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This Pink Floyd trivia quiz runs from the UFO Club to Live 8 and beyond in 49 free questions with answers: the two bluesmen behind the name, Syd Barrett's brief brilliant reign and his ghostly studio visit in 1975, the cow, the prism and the pig, Clare Torry's £30 vocal, the cash-register loops in Money, the Battersea pig that closed Heathrow, the Montreal spitting incident that became The Wall, Wright's firing, Waters' walkout and the court fight over the name, the Division Bell heads outside Ely, Stephen Hawking's cameo, the Hyde Park reunion and the 2022 song for Ukraine. About a third of the questions are ones any fan can answer; the rest are for people who know their Ummagumma from their Obscured by Clouds. It works for a music-round at quiz night, a listening party, or a solo test with headphones on. Every answer has been checked against a reference source, and each question shows its explanation and citation once you have answered.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Pink Floyd took their name from two musicians in which genre?
Piedmont blues
Pink Anderson and Floyd Council were both Piedmont blues players from the Carolinas; the band's founder combined their first names after spotting them in his record collection.
Q 02In which city was Pink Floyd formed in 1965?
London
Pink Floyd formed in London in 1965, growing out of student bands at the Regent Street Polytechnic, although several members had grown up in Cambridge.
Q 03Which of these was NOT one of the four founding members of Pink Floyd?
David Gilmour
Gilmour joined at the end of 1967, initially as a fifth member to cover for the increasingly erratic Barrett.
Q 04What was Pink Floyd's first single, released in March 1967?
Arnold Layne
Arnold Layne, released in March 1967, tells of a man who steals women's clothes from washing lines; one pirate radio station refused to play it, yet it reached number 20 in the UK.
Q 05The album title The Piper at the Gates of Dawn comes from a chapter of which children's book?
The Wind in the Willows
The Piper at the Gates of Dawn is chapter seven of Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows, in which Rat and Mole encounter the god Pan.
Q 06Recording their 1967 debut at Abbey Road, Pink Floyd worked down the hall from which band making a landmark album?
The Beatles
Sgt. Pepper was being finished at the same time; producer Norman Smith had been the Beatles' engineer.
Q 07In which month and year did the band announce the departure of their original frontman?
April 1968
Syd Barrett's mental health had collapsed amid heavy LSD use; he made two solo albums in 1970 and then retreated to Cambridge to paint and garden.
Q 08What is on the cover of the band's 1970 album Atom Heart Mother?
A cow in a field
The cover shows a cow in a field, a Holstein-Friesian named Lulubelle III, with no text at all; the album was the band's first UK number one.
Q 09The title Atom Heart Mother was taken from a newspaper story about what?
A woman with a nuclear-powered pacemaker
The title came from an Evening Standard story about a woman with a nuclear-powered pacemaker, headlined 'Atom Heart Mother Named'; the band needed a name in a hurry for a BBC radio session.
Q 10"Echoes", the 23-minute track that fills side two of Meddle, is on an album whose cover shows what?
An ear underwater
Meddle's cover is a close-up of an ear underwater, rippled by sound waves; designer Storm Thorgerson later said the album was far better than his sleeve.
Q 11The Meddle track "Seamus" features what unusual guest performer?
A howling dog
The dog belonged to Steve Marriott and Gilmour was dog-sitting; "Fearless" on the same album ends with Liverpool fans singing.
Q 12The 1972 concert film shot in a Roman amphitheatre shows the band playing in front of how many people?
None
Audience: none. The film was shot in October 1971 in an empty Roman amphitheatre with only the crew present; director Adrian Maben had the idea after losing his passport in the ruins.
Q 13Which EMI staff engineer engineered The Dark Side of the Moon at Abbey Road?
Alan Parsons
Q 21On the Wish You Were Here cover, what is happening to one handshaking businessman?
He is on fire
He is on fire: stuntman Ronnie Rondell Jr. really was set alight on a Warner Bros. lot and suffered minor burns when the wind blew the flames into his face.
Q 22The 1977 album Animals is loosely based on which book?
Animal Farm
Animals borrows the idea of George Orwell's Animal Farm, casting people as dogs, pigs and sheep, with the two parts of 'Pigs on the Wing' as bookends.
Q 23The inflatable pig photographed over Battersea Power Station for Animals was nicknamed what?
Algie
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.
Alan Parsons, an EMI staff engineer, engineered The Dark Side of the Moon at Abbey Road between May 1972 and early 1973, earning a Grammy nomination for his work.
Q 14The famous prism on the cover of The Dark Side of the Moon was drawn by which designer at Hipgnosis?
George Hardie
George Hardie drew the prism artwork for Hipgnosis; Storm Thorgerson's team took the idea from a physics textbook photograph of light passing through a prism.
Q 15"Money" is written in which unusual time signature?
7/4
Money runs in 7/4 over a tape loop of coins and cash registers, switching to 4/4 for the guitar solo.
Q 16How much was Clare Torry originally paid for her vocal on "The Great Gig in the Sky"?
£30
Clare Torry received a £30 session fee for her wordless vocal in January 1973; she sued in 2004 and settled for a co-writing credit and a share of royalties.
Q 17Which track opens The Dark Side of the Moon?
Speak to Me
Speak to Me, a collage of heartbeat, clocks, cash registers and voices credited to the band's drummer, opens The Dark Side of the Moon and runs straight into Breathe.
Q 18"Dark Side of the Rainbow" is the fan claim that the album synchronises with which film?
The Wizard of Oz
Fans claim The Dark Side of the Moon lines up with The Wizard of Oz when started on the MGM lion's third roar; the band have dismissed it as coincidence.
Q 19"Shine On You Crazy Diamond" from Wish You Were Here is a tribute to which former bandmate?
Syd Barrett
Syd Barrett, the band's founder, is its subject; by eerie chance he wandered into Abbey Road on 5 June 1975 while the song was being mixed, so changed that nobody recognised him.
Q 20Who sang lead vocals on "Have a Cigar", the song that asks "which one's Pink?"
Roy Harper
The folk singer was recording next door; the lyric mocks a record executive who thought Pink was a person.
Q 24An incident at a 1977 concert in which city, when Waters spat at a fan, inspired The Wall?
Montreal
At Montreal's Olympic Stadium in July 1977 he spat at a fan climbing the stage netting; feeling walled off from his audience, he began to conceive The Wall.
Q 25The children's chorus on "Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)" came from where?
Islington Green School
The chorus was recorded by pupils from Islington Green School, close to the band's own studio; the single became the UK Christmas number one of 1979.
Q 26Which band member was fired during The Wall, then rehired as a salaried player for the tour?
Richard Wright
The tour lost about £400,000, so the man on a wage was the only one who made money from it.
Q 27For how many weeks did The Wall sit at number one on the US Billboard chart?
15
The Wall held number one on the Billboard 200 for 15 weeks in early 1980 and finished as the top-selling album of 1980 in the US.
Q 28Who played Pink in the 1982 film Pink Floyd – The Wall?
Bob Geldof
Bob Geldof, singer of the Boomtown Rats, made his film debut as Pink; director Alan Parker called the shoot one of the most miserable experiences of his life.
Q 29Who created the animation for The Wall film and its marching hammers?
Gerald Scarfe
Gerald Scarfe, the cartoonist who drew the album's artwork, created the film's animation including the marching hammers; the film won two BAFTAs, for sound and original song.
Q 30Who wrote all of the words and music on the 1983 album The Final Cut?
Roger Waters
Roger Waters wrote every word and note of The Final Cut, which is dedicated to his father, killed at Anzio in 1944 when Roger was five months old.