Any Colour You Like


"Any Colour You Like" is the eighth track on The [Dark Side of the Moon], English rock band Pink Floyd's 1973 album. It is an instrumental written by David Gilmour, Richard Wright and Nick Mason.

Composition

The piece itself has no lyrics and consists of a synthesised tune which segues into a guitar solo. It is approximately three minutes, 25 seconds in length. The piece used advanced effects for the time both in the keyboard and the guitar. Richard Wright used a VCS 3 synthesizer which was fed through a long tape loop to create the rising and falling keyboard solo. David Gilmour used two guitars with the Uni-Vibe guitar effect to create the harmonizing guitar solo for the rest of the work. "Any Colour You Like" is also known as "Breathe " because the piece shares the same chord pattern as the album's second song "Breathe" and its reprise at the end of "Time". It has also nearly the same chord sequence just transposed a whole step lower from E minor to D minor. In the original liner notes, songwriting credits contain a typo with Nick Mason's last name listed as Marson.
The origin of the title is unclear. Waters may have settled this question, in an interview with the musicologist and author Phil Rose, for Rose's collection of analytical essays, Which One's Pink?:

Live versions

On earlier Pink Floyd bootlegged versions of the piece, there was no keyboard solo, and the work was a long jam piece called "Scat Section" or "Scat". Gilmour frequently sang along with his guitar solo and the band's female backing singers sometimes came up on stage and sang as well.
In 1975, it was often extended, sometimes up to nearly fifteen minutes. Gilmour and the backing singers often sang along with it.
In 1994, it was considerably modified, to be more keyboard-heavy, though not extended, as in all earlier performances. This version is included on Pulse.
Waters performed it in his 2006–08 The [Dark Side of the Moon Live|The Dark Side of the Moon Live tour], and his 2022–23 This Is Not a Drill tour.

Personnel