The Liverpool FC Chant at the End of 'Fearless'

The field recording of Liverpool FC supporters singing “You’ll Never Walk Alone” that closes “Fearless” wasn’t some random sample. Pink Floyd’s engineer John Leckie taped it directly from the terraces at Anfield during a match – likely in early 1971 – using a simple portable recorder. The band liked the raw, emotional swell of a crowd that had nothing to do with rock music, just a stadium full of people instinctively joining a song.

Why fade it in? Because the track itself is about facing fear without bravado, and that football anthem captures collective strength better than any studio overdub could. Fading it under the last guitar chords lets the noise feel like a distant memory washing over the listener – a moment of real life bleeding into the artificial world of the album. Pink Floyd rarely explained the choice, but the result is unmistakable: the song doesn’t end, it dissolves into a shared human sound.