How 'Money' Broke Rock's Time Signature Rules and Built Its Own Cash Register

Most rock songs stick to 4/4 time because it’s the steady heartbeat of the genre. Then Pink Floyd dropped “Money” in 7/4 — a lopsided, stumbling groove that feels like walking with a limp. The band didn’t just use an odd time signature for show; they built the entire song around that jagged pulse, making the listener feel the uneasy rhythm of greed itself. Later, a 4/4 guitar solo section provided a brief, almost sarcastic relief before the 7/4 chorus snapped back in.

The cash register and coin sounds weren’t sampled from a real register. David Gilmour and engineer Alan Parsons spent hours taping old coins being dropped into a mixing desk’s metal frame, rattled on a wooden board, and clinked against each other. They then looped a sequence of those sounds — click, ding, rattle — on an EMT plate reverb to create the signature intro loop. The result became a piece of sonic storytelling so vivid that you still hear that cash register in your head every time the song starts.