Pink Floyd: The Great Gig in the Sky Meaning

The Great Gig in the Sky Lyrics

(instrumental)

’and I am not frightened of dying, any time will do, i
Don’t mind. why should I be frightened of dying?
There’s no reason for it, you’ve gotta go sometime.’
’i never said I was frightened of dying.’

1. 1TOP RATED

   #1 top rated interpretation:
   anonymous

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   Jan 16th 2007 !⃝

   I was 13 years old when this song came out. I was blessed to become a paid musician for most of my life. "Great Gig in the Sky" is the song my family is instructed to play at my funeral. My interpretation is this: A woman wakes to find that she is no longer amoung the living. Her spirit responds with shock, horror about things she did not do that she should have done. The pain she experienced in life, the people she will miss, loves she lost. Then she comes to terms with the present and begins to entertain the heavenly host with all of heart & soul.
   Check me out at: www.youtube.com/user/woodstockgranny
   Peace!

2. 2TOP RATED

   #2 top rated interpretation:
   anonymous

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   Apr 7th 2011 !⃝

   I took a class in which we interpreted this song. the message is to portray the 7 emotions of grief or the feelings involved before you die. Shock or Disbelief, denial, anger, bargaining, guilt, depression and acceptance. Knowing this, listen to the song and you can understand how her voice flows beautifully between every emotion.

3. 3TOP RATED

   #3 top rated interpretation:
   anonymous

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   Jun 23rd 2008 !⃝

   Okay, just mentioning this to clear this ALL up, as most people seem to have random inaccuracies in what they say:
   
   -The vocal solo is done by Claire Torry.
   -She DID sue them for a large amount of money, in about 2004, and won, having her name listed in the credit of the PULSE dvd.
   -She was absolutely NOT told to sing like she was having an orgasm. She was told to think about some depressing stuff, and told explicitly not to form words.
   -She did the recording in four takes.
   -She was not happy with it, despite the band thinking it was magnificent.
   -The person who talks at the beginning Is in fact, a doorman.
   -The second person to speak in the song (the woman) is in fact, Naomi Watts' mother, Myfanwy Watts.
   -Several times, Pink Floyd have denied the idea that the album Dark Side of the Moon is made to play along with The Wizard of Oz, stating that it is simply coincidence.
   -It is a great song.
4. anonymous

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   Dec 20th 2018 !⃝

   The Great Gig in the Sky by Pink Floyd, the real meaning is available at wikipedia. For the person who made the latest comment, sorry. I don't know how to comfort you. I hope you are surrounded with your friends and the people you love the most. Hope you have a good night. Ask God for strength and for peace each day.
   
   - Same person who made comments recently
5. anonymous

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   Dec 19th 2018 !⃝

   I'm dying of cancer and this song as well as the sing "Time" which the album is about. Living, then dying and how time flys by and before you know it, you're now dying. I feel a great sadness that I will be leaving my friends and people that I love. You feel the hurt so bad that it messes with your mind, your heart and especially your soul. You feel the anger and you want to scream out "NO" and shake your fist at at the world, God or Satan. It's a venting you've never done and is deep. Then you know there is nothing you can do about. Then just hang,your head down and cry like you've never done before. Your heart has been totally crushed
6. anonymous

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   May 30th 2018 !⃝

   Ok, obviously there is more than one interpretation of this song, nothing wrong with that and it was interesting to read everyones take on it. I have an entirely different one. The first time I heard it, it reminded me of grief. After I lost my 18 year old son, and if I could sing like Claire Torry I would have gone to the top of a high, deserted place and sang my heart out. To me it feels like how my heart felt during the most unimaginable pain. Sorry if that turns the song into something you didn't want it to. To me, and as a mother, that song puts music to the grief of losing a child.
7. anonymous

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   Jun 9th 2014 !⃝

   It's sound to me like a supreme sexual feeling of arosal,climax and final relax,the supreme phisycal emotion than a human being can get....
8. anonymous

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   Jun 1st 2014 !⃝

   One of if not the #1 best of All songs in The Entire World...... You can Really feel it internally ,
   In-throughout Your being & ofcorse Our Hearts ..
   Sexualy ConvulsingOrgasmic like type to Our Peaks & then Finally towards Our Agonizing Death...
   Liv For it.
9. anonymous

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   Mar 15th 2014 !⃝

   From the very first time that I ever heard this song, I could never imagine that what I was hearing was nothing but the throes of a woman in ecstasy. To suggest that it is agony just seems wrong and morbid. It's not the seven stages of grief, only the one stage of sexual relief. Don't ruin this for me you overly analytical eggheads.
10. anonymous

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    Jan 26th 2012 !⃝

    This song makes me experience some parts of my childhood all over again. In a somehow frightening, realistic and confrontational way. First time i listened was under influence of LSD-5 though.
11. anonymous

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    Aug 27th 2011 !⃝

    The screaming sounds nothing like a woman having an orgasm, so if she was trying for that, epic fail. I think someone just added that in to "sex the story up". Thanks for nothing.
    
    I've never heard the "you are dying" line but 3:33 is a much more mystical number than 3:34. "You" should die at 3:33, and be already dead at 3:34.

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
12. anonymous

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    Aug 11th 2011 !⃝

    the scream painting, existentialism
    
    the great GOD in the sky, is he there
    
    read some NDE stuff, its interesting
13. anonymous

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    Jun 22nd 2011 !⃝

    This piece has three masterful performances: Wright's simple, but expressive piano composition; Gilmour's slide guitar dovetailing the piano plays off the "musical eulogy" feel. But what makes this, in my opinion, one of the three or four most powerfully emotional pieces of music ever performed is Clare Torry's improvisational vocal performance. It stands absolutely alone in modern popular music; I can't think of anything that comes close. It is at once an expression of great beauty and a heartwrenching cry of ultimate pain. One feels the story; no lyrics are needed. I've always felt this performance captured completely the emotions of a young mother grieving the loss of her child - there simply doesn't seem any other pain deep enough to evoke such vocalizations. It's been almost forty years since I first heard this work, and it still chokes me with tears every time.
14. anonymous

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    Jun 1st 2011 !⃝

    It's about death, as is the entire album. That's all there is to it.
    Before recording her solo, Clare Tony apparently received only one piece of vague description from Pink Floyd about the song. I quote: "It's about dying". The solo is merely a vocal response to that idea.
15. anonymous

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    May 28th 2011 !⃝

    If you listen very closeley when the song is at 3 minutes and thirty four seconds you can hear a whisper saying if you can hear this whisper you are dying. It is really creepy why would this be in a song?
16. anonymous

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    Mar 10th 2011 !⃝

    In The Orginal Great Gig In The Sky the 1st singer was Claire Torry and the 2nd Women was ????? who is Namoie Watts Mother, my interest lies in the 3rd women she rocked those high tones sound to me she got assed out..from reviews on her part i thought she finish the song just my 2 cents....
    
    Samson
17. anonymous

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    Mar 10th 2011 !⃝

    In The Orginal Great Gig In The Sky the 1st singer was Claire Torry and the 2nd Women was ????? who is Namoie Watts Mother, my interest lies in the 3rd women she rocked those high tones sound to me she got assed out..
    
    Samson
18. Truth_Exposer

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    Jan 21st 2010 !⃝

    I'll clear this up for everyone. Clare Torry's vocals are simulating the man's life from his birth right up to his death. You can "hear" the good times as well as the low points in his life. At the end is his final breath...

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