 1970 album Atom Heart Mother?

A cow in a field: not even the band could say what the album was about, so the designers put a cow on the cover.

The title Atom Heart Mother was taken from a newspaper story about what?

A nuclear-powered pacemaker fitted to a woman made the Evening Standard headline 'Atom Heart Mother Named', just as the band needed a title for a BBC broadcast.

What does the cover of Pink Floyd's 1971 album Meddle show?

An ear underwater: designer Storm Thorgerson had first pitched a close-up of a baboon's backside, but the band overruled him.

The Meddle track "Seamus" features what unusual guest performer?

The howling dog was Seamus, belonging to Humble Pie singer Steve Marriott, and a band member was dog-sitting him during the sessions.

Which Pink Floyd epic is split in two to open and close their 1972 concert film shot in an empty Roman amphitheatre?

Echoes: director Adrian Maben chose the setting after losing his passport in the ruins and going back alone to look for it.

Which EMI staff engineer engineered The Dark Side of the Moon at Abbey Road?

Alan Parsons had heard session singer Clare Torry on a covers album and brought her in to sing on 'The Great Gig in the Sky'.

Which design group created the prism cover of Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon?

Hipgnosis, run by Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey Powell, offered the band several designs, and all four members chose the prism.

Pink Floyd's 'Money' is written mostly in which unusual time signature?

7/4, though some accounts give 7/8; its beat is set by a seven-part loop spliced from recordings of coins, a cash register and tearing paper.

How much was Clare Torry originally paid for her vocal on "The Great Gig in the Sky"?

£30, the standard fee for a Sunday session; Clare Torry sued in 2004, and the song now credits her as co-writer.

Which track opens The Dark Side of the Moon?

Speak to Me is credited to Nick Mason alone; Mason says he made it himself, while Waters has called the credit a gift he later regretted.

Fans claim The Dark Side of the Moon syncs up with which classic film when the two are played together?

The Wizard of Oz: fans call the pairing Dark Side of the Rainbow, but Roger Waters has dismissed the sync as coincidence.

"Shine On You Crazy Diamond" from Wish You Were Here is a tribute to which former bandmate?

Syd Barrett, the band's co-founder, is its subject, and when he turned up at Abbey Road while they were recording it in June 1975, at first nobody recognised him.

Who sang lead vocals on Pink Floyd's 'Have a Cigar'?

Roy Harper, recording his own album at Abbey Road at the time, sang it, and Waters later said he regretted asking him because Harper played it for laughs.

On the Wish You Were Here cover, what is happening to one handshaking businessman?

He is on fire: stuntman Ronnie Rondell Jr. really was set alight, and after 15 takes came away with a singed moustache.

The 1977 album Animals is loosely based on which book?

Animal Farm: Waters cast society as dogs, pigs and sheep, and for the cover the band flew a giant inflatable pig over Battersea Power Station.

The inflatable pig photographed over Battersea Power Station for Animals was nicknamed what?

The pig, nicknamed Algie, broke loose in December 1976, drifted into Heathrow's flight path and came down in a Kent field, alarming a farmer's cows.

An incident at a 1977 concert in which city, when Waters spat at a fan, inspired The Wall?

At Montreal's Olympic Stadium, Waters leaned over and spat at a noisy fan, then was so shocked at himself that he began imagining a wall between band and audience.

The children's chorus on "Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)" came from where?

Islington Green School's pupils got no royalties at the time, but decades later former choir members lodged a claim for the unpaid money.

Which band member was fired during The Wall, then rehired as a salaried player for the tour?

Richard Wright stayed on as a hired hand, and as the tour lost money he was probably the only member who made any from it.

Pink Floyd's The Wall topped the US chart but peaked at number three in which country?

The UK: at home The Wall stalled at number three, even though 'Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)' went to number one.

Who played Pink in the 1982 film Pink Floyd – The Wall?

Bob Geldof, the Boomtown Rats singer, got the part after Waters, originally meant to play Pink himself, was dropped following poor screen tests.

Who created the animation for The Wall film and its marching hammers?

Gerald Scarfe clashed so often with Waters and director Alan Parker that he admitted carrying a bottle of whiskey to fortify himself each morning.

Which war prompted Roger Waters to rewrite Pink Floyd's 1983 album The Final Cut as an anti-war concept album?

The Falklands War: Waters saw Thatcher's response as pointless, and dedicated the album to his father, killed in Italy in 1944.

Suing in 1986 to stop his bandmates using the name, Roger Waters called Pink Floyd a spent force in what sense?

Creatively: Waters said the band was 'a spent force creatively', but in 2013 he told the BBC, 'I was wrong! Of course I was.'

What was the first Pink Floyd album released after the bassist's departure, in September 1987?

A Momentary Lapse of Reason was recorded largely on a Thames houseboat, with hired players, singers and lyricists far outnumbering the two remaining members.

Which author suggested the title of Pink Floyd's 1994 album?

Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, was later invited to play guitar with the band on stage at Earls Court for his birthday.

Whose synthesised voice is sampled on Pink Floyd's 1994 song 'Keep Talking'?

Stephen Hawking's lines came from a BT advert that nearly made the band's guitarist weep, and he asked the ad agency to let the band use them.

The two giant heads on Pink Floyd's 1994 album cover were photographed near which cathedral city?

Ely: the heads were real sculptures, built for the cover and set up outdoors with the cathedral on the horizon.

Which 2005 charity concert reunited Pink Floyd's classic four-man line-up for the first time since 1981?

Live 8: the four played Hyde Park for the first time since a 1981 Earls Court show, and never again, as the keyboardist died in 2008.

Which 1969 Pink Floyd double album paired a live disc with solo studio pieces by each member?

Ummagumma: the band later turned against the album, and one member admitted they had been 'floundering about'.

The 2014 album The Endless River was built from unused sessions for which earlier album?

The Endless River grew out of The Division Bell sessions and was framed as a tribute to the band's late keyboardist.

Pink Floyd's 2022 single 'Hey, Hey, Rise Up!' features the singer of which Ukrainian band?

BoomBox's Andriy Khlyvnyuk had cut short a US tour to take up arms, and the song is built on his Instagram clip singing a Ukrainian song from the First World War.

Which 1990s alt-rock frontman inducted Pink Floyd into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996?

Billy Corgan inducted one of his biggest influences, then joined the band on acoustic guitar for 'Wish You Were Here'.

Roger Waters's 1990 Berlin show of The Wall was staged on vacant land between Potsdamer Platz and which landmark?

The Brandenburg Gate: Leonard Cheshire had asked Waters to stage the show to raise money for charity, eight months after the Berlin Wall fell.

Which Italian town did Pink Floyd's guitarist return to play in 2016, 45 years after the band filmed there?

Pompeii: the band had filmed in its amphitheatre in 1971 with no audience, but in 2016 he played there before a real crowd.

What does Nick Mason's line on Pink Floyd's 'One of These Days' threaten to do?

Cut you into little pieces: it's the track's only vocal, and one bass sounds dull because a roadie sent for new strings went to see his girlfriend instead.

Which orchestral collaborator co-composed the 23-minute Atom Heart Mother suite with the band?

Ron Geesin: EMI's session players gave him such a hard time that choir conductor John Alldis had to take over conducting the recording.

Waters and Mason met in 1962 studying which subject at the Regent Street Polytechnic?

Architecture: they played in a band called Sigma 6 with other students, rehearsing covers in a basement tearoom at the college.

Which university lecturer spotted Pink Floyd at the Marquee Club in 1966 and became their manager?

Peter Jenner saw a fairly standard R&B band, but the weird improvised effects in the middle of their songs won him over.

Before signing with EMI in 1967, Pink Floyd were a house band at which club?

The UFO Club: its co-founder, American producer Joe Boyd, also took the band into the studio to make their early recordings.

In 1975 Pink Floyd built their own recording studio on which street?

Britannia Row: the band recorded parts of The Wall there, and in 2016 the old studio was approved for conversion into flats.

In 2024 Pink Floyd sold their recordings catalogue to which company for about $400 million?

Sony Music: years of feuding between the band's two principal members had stalled a sale before the 2024 deal.

Which comedy team's 1975 film was partly financed by Pink Floyd, who invested alongside Led Zeppelin?

Monty Python could not find a studio to back Holy Grail, so rock acts stepped in, and Pink Floyd put up £21,000 of the budget. The investors treated it as a handy tax write-off.

Which 1969 event did Pink Floyd accompany with a new instrumental during the BBC's television coverage?

The Apollo 11 landing was covered on BBC television with the band playing a tune they called Moonhead. Their space-themed early songs had earned them the invitation.

Which airport cancelled flights in 1976 when Pink Floyd's giant inflatable pig broke free during a photo shoot?

Heathrow pilots spotted the pig in the air after it slipped its moorings; the marksman hired to bring it down had not been booked that day. It finally came down in Kent.

Which singer was a teenager when Pink Floyd's guitarist paid for the demo tape that won her an EMI contract?

Kate Bush was 16 when he financed a professional three-song demo, having been passed her home recordings by a family friend. EMI signed her on the strength of it.

Which punk singer caught Malcolm McLaren's eye wearing a Pink Floyd T-shirt he had defaced with an insult?

Johnny Rotten had scratched out the band members' eyes and scrawled two words of contempt above the logo in felt-tip pen. The look impressed the manager of the Sex Pistols.

Which Italian city's council resigned over the mess left by 200,000 fans at a free Pink Floyd concert in 1989?

Venice hosted the show on a floating platform, televised around the world, despite fears that the sound would damage the city's foundations. Litter and a lack of toilets caused the outcry.

Which objects, each recorded separately in an antiques shop, ring out at the start of Pink Floyd's 'Time'?

Clocks were taped one by one by the album's engineer shortly before the sessions; the band heard the tape while working on the song and asked to use it.

What did Pink Floyd's designers line up by the hundred on a Devon beach for the cover of their 1987 album?

Hospital beds were hauled onto Saunton Sands in July 1987 and arranged like a long river. Some versions of the cover show a nurse at work on one of them.

Which song on Pink Floyd's The Wall grew from a doctor treating Roger Waters for stomach cramps before a 1977 show?

Comfortably Numb recalls a night at the Philadelphia Spectrum, when he was given the injection for stomach cramps shortly before going on stage.

Which country banned Pink Floyd's 'Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)' in 1980 after protesting students adopted it?

South Africa banned both the single and its parent album after supporters of a nationwide classroom boycott against apartheid-era education took up the song.

Pink Floyd's 1977 album Animals sorts society into dogs, pigs and which third creature?

Sheep stand for the mindless herd on the album, ranked beneath predatory dogs and despotic pigs. Each of the three creatures gets a long track of its own.

Which machine is heard ringing in the tape loop of sound effects that opens Pink Floyd's 'Money'?

A cash register rings among clinking coins and tearing paper in a loop that Roger Waters spliced together from separate recordings.

Which carmaker built the 250 GTO that Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason bought with his Dark Side of the Moon earnings?

Ferrari made only 36 of the model, and Mason paid £37,000 for his in 1977. He reckons he has owned about 40 of the marque's cars, and he has raced at Le Mans.

Which guitar hero played lead on The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking, the 1984 solo album by Pink Floyd's Roger Waters?

Eric Clapton also sang backing vocals and played a guitar synthesiser on the record, whose cast includes actor Jack Palance and conductor Michael Kamen.

Pink Floyd refused Stanley Kubrick permission to use their Atom Heart Mother suite in which of his films?

A Clockwork Orange went without the music because Kubrick could not say which passages he wanted or how he would use them. The album's sleeve does appear on screen in the film.

Which guitar, heard on Pink Floyd's 'Money', sold for $3.975 million at a 2019 charity auction?

The Black Strat went to Jim Irsay, owner of the Indianapolis Colts, with the proceeds going to an environmental law charity. It had been bought in a New York shop in 1970.

Fans of which English football team are heard singing their anthem on the Pink Floyd track 'Fearless'?

Liverpool supporters at Anfield were taped singing You'll Never Walk Alone, the Rodgers and Hammerstein show tune, and the recording is laid over the start and end of the track.

Which star's recorded answers were left off Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon for trying too hard to be funny?

Paul McCartney and his wife Linda were both interviewed for the album's spoken passages and cut, yet a guitarist from his band Wings made it onto the finished record.

What is a Pink Floyd roadie heard doing throughout the 13-minute track that closes Atom Heart Mother?

Making breakfast is all he does: he fries bacon and muses about marmalade while the band perform in the background. The track carries his first name in its title.

Which Pink Floyd song, their second single, put the band on Top of the Pops three times in 1967?

See Emily Play reached number 6 on the chart. By the third television appearance the band's frontman was objecting to going on at all.

Pink Floyd recorded their later albums at the Astoria, a studio their guitarist created inside what?

A houseboat built in 1911 for music hall impresario Fred Karno, the Astoria is moored on the Thames at Hampton. It was bought in 1986 and converted into a floating studio.

What unusual feature was built into the spine of early CD copies of Pink Floyd's 1995 concert album Pulse?

A flashing red light, an LED driven by a small flasher chip, blinked on the side of the case. Later editions dropped it, though a reissue brought the blinking back.

Which historic upheaval is the subject of Ça Ira, the opera Pink Floyd's Roger Waters released in 2005?

The French Revolution, in its early years, is the story told by the libretto, written in French by Étienne and Nadine Roda-Gil. Baritone Bryn Terfel sings on the recording.

Which Canadian producer, a veteran of Alice Cooper's albums, co-produced Pink Floyd's The Wall?

Bob Ezrin helped refine the album's concept and kept the peace while the band struggled with personal and money troubles. Alice Cooper likened his role to George Martin's.

Which British director, fresh from Fame and Midnight Express, made the 1982 film Pink Floyd – The Wall?

Alan Parker inherited a project first planned as tour footage with extra scenes, starring Roger Waters himself. He went on to direct The Commitments and Evita.

Which British morality campaigner is mocked by name in Pink Floyd's 'Pigs (Three Different Ones)'?

Mary Whitehouse is the target of the third verse. Roger Waters later had to tell an American radio host that the name had nothing to do with the home of the US president.

Which temporary title did Pink Floyd give The Dark Side of the Moon after finding another band had used that name?

Eclipse was the stand-in name after the group Medicine Head released an album with the planned title. It survives as the name of the record's closing track.

Which saxophonist, a lifelong friend of Pink Floyd's guitarist, played on 'Money' and 'Us and Them'?

Dick Parry came back to perform on the band's 1975 and 1994 albums, and reprised his 'Money' solo when the four-man line-up reunited in 2005.

Under which name were Pink Floyd performing until a rival act with the same name turned up at one of their gigs?

The Tea Set is said to have been renamed on the spur of the moment by the band's singer. Earlier names had included Sigma 6 and the Screaming Abdabs.

Which track opens Pink Floyd's debut album with the voice of one of their managers speaking through a megaphone?

Astronomy Domine begins with him reciting the names of planets, stars and galaxies. Decades later it was chosen to open the band's 2001 best-of collection.

Which Pink Floyd album began as the soundtrack to Barbet Schroeder's film La Vallée, set in New Guinea?

Obscured by Clouds took its own name after the band fell out with the film company, which then added the album's title to the film's. It was recorded in two short breaks from touring.

Which Italian director turned down much of the music Pink Floyd recorded in Rome for his film Zabriskie Point?

Antonioni kept changing his mind for almost a month, and one tune he rejected as too sad was reworked three years later for The Dark Side of the Moon.

Roger Waters of Pink Floyd was five months old when his father was killed in which 1944 battle in Italy?

Anzio made the musician an honorary citizen in 2014, on the day he unveiled a monument at nearby Aprilia to his father and others who died there.

Which playwright wrote Darkside, the 2013 BBC radio drama built around Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon?

Tom Stoppard had first been asked to dramatise the album in 1973 and had no idea how to do it for four decades. His dialogue runs over the record's instrumental passages.

Which label, created by EMI in 1969 to market progressive rock, released Pink Floyd's albums of the early 1970s?

Harvest was EMI's answer to rival imprints at Philips and Decca, and it also released the solo records of the band's departed frontman.

Which 1980s pop star became a singer and guitarist in the band Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason formed in 2018?

Gary Kemp of Spandau Ballet joined a line-up built to perform the group's earliest music. Mason said the choice came down to who had the enthusiasm for it.

Which punk band hired Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason to produce their second album in 1977?

The Damned had wanted the group's reclusive former frontman and could not get him. They expected to record several songs on day one, while Mason was busy tuning the drums.

Pink Floyd's 'Lucifer Sam', from their 1967 debut album, is named after what kind of pet?

A Siamese cat belonging to the song's writer gave the track its name, although some listeners have wondered whether the title was really slang for a man.

Where did Their Mortal Remains, the Pink Floyd exhibition that later toured the world, first open in 2017?

The V&A Museum extended the run by two weeks after high visitor numbers, and the show ended with footage of the band's 2005 reunion.

What represented Pink Floyd at the 1973 press launch of The Dark Side of the Moon, which most of the band boycotted?

Cardboard cut-outs, life-sized, greeted the guests because the surround-sound mix was not finished, and the album was played in stereo over a poor sound system.

What opaque covering hid the artwork of Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here from record-shop browsers in 1975?

Shrink-wrap, dark and opaque, sealed every copy, an idea borrowed from a Roxy Music album sold in tinted cellophane. Hiding the picture made the art itself absent.

Which guitarist, famous for smashing his instruments, inducted Pink Floyd into the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2005?

Pete Townshend of the Who did the honours, nine years after the band had entered the American Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Which Pink Floyd album, their second, holds the only song on which all five members of the band appear?

A Saucerful of Secrets caught the band mid-change: the new guitarist had arrived and the founding singer had not quite gone, so for a few days in January 1968 they were a quintet.

Which Pink Floyd album did Soviet cosmonauts take into orbit aboard Soyuz TM-7 in 1988?

Delicate Sound of Thunder was a new concert recording at the time, and two members of the band travelled to watch the rocket launch.

Which novelist, who married Pink Floyd's guitarist in 1994, co-wrote seven songs on the band's album that year?

Polly Samson did not want the credit at first, saying the idea of her name being attached to the band was like a nightmare. Her husband insisted, and she later agreed he was right.

Which EMI producer of Pink Floyd's first albums later scored pop hits of his own under the nickname Hurricane?

Norman Smith produced the band's first, second and fourth albums, then reached number two in Britain in 1971 as a singer.

Which lead guitarist quit Pink Floyd's earliest line-up in 1965 to focus on his studies and his love of jazz?

Bob Klose left before the group had its famous name, though two songs he recorded with them finally came out in 2015.

Which violinist recording next door played on Pink Floyd's 'Wish You Were Here', only to be mixed almost to silence?

Stéphane Grappelli was paid £300 for a part so quiet that the band thought a credit would be insulting. His friend Yehudi Menuhin, in the same studio, declined to join in.

Which clean-cut American singer's TV show saw Pink Floyd's frontman answer questions with a mute stare in 1967?

Pat Boone got only a blank look, and the singer then kept his lips closed when the band came to mime their new single, Apples and Oranges.

Which choreographer launched his Ballet National de Marseille in 1972 with a work created with Pink Floyd?

Roland Petit called the work Pink Floyd Ballet and went on to direct the Marseille company for 26 years.