Olias said:
Clare Torrey, who happened to be introduced by Alan Parsons due to her backing vocals (in studio previous work for AP). She was not given any vocal instructions by PF, all she was told was to think about Dying, and to make any vocal representations she Wished. She was played a little of the Piano work by Rick, then let loose and recorded her vocals, amazing eh!
I believe Roger Waters also helped her along during the recording by giving her hand gestures telling her when to raise her voice and when to quiet down, in the fashion of a symphony conductor.
One of the greatest but most overlooked things about Floyd, IMO, is Waters' lyrics. The music itself is good enough that the casual listener might not pay very close attention to the words, but those words are incredible. He has a way of creating succint and powerful images with a poetic elegance that I think is unrivaled by just about any other lyricist. I find that for the great majority of songs, the lyrics suffer greatly if read without the musical accompaniment, but Waters is one of the few whose stuff still shines when it stands alone. And if you follow the words within the atmosphere of the music-- someone mentioned art galleries, but I'd say more like virtual reality. Chilling stuff sometimes.
"Does anybody here remember Vera Lynn"... you know it's strange, I used to get that a lot too, floating around in my head. There must be something to it.
For all the Floyd heads, here's a brief list of some of my relatively obscure favorites:
Fearless
Let There Be More Light (amazing lyrics here, especially in conjunction with the music)
Dogs (possibly the most acerbic words ever sung, and that transition from the keyboard/strumming to the slow beat guitar solo kills me)
Mudmen (love the drum crescendo into the wailing guitar bend)
Cirrus Minor (puts you on another planet)
and of course, the epic to end all epics,
Echoes