Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour Revealed ‘Money’ Was Inspired by This Band
“Money” remains one of Pink Floyd’s most famous songs. However, it wouldn’t exist without another band. Here’s a look at what Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour had to say about the origins of “Money.”
This American band inspired Pink Floyd to get a little funky with ‘Money’
“Money” is a hard rock song with a prominent R&B/blues influence. In some ways, it warrants comparison to the music of Pink Floyd’s British contemporaries The Rolling Stones. However, the band that inspired “Money” was actually Booker T. & the M.G.’s.
“Getting specific about how and what influenced what is always difficult, but I was a big Booker T fan,” Gilmour told Rolling Stone. “I had the Green Onions album when I was a teenager. And in my previous band, we were going for two or three years, and we went through Beatles and Beach Boys, on to all the Stax and soul stuff. We played ‘Green Onions’ onstage. I’d done a fair bit of that stuff; it was something I thought we could incorporate into our sound without anyone spotting where the influence had come from. And to me, it worked. Nice white English architecture students getting funky is a bit of an odd thought… and isn’t as funky as all that [laughs].”
How the world reacted to Pink Floyd’s ‘Money’
Gilmour’s decision to draw inspiration from Booker T. & the M.G.’s paid off well commercially — in some places. The Official Charts Company reports the song did not chart in the United Kingdom despite being released as a single.
On the other hand, “Money” was a big success for Pink Floyd in the United States. The track reached No. 13 on the Billboard Hot 100. It became the band’s first top 20 hit here and their only top 20 hit besides “Another Brick in the Wall (Part II),” which reached No. 1. “Money” also had a bit of an impact on cinema when its lyrics were featured as a poem in the film Pink Floyd – The Wall. Considering the movie is based on a Pink Floyd album, “Money”‘s presence in it seems like an inside joke.
Did Pink Floyd’s Money outperform all of Booker T. & the M.G.’s’ music
The influence Booker T. & the M.G.’s had on the song raises an interesting question: Did “Money” perform better than Booker T. & the M.G.’s’ music? Booker T. & the M.G.’s released three songs that reached the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100. Those songs were “Green Onions,” “Time Is Tight,” and “Hang ‘Em High.” Those tracks reached No. 3, No. 6, and No. 9, respectively.
However, “Money”’s parent album, The Dark Side of the Moon, outperformed the Green Onions album. The Dark Side of the Moon reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200 while Green Onions reached No. 3 on the same chart. Pink Floyd wouldn’t be the same without Booker T. & the M.G.’s, however, they proved they could outperform them commercially.
