The Door Slam and 'David' in Pink Floyd's 'Cymbaline'

The footsteps and door slam that open “Cymbaline” were recorded by engineer Brian Humphries using a simple trick: he walked across the control room floor, then slammed a heavy studio door at Abbey Road. The sound was captured on a Revox A77 reel-to-reel tape recorder, then processed with reverb to give it that echoey, disorienting feel – a perfect fit for the song’s paranoid atmosphere.

The lyric “The doctor’s name is David” has long sparked fan theories about a reference to David Gilmour. But the line actually came from a line in the script for More (the film the soundtrack was made for), where a character refers to a doctor. The name “David