The Dark Side of the Moon Trivia
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This Dark Side of the Moon trivia quiz has 77 free questions with answers about the Pink Floyd album that stayed on the Billboard 200 for the better part of two decades. The easy end covers what any fan knows: the year it came out, the prism on the sleeve, the singer who wailed through The Great Gig in the Sky, the film people sync it with and the single that gave the band its first American hit. From there it goes into how the record was actually made: the garden shed where the demos were cut, the coins thrown into a pottery-studio mixing bowl, the clocks recorded in an antique shop, the synthesiser that runs On the Run, the flashcard interviews with roadies and a doorman, the Beatle whose answers were cut, the press launch the band boycotted, the working titles that came and went, and the arguments over the mix. The expert questions reach into chart statistics, tribute albums, a Mars rover, an Olympic opening ceremony and a flight announcement to Lagos. Every answer was checked against the album's Wikipedia article and the articles for its individual tracks, and each question shows its citation once you have answered.
30 of 77 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which US institution's registry preserves The Dark Side of the Moon?
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress added the album to its National Recording Registry four decades after its release in March 1973, which came more than a year after the band began playing the suite live.
Q 02The Dark Side of the Moon's prism sleeve came from which design studio, also behind the band's cow and ear covers?
Hipgnosis
Hipgnosis, the studio of Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey Powell, presented the band several designs; all four members chose the prism, which George Hardie drew.
Q 03Which Pink Floyd member sings the lead vocal on 'Money', the band's first US hit?
David Gilmour
David Gilmour sings 'Money', which its bassist wrote; he double-tracked the vocal and scats along with his guitar in the outro, and the single reached number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Q 04Most of 'Money' is written in which unusual time signature?
7/4
'Money' is mostly in 7/4, an unusual meter for a rock hit; the band shifts to a straight 4/4 for the guitar solo before returning to 7/4 at the end.
Q 05Which saxophonist, an old friend of David Gilmour, was booked to play on The Dark Side of the Moon?
Dick Parry
Dick Parry, a Cambridge friend of the band's guitarist, played the saxophone solos on 'Money' and returned to play on Wish You Were Here.
Q 06Which session singer improvised the wordless vocal on 'The Great Gig in the Sky'?
Clare Torry
Clare Torry, a session singer suggested by the engineer, recorded her wordless improvisation in a few takes on a Sunday and left believing the band disliked it.
Q 07How much was the 'Great Gig in the Sky' vocalist paid for her session in 1973?
£30
The singer was paid £30, the flat Sunday session fee, and only learned she was on the record when she saw her name in the credits in a shop.
Q 08After a 2004 lawsuit, 'The Great Gig in the Sky' is credited jointly to the vocalist and which band member?
Richard Wright
Richard Wright wrote the chord sequence on piano; after the vocalist's suit was settled, later pressings credit 'The Great Gig in the Sky' to Wright and the singer jointly.
Q 09Which EMI staff engineer recorded The Dark Side of the Moon at Abbey Road Studios?
Alan Parsons
Alan Parsons, then an EMI staff engineer at Abbey Road, turned down the chance to work on the band's next album and launched the Alan Parsons Project instead.
Q 10On which earlier Pink Floyd album had The Dark Side of the Moon's engineer worked as an assistant?
Atom Heart Mother
Atom Heart Mother, released in 1970, was the engineer's first job with the band, as a junior on the Abbey Road staff; by 1972 EMI had put him in charge of these sessions.
Q 11Which 1995 Pink Floyd live album includes a complete concert performance of The Dark Side of the Moon?
Pulse
Pulse captures the band's 1994 tour for The Division Bell, when they revived the whole album on stage some two decades after first touring it.
Q 12By 2013 The Dark Side of the Moon had sold roughly how many copies worldwide?
45 million
45 million was the estimate at the album's 40th anniversary in 2013, a scale that surprised the band: they thought it their best work yet but had no idea it would grow so big.
Q 13Who received a rare solo writing credit for the opening sound collage 'Speak to Me'?
Nick Mason
Nick Mason is credited alone for 'Speak to Me'; he says he assembled the collage himself, while two bandmates later called the credit a gift of publishing income.
Q 21Which drums dominate the two-minute passage after the clocks in 'Time'?
Rototoms
Rototoms, shell-less drums tuned by turning the head, carry the passage, and the tick-tock beneath them is no clock: it is the bassist picking muted strings.
Q 22'Time' ends with a one-minute reprise of which earlier track?
Breathe
Breathe returns for about a minute at the end of 'Time'; the lyricist said the two songs make the same plea, to be here now and make the most of it.
Q 23Which two members share the lead vocal on 'Time'?
Gilmour and Wright
Gilmour and Wright split the vocal, Gilmour on the verses and Wright on the gentler bridges; the lyricist wrote the words after realising, at about 28, that he was no longer preparing for life but in the middle of it.
Q 14Which track grew out of 'The Violent Sequence', a piano piece written for the film Zabriskie Point?
Us and Them
'Us and Them' began as a piano piece written in 1969 for Zabriskie Point; the director passed on it, and it returned here with new lyrics about war as the album's longest track.
Q 15In Roger Waters's telling, Antonioni rejected 'The Violent Sequence' as too sad because it reminded him of what?
Church
Church is what it made Antonioni think of, as Waters tells it: beautiful but too sad. The piece then sat unused for about three years until this album revived it.
Q 16Under what working title was 'The Great Gig in the Sky' performed live in early 1972?
The Mortality Sequence
'The Mortality Sequence' was the early organ instrumental with spoken-word tape over it; by the album sessions it had become a piano piece topped by a wordless vocal.
Q 17The racing sequence of 'On the Run' was built by entering eight notes into which instrument?
EMS Synthi AKS
The EMS Synthi AKS, a British suitcase synth with a built-in sequencer, played the eight-note loop sped up; even the hi-hat-like tick came from the synth.
Q 18Which guitar-and-keyboard jam filled the 'On the Run' slot in the band's early 1972 shows?
The Travel Sequence
'The Travel Sequence' was a guitar-led jam the band played all through 1972; in the studio they scrapped it for a throbbing electronic pattern.
Q 19The designers of The Dark Side of the Moon sleeve also considered a cover featuring which Marvel Comics hero?
The Silver Surfer
The Silver Surfer was among the designers' ideas: they liked the image of a silver man on a silver surfboard crossing the universe, but say they would never have got permission to use him.
Q 20Where did the album's engineer record the ticking and chiming heard at the start of 'Time'?
An antique clock shop
An antique clock shop supplied the sounds: the engineer had taped each clock there one at a time for a quadraphonic demonstration, and the band liked the result enough to open 'Time' with it.
Q 24Which track on the album was itself first titled 'The Dark Side of the Moon'?
Brain Damage
Brain Damage carried the name first: begun around the Meddle sessions, it lent its title to the whole album, and its chorus still ends 'I'll see you on the dark side of the moon'.
Q 25The Dark Side of the Moon's themes of madness were inspired in part by the decline of which musician?
Syd Barrett
Syd Barrett, the band's original frontman, left in 1968 as his mental health collapsed; he famously turned up unrecognised at the 1975 Wish You Were Here sessions.
Q 26Who sings lead vocal on 'Brain Damage'?
Roger Waters
Roger Waters sings lead on 'Brain Damage', which he wrote and went on singing on his solo tours; when the band toured without him in 1994, the guitarist took the vocal.
Q 27What was the job of Gerry O'Driscoll, whose spoken answers about dying and the moon appear on the album?
Doorman
Doorman at Abbey Road Studios, Gerry O'Driscoll supplied the closing words 'There is no dark side of the moon really'; his next thought, that only the sun makes it look alight, was left off.
Q 28Which famous couple's answers to Roger Waters's flashcard questions were cut for 'trying too hard to be funny'?
Paul and Linda McCartney
Paul and Linda McCartney, recording Wings' Red Rose Speedway at Abbey Road at the time, were interviewed but cut; the band felt their answers were performances rather than candid replies.
Q 29Before their 1972 tour, Pink Floyd wrote and rehearsed the new suite in a London warehouse owned by which group?
The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones owned the Bermondsey warehouse where the band wrote while rehearsing after Christmas 1971; within weeks the still unfinished suite was being played to paying audiences.
Q 30Pink Floyd's road manager, whose manic laugh is heard on Dark Side, was the father of which Hollywood actress?
Naomi Watts
Naomi Watts is the daughter of Peter Watts, the road manager whose laugh runs through the album; he died in 1976, when she was seven, and the family later left Britain for Australia.