Talk:Money (Pink Floyd song)

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Perhaps should include disambiguation with Beatles, Kingsmen, etc. song of this name?--Samuel J. Howard 16:57, 3 May 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps... But as a note, there are well over 15 songs named money that aren't covers... It would be a long list. - Fizscy46 15:37, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Time Signature

I disagree that the verse part is in 21/8. There is no triplet feel typical of a compound meter (x/8), the drums are playing a pretty straigtforward 7 beats without further subdivision (kick-snare-kick-snare-kick-snare-kick). I would argue 7/4, or maybe 14/8 to capture the quaver (8th note) in the second beat of the bassline. --Steve carlson 04:30, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

- V Different user V -

Sorry to hijack your post, but I think it is 21/8. You can hear it in the drumbeat and in the bassline, each beat is clearly in triplets. However if that's true that means the solo is in 12/8, not 4/4. You can't have it both ways, right? Either they're both compound or they're both simple IMO. Mike Williamson

LEARN TO COUNT. It's in 21/8. No 'triplets' bullshit. If the entire song happens to use triplets, they become part of the time signature. 7 * 3 = 21. 7 beats per bar composed of triplets. It's based around the standard blues / RNB 12/8 thing, with one beat cut, hence the rhythm is kick, snare, kick, snare [1234] kick snare hi hat [123]. Pink Floyd are high is they think this is in 7/8. Jesus god. Also, there's no way in holy fuck this song is in 7/8. -Gates, pissed that someone keeps changing this back to 7/4 when there are clearly no offbeats.

LEARN SOME TACT! I don't appreciate your tone - I was just trying to generate some discussion and perhaps achieve some clarity around why nobody can agree on this. And I see the problem now, it's the same old problem with representing swung meter that we have with the blues. Some people write it 4/4 for simplicity, some people write it 12/8 to accurately capture the feel. I see both in professionally transcribed music. So for this song, both swung 7/4 AND 21/8 are correct, it just depends on your perspective. Maybe the article should mention BOTH and have a brief explanation of this, or link to an article that explains it? Steve carlson 16:33, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I'd be inclined to argue that it's in 21/8 (and then 12/8), but you could just as easily argue it's "swung 7/4" or whatever. I also agree that there's no way in hell it's in 7/8. Steve's probably right that this should be mentioned in the main article - nobody's going to agree if you just write either 7/4 or 21/8. It says 7/8 currently, which is rubbish. 86.43.91.105 17:47, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

(Sigh) Okay folks, I was the one who put it was in 21/8, which it is. There is no such thing as a swung 7/4, a swing feel immediately implies that it's being played with triplets. David Gilmour can say it's in 7/8, but either he mis-spoke, or he's mistaken. It's as much in 7/8 as it is in 7436.5/32.Andy Johnston 21:07, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Here's what I figure: The verse groove is in 7/4. If you count the bassline, you get quarter, eighth, eighth, quarter, quarter, quarter, quarter, quarter. The first two measures of the chorus are in 4/4 (half, eighth, eighth, quarter followed by four quarter notes) and the third measure is in 6/4 (Two eighth notes followed by 5 quarter notes).

No. If you're going to go by the note lengths like that, it would be dotted-quarter, quarter, eighth, dotted-quarter, dotted-quarter, dotted-quarter, dotted-quarter, dotted-quarter, dotted-quarter. The actual notes fall on 1,4-6,7,10,13,16,19 Andy Johnston 13:59, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Another different user

Isn't it just 7/4 played in triplets? ( It's clearly phrased as 7 beats ). Each bar is played as 7 sets of triplets ( 3 8th notes played in the space of 2 ). In traditional notation these would be bracketed above with a "3" and in reality the duration of each 8th note is 2/3 of a "normal" 8th note. 21/8 would be the triplets "undone" and doesn't represent the emphesis of the beat. Same deal with the solo part, only it's 4 beats not 7. So I think it's just 7/4 and 4/4. I'm no expert though...

Mike Evans.

I am an expert, and I agree that it is indeed just a swung 7/4, not 21/8. I don't feel like joining an edit war, though, so I'm just leaving my opinion here in case it is of use to future editors. dfan

An expert would be aware that a 'swung' time signature doesn't exist. If the music is being played with what is commonly referred to as a 'swing feel' it's actually being played using three eighth notes instead of two eighth notes. The emphasis of any such feel still stays on every fourth note, ONE-two-three FOUR-five-six SE'EN-eight-nine TEN-eleven-twelve etc etc. Andy Johnston 14:27, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

The members of Pink Floyd mention in The Making Of Dark Side Of The Moon that the time signature is 7/8.

Although the sax solo has a lot of "triplets" in it suggesting a possible 21/8, the other instruments (drums and bass in particular) hardly play anything on what would be the 2nd, 5th, etc beats in a 21/8 bar during the verses. This to me suggests that the verses are in a swung 7/4 time. The guitar solo however sounds like it is in 12/8 time - deduced by listening to closely to drum beat. There are clearly three high hats to each of the four beats in the bar which indicates 12/8 rather than a swung 4/4. Rattus

Regarding 7/8, remember that none of the band members ever studied music. Well, okay, Rick Wright did, but since when does what Rick Wright thinks count for anything? It ain't in 7/8, even if the band thinks it is. --63.25.239.112 18:10, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Portion Deleted

The text deleted belongs more properly in the existing article for The Wall - it is mentioned here as it is a reference to the song of the article, not intending to summarize the scene entire.Daemon8666 21:37, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Errors

The time signature is 7/4, as dfan stated above. The solo is in 4/4. David Gilmour himself stated on the DVD 'Making of Dark Side of the Moon' that it had a time signature of 7/8, but it is commonly known to be in fact 7/4. The sheet music also states 7/4 as well....

Also, why is there a section labelled "Dark Side of the Moon"? There is no need for it, as we already know which album it comes from. Also, the information in that section is erroneous. Roger states on 'Making of Dark Side of the Moon' that the originally demo was not bluesy, and that it didn't have the bluesy transatlantic twang as the released version did. "Roger Waters created the early version of Money in a house in his garden." In a house in his garden? This doesn't make sense... if anything, it was created in his garden at his house.

I'm going to make these corrections... please consult me if you have problems with it but I have researched this and I do believe I am correct. Naturrien 23:14, 27 January 2006 (UTC)


I believe that by "house in his garden" he meant a toolshed. If I recall correctly, he first thought of the coin dropping sounds for the opening of the song while storing tools and made a tape loop of the several coin sounds he recorded. antiuser 22:45, 11 May 2006 (UTC)


Not a house in the garden, and not a toolshed either. On the 'Classic Albums: The Making of Dark Side of the Moon', Waters states: "...And my wife had this pottery shed back behind the house...", and also that for the first recording of this song, he tracked himself throwing loose change into a large kettle that was in the pottery shed. Also, Waters discusses the time signature in 'The Making of' video, stating "[the song] was in 7/8, but [the band] decided to go into 4/4 for the solo so that I wouldn't have such a hard time writing it". Hope this helps.

[edit] Covers

Does anyone know who did covers for this song? There is no way to tell from the disambig page. I know the used one in The Italian Job, but I don't know who it is. Akrabbim 03:09, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Velvet Revolver—I've just corrected the existing info on them covering Money. —Rotring 14:11, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Single Cover

Shouldn't the picture representing this be the single cover? With the one dollar bill between the stain glass window frames? And one of the band members' reflection staring at it? It's more representative than the album's cover.

Thats just the Dark Side of the moon template. --Akrabbim 13:25, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Spoken word samples

Does anybody know who did the spoken word bits at the end?

  • I believe most of the spoken word chatter in the album comes from when the band members went around Abbey Road and asked people various questions. Source: [1] Spartacusprime 19:27, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Plagiarism?

This site (in the part where they explain 7/8) has the same exact paragraph on the time signatures of the song. I have no idea who copied whom, but the site does say when it is quoting from books. 201.19.36.136 04:36, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Errors in booklet

Is that section really that notable? i think it should be either deleted or condensed into one or two sentinces and merged with something else. I can understand if there was some serious lyrical errors perhaps due to different versions of the song. but grammatical and layout errors are hardly notable. i suggest the section is removed.--Paradox CT 00:47, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Answer song for "Money"?

Is it possible that The O'Jays' "For the Love of Money," lyrically speaking, had been written as an answer to "Money," given that the group was recording their Ship Ahoy LP (which contained the song) at the point where "Money" was already well-known from exposure on FM radio? –Wbwn (talk) 23:00, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Trivia

"Parts of the introduction to this song are used on the Dave Ramsey Show, which gives financial advice.". Americanocentrism. Who cares? The introduction to this song was used for zillions of financial advice programming around the world; and Dave Ramsey is not even from the same country as the band. Should we include 12 shows from Poland, 3 from Ghanda and 18 from Uruguad that also had part of "Money" in their intros, or remove this one? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.210.22.98 (talk) 17:03, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Music Video

I've seen a music video for this song that looks very much like it could have been compiled at the time of the single's release in the US (that is, 1973). It's easy enough to find it on youtube, etc. Given the average Floyd fan's devotion to minutia, someone must surely have the details on his video's origin (who was the director, etc) , the source of some of the images (is that film of mine workers getting paid in S. Africa? who is that appearing shot lying on the ground? whose records are getting blown up? etc) and so forth. This information isn't easily found anywhere else on the web and would, I think, be a useful addition here (one I'd make myself if I was one of those aforementioned Floyd fans who knew this stuff, which I'm not). --Free-world (talk) 04:26, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

That video was what played behind the band when they played the song live in the mid-70's. Friday Night Videos and then eventually MTV used that as a music video (and did a similar thing to the clips played behind the band for "Time" and "Brain Damage/Eclipse"). These videos are frequently played on VH1 Classic. As far as I know, Storm Thorgerson directed these videos. Doc StrangeMailboxLogbook 19:35, 5 April 2008 (UTC)