Top Rated Interpretation

anonymous November 1st, 2005 01:08PM  

A few other notes on this track: with little direction from the band members, Clare Torry decided to form her voice as an instrument, playing lead throughout the backing track. At the time, she was very embarrassed and taken back by how it sounded ('screechy', a whole lot of 'caterwauling'), never thinking that any of her takes were usable for the final mix. She was paid 30GBP for her work as a session singer, along with lead vocal credits for the track. Much later, she sued for full rights as composer, as it was her improvisational vocal melody lines that made the track what is was, with no supplied score to read from. Just this year, the company settled for an undisclosed, but likely, a very substantial sum.

The whispered line during the middle of the track is an answer to one of the cue card questions posed by Roger Waters for his ambient voices idea to add some organic mystique to the project. The question was thought to be "(Why) are you frightened of dying." The soft female voice responds, "I never said I was frightened of dying." The phrase is not that of any of the singers (just a person on the street, or in the studio area, to whom these questions were posed), and it is not the commonly mis-heard/mis-quoted, "If you can hear this, you are dying." Listen closely, and you'll hear for yourself.