During recording, the mental health of singer and guitarist Syd Barrett deteriorated, so David Gilmour was recruited; Barrett left the band before the album's completion.
In 2014, Nick Mason, drummer of Pink Floyd, named A Saucerful of Secrets his favourite Pink Floyd album: "I think there are ideas contained there that we have continued to use all the way through our career. I think [it] was a quite good way of marking Syd's departure and Dave's arrival. It's rather nice to have it on one record, where you get both things. It's a cross-fade rather than a cut.