Three Easter Eggs in the Pink Floyd Reissues

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Pink Floyd announced they are reissuing their entire catalog this year, remastering all the classic records and releasing a slew of box sets and special editions in the process. We called a friend at their record label's marketing department to get the inside scoop on some of the special features that fans can expect. Our three favorites after the jump.

In perhaps the most gruesome scene from Pink Floyd's movie The Wall, Bob Geldof, portraying a drug-addled rock star, inadvertently dices his nipple while shaving his body hair in a fit of fuck-all rock star lunacy.

Thirty years later, one lucky fan will find that piece of Geldof (and Pink Floyd history) packaged in their reissued soundtrack CD. According to our source, the nipple, having been stored since 1983 in a jar of formaldehyde on David Gilmour's houseboat, has retained a healthy beige hue and even has a few of Geldof's hairs still attached, making it a lively conversation piece and addition to anyone's mantle.

2. Outtakes from their aborted collaboration with The Knack

After Roger Waters' departed Floyd in 1985, remaining members David Gilmour, Nick Mason, and Richard Wright moved to Los Angeles and sought to pursue a more poppy, accessible sound that would resonate with fickle younger audiences.

After placing a classified ad in the LA Weekly and hanging fliers on telephone poles and in record stores citywide, Floyd auditioned over 100 potential replacements for Waters, including pop singers Leif Garrett (rejected for being "too dreamy"), Shaun Cassidy ("the wrong kind of dreamy"), Jack Wagner ("too tangy"), Billy Ocean ("too husky") and Ric Ocasek ("looks like a giraffe").

Of all the candidates, Floyd was most impressed with The Knack singer Doug Fieger, writer of the ludicrously catchy hit "My Sharona."After a huge press conference announcing their new frontman, the band, now known as Floyd Plus Fieger, promptly disbanded.

Gilmour still refuses to publicly discuss the split, but rumor has it the firing occurred after Fieger made repeat attempts to costume his new band mates in neon-colored sport coats and skinny ties and to rewrite classic Floyd lyrics into paeans to teenage girls, Porsches, and cocaine.

1. Full disclosure about links between The Dark Side of the Moon and The Wizard of Oz

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By now everyone knows the old urban legend that The Dark Side of the Moon is inspired by and synchronized to scenes from The Wizard of Oz. Pink Floyd has always denied that theory, and forcefully so. On the upcoming reissue of Dark Side of the Moon, the members revisit the matter in an interview conducted last year. The final verdict?

"We were absolutely trying to write a new soundtrack to The Wizard of Oz," admits Gilmour. "We love that film." According to Waters: "It seemed like a cute thing to do, a way to make our music more appealing to our mums." As for Mason: "Precisely. You can only prattle on about outer space and inner space and all the miseries in between for so long."

Waters continues: "If I had it my way we'd just have chucked the space opera rubbish and started composing tunes for children's entertainment as early as 1970." Gilmour: "The real reason we broke up in 1985 is that Roger wanted to compose incidental music for The Journey of Natty Gann but the rest of us felt we'd be a better match for the soundtrack to The Goonies."

On top of that, David Gilmour confesses to being a "Dorothy fanatic" and Roger Waters admits that he often amused his band mates by showing up at the recording studio wearing a Cowardly Lion costume that his mother made for him in high school.