Does Clare Torry deserve a writing credit for GGITS?

[Stilgar]

No way!!. She improvised, she always admitted it. Also, she admitted not long ago that all that rights-lawsuit stuff against the floyd was because some of her friends told her to try to get some money for the future, as she is getting old. She didn't want credit, she wanted money, and she got both.

If she deserves credit then Dick Parry deserves credit for his sax-solos on Money and Shine On...

[danielcaux]

Yes, he does.

[Alvader]

Fixed, I think at the moment in 1972-73 it was OK that she didn't receive a writing credit, because at the time it was viewed as just an improv. However with the passing of the years the so called improv became, note for note and scream for scream, a main melody that is now an integral part of the song, which would definitively not work without it (just imagine a GGITS live rendition without the screaming, wouldn't you feel cheated?); so now retrospectably it does deserve a songwriting credit. The same goes for some of the Gilmour solos, let's imagine for a second that "Comfortably Numb" initially was wroted solely by Waters, lyrics and music, and then Gilmour would add the famous solo, which is the highlight of the song, don't you think he should receive credit just for that alone?


That's really stupid, going with that line of thought neither Waters, Gilmour, Wright or Barrett would deserve a single songwriting credit for any of their songs, because none of them wrote the notes down on paper at any point in the composition process. Same goes for 90% of rock musicians.

here is an excerpt from an interview Clare did - " I said, ‘Let me go out into the studio, put some headphones on, and have a go.’ They said, ‘Well, leave the intro.’ I went in, put the headphones on, and started going ‘Ooh-aah, baby, baby - yeah, yeah, yeah.’ They said, ‘No, no – we don’t want that. If we wanted that we’d have got Doris Troy.’ They said, ‘Try some longer notes’, so I started doing that a bit. And all this time, I was getting more familiar with the backing track. And then there was a bit more conflab about this, and I remember thinking to myself, ‘I really, really do not know what to do. And perhaps it would be better if I said “Thank you very much” and gave up.’ It wasn’t getting anywhere: it was just nothing.
“That was when I thought, ‘Maybe I should just pretend I’m an instrument.’ So I said, ‘Start the track again.’ One of my most enduring memories is that there was a lovely can [i.e headphone] balance. Alan Parsons got a lovely sound on my voice: echoey, but not too echoey. When I closed my eyes – which I always did - it was just all-enveloping; a lovely vocal sound, which for a singer, is always inspirational.”

It sounds like you turned a corner when you abandoned the idea of expressing anything specific.

“Well, they did say, ‘Be more emotional.’ So I started getting this pattern of notes, and they said, ‘Well, that seems the right direction to go.’ And I told them to put the tape on. I knew from past experience... well, I used to be called ‘First-take Torry’ because, very often, the first take I did was the best. And at the end of the first take, Dave Gilmour said, ‘Do another one - but even more emotional.’ So I did another one. And then he said, ‘I think we could do a better one.’ I started, and half way through, I realised that I was beginning to be repetitive; derivative. It didn’t have that off-the-top-of-the-head, instantaneous something. It was beginning to sound contrived. I said, ‘I think you’ve got enough.’ I thought it sounded like caterwauling. " Interviewed by author John Harris for his book "Dark Side Of The Moon" and exclusive to Brain Damage.

now it seems to me that she took a lot of direction from the band - that the band had something - a specific direction in which to go. Clare pretty much went in the direction she was pointed in - that the results were derived from the input from the band.

i realise not all composers in the modern era write every note down but they do arrive at the song by a creative process and not by being told what to do.

i think Clare Torry's contribution was an extremly valuable one but nevertheless does not deserve a writing credit - perhaps this is why she is credited with "vocal composition" on the album rather than a writing credit.

I completly Agree. The band even took out pieces of her improvisations and the band put them togheter.
I always saw these Clare Torry lawsuit as someting instignated by Waters.

[Eclips]

I don't think so. She was given lots of instructions, in a way she (her voice) worked as an additional instrument to the band's main ideas for the song.

If she got credit, then John Coltrane should also be credited for his My Favorite Things (and he is not), since he totally rebuilt the song through his amazing sense of improvisation and chord progressions.

[K2+]

Not unless every jazz musician who ever improvised on a recording also deserves writing credit...

[T-Rexx 1981]

Trying to identify a VHS tape from 1998 that has back stage video s well as front of house set up personal video from 1987. It's titled "Pink Movie.com"