Pink Floyd

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ConnyOlivetti
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Re: Pink Floyd

Postby ConnyOlivetti » 11 Apr 2022, 19:32

Wow!
Great and robust write up!
Great album, love it, but rarely play it.
Charlie O. wrote:I think Coan and Googa are right.


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Matt Wilson
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Re: Pink Floyd

Postby Matt Wilson » 11 Apr 2022, 19:42

ConnyOlivetti wrote:Wow!
Great and robust write up!
Great album, love it, but rarely play it.


1% me, 99% wiki.

One doesn't need to play it over here, it's on rock radio 24/7. I can't recall the last time I played it in its entirety either. But then I don't need to - it's etched in my brain for the rest of my days.

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Mike Boom
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Re: Pink Floyd

Postby Mike Boom » 12 Apr 2022, 16:59

Its become somewhat of a stoner cliche but its still a wonderful album, haven't listened to it for ages either, but whenever I hear a track it always still sounds great and remarkably fresh. I probably prefer "Wish You Were Here" but "Dark Side..." certainly is a culmination of what they were fumbling towards, like everything came into focus , the sound effects, the concept, the experiments. Its definitely a masterpiece and one of the greatest albums ever made.

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robertff
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Re: Pink Floyd

Postby robertff » 12 Apr 2022, 17:49

Superb album, ‘nuff said.


The album that brought me back to Floyd.


.

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Matt Wilson
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Re: Pink Floyd

Postby Matt Wilson » 12 Apr 2022, 18:19

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Wish You Were Here 1975
Virtually equally as good as Dark Side (ironically, I think the music contained herein is "darker" if you will), and another huge success financially. Pink Floyd went from a big band in the UK with an underground following in the US, to practically the biggest group on the planet (along with Led Zeppelin) by the mid seventies on the strength of these two albums. To keep the theme of prog going, the genre had already peaked by this time in England. You still had plenty of great LPs in that vein (Snow Goose, Freehand, Minstrel in the Gallery, Scheherezade and Other Stories, Godbluff, etc.), but big-name acts like Genesis, Yes, ELP, and Crimson, didn't release studio records at all. Once again, PF dropped an album as good as anyone's out there, and they weren't sacrificing any artistic credibility to do it.

Exactly like the prior album, American rock radio stations were (and are) all over these tracks. The definition of 'classic rock' and to take it out of the progressive conversation for a second and relate the record to the wider world of rock music, this stands with such 1975 stalwarts as Blood on the Tracks, Physical Graffiti, Born to Run, and Horses as a major statement of that year. I can't speak highly enough of Wish, so let's delve into it:

Wiki - "Wish You Were Here is the ninth studio album by the English rock band Pink Floyd, released on 12 September 1975 through Harvest Records and Columbia Records, their first release for the latter. Based on material Pink Floyd composed while performing in Europe, Wish You Were Here was recorded over numerous sessions throughout 1975 at Abbey Road Studios in London.

The album's themes include criticism of the music business, alienation, and a tribute to founding member Syd Barrett, who had left seven years earlier due to his deteriorating mental health; Barrett coincidentally visited the band during the album's production. Like their previous record, The Dark Side of the Moon (1973), Pink Floyd used studio effects and synthesisers. Guest singers included Roy Harper, who provided the lead vocals on "Have a Cigar", and Venetta Fields, who added backing vocals to "Shine On You Crazy Diamond". To promote the album, the band released the double A-side single "Have a Cigar" / "Welcome to the Machine".

On its release, Wish You Were Here received mixed reviews from critics, who found its music uninspiring and inferior to their previous work. It has retrospectively received critical acclaim, hailed as one of the greatest albums of all time, and was cited by keyboardist Richard Wright and guitarist David Gilmour as their favourite Pink Floyd album. It reached number one in the US and UK, and Harvest's parent company, EMI, was unable to keep up with the demand. Since then, the record has sold over 20 million copies.

Background
During 1974, Pink Floyd sketched out three new compositions, "Raving and Drooling" (which would become "Sheep"), "You Gotta Be Crazy" (which would become "Dogs") and "Shine On You Crazy Diamond". These songs were performed during a series of concerts in France and England, the band's first tour since 1973's The Dark Side of the Moon. As Pink Floyd had never employed a publicist and kept themselves distant from the press, their relationship with the media began to sour. Mason said later that a critical NME review by Syd Barrett devotee Nick Kent may have had influence in keeping the band together, as they returned to the studio in the first week of 1975.

Concept
Wish You Were Here is Floyd's second album with a conceptual theme and with lyrics entirely by Roger Waters. It reflects his feeling that the camaraderie that had served the band was, by then, largely absent. The album begins with a long instrumental preamble and segues into the lyrics for "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", a tribute to Syd Barrett, whose mental breakdown had forced him to leave the group seven years earlier. Barrett is fondly recalled with lines such as "Remember when you were young, you shone like the sun" and "You reached for the secret too soon, you cried for the moon".

Wish You Were Here is also a critique of the music business. "Shine On" crosses seamlessly into "Welcome to the Machine", a song that begins with an opening door (described by Waters as a symbol of musical discovery and progress betrayed by a music industry more interested in greed and success) and ends with a party, the latter epitomising "the lack of contact and real feelings between people". Similarly, "Have a Cigar" scorns record industry "fat-cats" with the lyrics repeating a stream of cliches heard by rising newcomers in the industry, and including the question "by the way, which one's Pink?" asked of the band on at least one occasion. The lyrics of the next song, "Wish You Were Here", relate both to Barrett's condition and to the dichotomy of Waters' character, with greed and ambition battling with compassion and idealism.

"I had some criticisms of Dark Side of the Moon…" noted David Gilmour. "One or two of the vehicles carrying the ideas were not as strong as the ideas that they carried. I thought we should try and work harder on marrying the idea and the vehicle that carried it, so that they both had an equal magic… It's something I was personally pushing when we made Wish You Were Here."

Recording
Alan Parsons, EMI staff engineer for Pink Floyd's previous studio album, The Dark Side of the Moon, declined to continue working with them. The group had worked with engineer Brian Humphries on More, recorded at Pye Studios,[11] and again in 1974 when he replaced an inexperienced concert engineer. Humphries was therefore the natural choice to work on the band's new material, although, being a stranger to EMI's Abbey Road set-up, he encountered some early difficulties. On one occasion, Humphries inadvertently spoiled the backing tracks for "Shine On", a piece that Waters and drummer Nick Mason had spent many hours perfecting, with echo. The entire piece had to be re-recorded.

The sessions for Wish You Were Here at Abbey Road's Studio Three lasted from January until July 1975, recording on four days each week from 2:30 pm until very late in the evening. The group found it difficult at first to devise any new material, especially as the success of The Dark Side of the Moon had left all four physically and emotionally drained. Keyboardist Richard Wright later described these sessions as "falling within a difficult period", and Waters recalled them as "torturous". Mason found the process of multi-track recording drawn-out and tedious, while Gilmour was more interested in improving the band's existing material. Gilmour was also becoming increasingly frustrated with Mason, whose failing marriage had brought on a general malaise and sense of apathy, both of which interfered with his drumming.

It was a very difficult period I have to say. All your childhood dreams had been sort of realised and we had the biggest selling records in the world and all the things you got into it for. The girls and the money and the fame and all that stuff it was all ... everything had sort of come our way and you had to reassess what you were in it for thereafter, and it was a pretty confusing and sort of empty time for a while. —David Gilmour

Humphries gave his point of view regarding these struggled sessions in a 2014 interview: “There were days when we didn't do anything. I don't think they knew what they wanted to do. We had a dartboard and an air rifle and we'd play these word games, sit around, get drunk, go home and return the next day. That’s all we were doing until suddenly everything started falling into place.”

After several weeks, Waters began to visualise another concept. The three new compositions from 1974's tour were at least a starting point for a new album, and "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" seemed a reasonable choice as a centrepiece for the new work. Mostly an instrumental twenty-minute-plus piece similar to "Echoes", the opening four-note guitar phrase reminded Waters of the lingering ghost of former band-member Syd Barrett. Gilmour had composed the phrase entirely by accident, but was encouraged by Waters' positive response. Waters wanted to split "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", and sandwich two new songs between its two halves. Gilmour disagreed, but was outvoted three to one. "Welcome to the Machine" and "Have a Cigar" were barely veiled attacks on the music business, their lyrics working neatly with "Shine On" to provide an apt summary of the rise and fall of Barrett; "Because I wanted to get as close as possible to what I felt ... that sort of indefinable, inevitable melancholy about the disappearance of Syd." "Raving and Drooling" and "You’ve Got To Be Crazy" had no place in the new concept, and were set aside until the following album, 1977's Animals.

Syd Barrett's visit
On 5 June 1975, on the eve of Pink Floyd's second US tour that year, Gilmour married his first wife, Ginger. That day, the band were completing the mix of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" when an overweight man with shaven head and eyebrows entered, carrying a plastic bag. Waters did not recognise him. Gilmour presumed he was an EMI staff member. Wright presumed he was a friend of Waters, but realised it was Barrett. Mason also failed to recognise him and was "horrified" when Gilmour identified him. In Mason's Pink Floyd memoir Inside Out, he recalled Barrett's conversation as "desultory and not entirely sensible". Cover artist Storm Thorgerson reflected on Barrett's presence: "Two or three people cried. He sat round and talked for a bit but he wasn't really there."

Waters was reportedly reduced to tears by the sight of his former bandmate. When fellow visitor Andrew King asked how Barrett had gained so much weight, Barrett said he had a large refrigerator in his kitchen and had been eating lots of pork chops. He mentioned that he was ready to help with the recording, but while listening to the mix of "Shine On", showed no signs of understanding its relevance to him. Barrett joined Gilmour's wedding reception in the EMI canteen, but left without saying goodbye. Apart from Waters seeing Barrett buying sweets in Harrods a couple of years later, it was the last time any member of the band saw him alive. Barrett's appearance may have influenced the final version of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond"; a subtle refrain performed by Wright from "See Emily Play" is audible towards the end. Waters said later: "'Shine On' is not really about Syd—he's just a symbol for all the extremes of absence some people have to indulge in because it's the only way they can cope with how fucking sad it is, modern life, to withdraw completely. I found that terribly sad."

Instrumentation
As with The Dark Side of the Moon, the band used synthesizers such as the EMS VCS 3 (on "Welcome to the Machine"), but softened with Gilmour's acoustic guitar, and percussion from Mason. The beginning of "Shine On" contains remnants from a previous but incomplete studio recording by the band known as "Household Objects". Wine glasses had been filled with varying amounts of fluid, and recordings were made of a wet finger circling the edge of each glass. These recordings were multi-tracked into chords.

Jazz violinist Stéphane Grappelli and classical violinist Yehudi Menuhin were performing in another studio in the building, and were invited to record a piece for the new album. Menuhin watched as Grappelli played on the song "Wish You Were Here"; however, the band later decided his contribution was unsuitable and, until 2011, it was believed that the piece had been wiped. It turns out his playing was included on the album, but so low in the final mix that the band presumed it would be insulting to credit him. He was paid £300 for his contribution (equivalent to £2,600 in 2022). Saxophonist Dick Parry, who had performed on The Dark Side of the Moon, performed on "Shine On You Crazy Diamond". The opening bars of "Wish You Were Here" were recorded from Gilmour's car radio, with somebody turning the dial (the classical music heard is the finale of Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony).

Vocals
Recording sessions had twice been interrupted by US tours (one in April and the other in June 1975), and the final sessions, which occurred after the band's performance at Knebworth, proved particularly troublesome for Waters. He struggled to record the vocals for "Have a Cigar", requiring several takes to perform an acceptable version. His problems stemmed in part from the stresses placed upon his voice while recording the lead vocals of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond". Gilmour was asked to sing in his place, but declined, and eventually colleague and friend Roy Harper was asked to stand in. Harper was recording his own album in another of Abbey Road's studios, and Gilmour had already performed some guitar licks for him. Waters later regretted the decision, believing he should have performed the song. The Blackberries recorded backing vocals for "Shine On You Crazy Diamond".

Touring
The band played much of Wish You Were Here on 5 July 1975 at the Knebworth music festival. Roy Harper, performing at the same event, on discovering that his stage costume was missing, proceeded to destroy one of Pink Floyd's vans, injuring himself in the process. This delayed the normal setup procedure of the band's sound system. As a pair of World War II Supermarine Spitfire had been booked to fly over the crowd during their entrance, the band were not able to delay their set. The result was that a power supply problem pushed Wright's keyboards completely out of tune, damaging the band's performance. At one point he left the stage, but the band were able to continue with a less sensitive keyboard, a piano and a simpler light show. Following a brief intermission, they returned to perform The Dark Side of the Moon, but critics displeased about being denied access backstage savaged the performance.

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Packaging
Wish You Were Here was sold in one of the more elaborate packages to accompany a Pink Floyd album. Storm Thorgerson had accompanied the band on their 1974 tour and had given serious thought to the meaning of the lyrics, eventually deciding that the songs were, in general, concerned with "unfulfilled presence", rather than Barrett's illness. This theme of absence was reflected in the ideas produced by his long hours spent brainstorming with the band. Thorgerson had noted that Roxy Music's Country Life was sold in an opaque green cellophane sleeve – censoring the cover image – and he copied the idea, concealing the artwork for Wish You Were Here in a black-coloured shrink-wrap (therefore making the album art "absent"). The concept behind "Welcome to the Machine" and "Have a Cigar" suggested the use of a handshake (an often empty gesture), and George Hardie designed a sticker containing the album's logo of two mechanical hands engaged in a handshake, to be placed on the opaque sleeve (the mechanical handshake logo would also appear on the labels of the vinyl album this time in a black and blue background).

The album's cover images were photographed by Aubrey "Po" Powell, Storm's partner at the design studio Hipgnosis, and inspired by the idea that people tend to conceal their true feelings, for fear of "getting burned", and thus two businessmen were pictured shaking hands, one man on fire. "Getting burned" was also a common phrase in the music industry, used often by artists denied royalty payments. Two stuntmen were used (Ronnie Rondell and Danny Rogers), one dressed in a fireproof suit covered by a business suit. His head was protected by a hood, underneath a wig. The photograph was taken at Warner Bros. Studios in California, known at the time as The Burbank Studios. Initially the wind was blowing in the wrong direction, and the flames were forced into Rondell's face, burning his moustache. The two stuntmen changed positions, and the image was later reversed.

The album's back cover depicts a faceless "Floyd salesman", in Thorgerson's words, "selling his soul" in the desert (shot in the Yuma Desert in California again by Aubrey "Po" Powell). The absence of wrists and ankles signifies his presence as an "empty suit". The inner sleeve shows a veil concealing a nude woman in a windswept Norfolk grove, and a splash-less diver at Mono Lake – titled Monosee (the German translation of Mono Lake) on the liner notes – in California (again emphasising the theme of absence). The decision to shroud the cover in black plastic was not popular with the band's US record company, Columbia Records, who insisted that it be changed (they were over-ruled). EMI were less concerned; the band were reportedly extremely happy with the end product, and when presented with a pre-production mockup, they accepted it with a spontaneous round of applause."

Pink Floyd
David Gilmour – vocals, guitars, pedal steel guitar, EMS Synthi AKS, additional bass, glass harmonica, tape effects
Roger Waters – vocals, bass guitar, EMS VCS 3, additional guitar, glass harmonica, tape effects
Nick Mason – drums, percussion, timpani, cymbals, tape effects
Richard Wright – Hammond organ, ARP String Ensemble, Minimoog, Steinway piano, EMS VCS 3, Hohner Clavinet D6, Wurlitzer EP-200 electric piano, Rhodes piano, glass harmonica, backing vocals

Additional musicians
Dick Parry – tenor and baritone saxophone on “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”
Roy Harper – lead vocals on “Have a Cigar”
Venetta Fields – backing vocals
Carlena Williams – backing vocals

All lyrics are written by Roger Waters.

Side one

1. "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" (Parts I–V) (David Gilmour, Richard Wright, Roger Waters) 13:32
Perhaps the ultimate in Floyd's slow intros - you don't even hear Gilmour's guitar until right before the four-minute mark - this is the first long cut since "Echoes" four years prior. It's exquisite, it goes without saying. All the emotion in the piece is courtesy of of Dave, and he doesn't disappoint. Roger's vocals are perfect for the number as well. If the ghost of Syd hung over the Dark Side recordings, his presence would have been all over this record even if he hadn't made an actual appearance in the studio. Dick Parry gives us another splendid sax part.

"The song is written about and dedicated to Syd Barrett, who left the band in 1968 due to deteriorating mental health.

Background
The song was conceived and written as a tribute and remembrance to their former band member Syd Barrett, a founding member of Pink Floyd. Barrett was ousted from the band by the other members in 1968 due to his drug use and troubled mental health, which had affected his ability to integrate with the rest of the band and perform and create as a musician. He was replaced by David Gilmour, Barrett's former school friend who had initially been brought in as second guitar. The remaining band members felt guilty for removing him, but they viewed it as necessary, admiring Barrett's creativity and being concerned about his severe mental decline. The work was first performed on their 1974 French tour and recorded for their 1975 concept album Wish You Were Here. It was intended to be a side-long composition (like "Atom Heart Mother" and "Echoes") but was split into two sections and used to bookend the album, with new material composed that was more relevant to the album and to the situation in which the band found themselves.

Recording
Bassist Roger Waters commented, as the sessions were underway, that "at times the group was there only physically. Our bodies were there, but our minds and feelings somewhere else." Eventually an idea was raised to split the song in two, Parts I–V and Parts VI–IX.

According to guitarist David Gilmour and drummer Nick Mason on the Wish You Were Here episode of In the Studio with Redbeard, Pink Floyd recorded a satisfactory take of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" but because of a new mixing console which was installed at Abbey Road Studios, it needed to be re-recorded because excessive 'bleed' from other instruments could be heard on the drum tracks. As explained by Gilmour,

We originally did the backing track over the course of several days, but we came to the conclusion that it just wasn't good enough. So we did it again in one day flat and got it a lot better. Unfortunately nobody understood the desk properly and when we played it back we found that someone had switched the echo returns from monitors to tracks one and two. That affected the tom-toms and guitars and keyboards which were playing along at the time. There was no way of saving it, so we just had to do it yet again.

On part 3, a piano part seems to have been added "live" to the final mix, making it absent from multitrack masters. That part was re-recorded at British Grove Studios by pianist Richard Wright during the multi-channel mix used for the album Immersion Edition and the SACD release.

Nick Mason said:

With the invention of 16-track and 2-inch tape there was the belief for quite a while that there would be something wrong with editing tape that big. Consequently whenever we played these pieces, they had to be played from beginning to end. Particularly for Roger [Waters] and myself being the rhythm section, which would be laid down first, this was [chuckling] a fairly tough business because the whole thing had to be sort of right.

Barrett's studio appearance
One day during recording, Barrett (now heavyset, with a completely shaved head and eyebrows) wandered into the studio (although Mason has since stated that he is not entirely certain whether "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" was the particular work being recorded when Barrett was there). Because of his drastically changed appearance, the band did not recognize him for some time. When they eventually realised that the withdrawn man in the corner was Barrett, Roger Waters became so distressed about Barrett's appearance that he was reduced to tears. Someone asked to play the suite again for Barrett and he said a second playback was not needed when they had just heard it. When asked what he thought of the song, Barrett said it sounded a "bit old". He subsequently slipped away during celebrations for Gilmour's wedding to Ginger Hasenbein, which took place later that day. Gilmour confirmed this story, although he could not recall which composition they were working on when Barrett showed up.

The episode is taken up by Wright as follows:

Roger was there, and he was sitting at the desk, and I came in and I saw this guy sitting behind him – huge, bald, fat guy. I thought, "He looks a bit... strange..." Anyway, so I sat down with Roger at the desk and we worked for about ten minutes, and this guy kept on getting up and brushing his teeth and then sitting – doing really weird things, but keeping quiet. And I said to Roger, "Who is he?" and Roger said "I don't know." And I said "Well, I assumed he was a friend of yours," and he said "No, I don't know who he is." Anyway, it took me a long time, and then suddenly I realised it was Syd, after maybe 45 minutes. He came in as we were doing the vocals for "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", which was basically about Syd. He just, for some incredible reason picked the very day that we were doing a song which was about him. And we hadn't seen him, I don't think, for two years before. That's what's so incredibly... weird about this guy. And a bit disturbing, as well, I mean, particularly when you see a guy, that you don't, you couldn't recognize him. And then, for him to pick the very day we want to start putting vocals on, which is a song about him. Very strange.

Composition
As neither the original 1975 vinyl release nor the CD re-release actually delineate the various parts precisely, the make-up of the parts below is based on a comparison of the recorded timings with the identifications in the published sheet music.

The song is in G natural minor (Aeolian) scale, but with hints of the G Dorian mode with the inclusion of the E (raised sixth) note in various parts throughout, most prominently in the four-note theme in Part II.

Parts I–V
Part I (Wright, Gilmour, Waters; from 0:00 to 3:54) There are no lyrics in Part I. The instrumental begins with a fade-in of a G minor chord created with an EMS VCS 3, ARP Solina, a Hammond organ, and a wine glass harp (recycled from an earlier project known as Household Objects). This is followed by Wright's Minimoog passages leading into a lengthy, bluesy guitar solo played by Gilmour on a Fender Stratocaster (neck pickup) using a heavily compressed sound and reverb. Part I ends with the synthesizer chord fading into the background. During the fade-out some very faint conversation in the studio can be heard on the left channel.

Part II (Gilmour, Waters, Wright; from 3:54 to 6:27) begins with a four-note theme (B♭, F, G [below the B♭], E) (known informally as "Syd's theme") repeated throughout much of the entire section. This theme leads the harmony to C major (in comparison to the use of C minor in Part I). Mason starts his drumming and Waters his bass playing after the fourth playing of the four-note theme, which is the point where the riffs get into a fixed tempo, in 6/8 time. The chord leads back to G minor (as from Part I), followed by E♭ major and D major back to a coda from G minor. This part includes another solo by Gilmour.

Part III (Wright, Gilmour, Waters; from 6:27 to 8:42) begins with a Minimoog solo by Wright accompanied by a less complex variation of Mason's drums from Part II. This part includes Gilmour's third guitar solo, in the G natural minor scale, and ends with a fade into Part IV. When performed on the Animals tour, Gilmour added distortion to the guitar for this solo. This solo is often dropped in live performances while the rest of part III is still played—notably on Delicate Sound of Thunder and Pulse.

Part IV (Gilmour, Wright, Waters; from 8:42 to 11:10) Waters sings his lyrics, with Gilmour, Wright and female backing vocalists Venetta Fields and Carlena Williams on harmonies.

Part V (Waters, Gilmour, Wright; from 11:10 to 13:32) Part IV is followed by two guitars repeating an arpeggio variation on the main theme for about a minute with the theme of Part II. A baritone saxophone overlays the sounds, played by Dick Parry. The saxophone changes from a baritone to a tenor saxophone, as a time signature switch from 6/8 to 12/8 creates the feeling that the tempo doubles up. The sax solo is accompanied by a Solina string synthesizer keyboard sound. A machine-like hum fades in with musique concrète and segues into "Welcome to the Machine". - Wikipedia

2. "Welcome to the Machine" (Waters) 7:28
Ominous doors open and close after cool studio effects (did any do his better than Floyd?), and Gilmour's acoustic guitar comes floating in. This is one of two classic songs Roger contributed to the project, and Dave's otherworldly vocals are icing on the cake. Another Floyd epic concerning the manipulation of musicians by a system concerned with commerce over everything else. Side One of this record is among the best pieces of music the band ever recorded. Rick provides creepy-sounding synths throughout.

Wiki: It features heavily processed synthesizers and acoustic guitars, as well as a wide range of tape effects. Both the music and the lyrics were written by bassist Roger Waters.

Recording
The track was built upon a basic throbbing sound made by an EMS VCS 3 followed by a one-repeat echo which Waters would have played originally on bass guitar (which he overdubs an actual bass part to the song which is more predominant on the Stereo Quad mix). On the original LP, the song segued from the first 5 parts of the suite "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" and closed the first side. On the CD pressings, especially the 1997 and 2000 remastered issues, it segues (although very faintly) to "Have a Cigar". This segueing is a few seconds longer on the US version than the UK version. David Gilmour admitted that he had trouble singing one line of the song, saying, "It was a line I just couldn't reach, so we dropped the tape down half a semitone." He sang the part at a slightly lower pitch, and then the tape speed was raised back to normal.

Time signatures
Like many Pink Floyd songs, "Welcome to the Machine" features some variations in its meter and time signatures. Each bass "throb" of the VCS synthesizer is notated as a quarter note in the sheet music, and each note switches from one side of the stereo spread to the next (this effect is particularly prominent when listened to on headphones). Although the introduction of the song (when the acoustic guitar enters) does not actually change time signatures, it does sustain each chord for three measures, rather than two or four, resulting in a nine-bar intro where an even number of bars might be expected.

The verses and choruses are largely in 4/4, or "common time". However, on the line "It's all right, we know where you've been", a measure of 7/4 is inserted, shortening the sequence, and causing the left-right stereo panning to be reversed for quite some time. An instrumental section begins, with the acoustic guitar adding variations in its strum pattern, until it switches to 3/4 for a length of time, when a 12-string acoustic riff is introduced, ascending up the E minor scale until the chord changes to C major seventh. Finally, the instrumental section ends, and the second verse begins. With the lyric, "It's all right, we told you what to dream", once again a measure of 7/4 is inserted, and the stereo panning is finally returned to normal. Incidentally, these two phrases beginning with "It's all right ..." are the only parts to feature any chord other than some form of E minor or C major—these phrases go to an A bass in the first verse, and in the second verse, the acoustic guitar articulates the A as a major chord, with its C♯ in contradiction of the frequent C chords. The song remains in 4/4 from this point forward.

Music video
The music video was animated by Gerald Scarfe which was initially a backdrop film for when the band played the track on their 1977 In the Flesh tour. The fanciful video begins with what appears to be a giant mechanical axolotl crawling across a rocky terrain. The scene segues into a desolate industrial cityscape consisting of towering gleaming steel structures. A cylinder disturbingly cracks and oozes blood while a cuboid unfolds itself and the scene goes into girders laden with decayed corpses and rats (with one of them looking emaciated). A view of a barren landscape with a tower that extends from the horizon that morphs into a screaming unnatural form, which then stops to pant for a few seconds before viciously decapitating an unsuspecting man in the foreground. The head then very slowly decomposes to a skull as the sun sets. Finally, three buildings stand tall until an ocean of blood washes away this scene. The waves turn into thousands of hands waving in rhythm to the music (much like people at a rock concert). All of the surrounding structures are swept away except for one. Despite being pulled at by the bloody masses, the monolith survives and synchronizing with the synthesized sound at the end of the track, it flies upwards high above the clouds into space where it fits securely into a hole in a massive floating ovoid object."

Live performances
The song was performed for the first time on Pink Floyd's 1977 In the Flesh tour. Gilmour and Waters shared lead vocals, although in initial performances, Gilmour sang on his own with some backing vocals by Waters. Also for the 1977 live performances, David Gilmour played his acoustic guitar parts on his Black Strat, Waters played an Ovation acoustic guitar, Snowy White played bass guitar, Nick Mason played his timpani parts on his drum kit with mallets, and Rick Wright handled the Mini-Moog synths and VCS3 while Dick Parry played the string synths off-stage. The live renditions of the song were complex because music had to be synchronised with the backdrop film and its sound effects. As a result, the band had to wear headphones and listen to a click-track which, in turn, meant that there was very little room left for improvisation.

Pink Floyd would play the song again on their A Momentary Lapse of Reason Tour (1987–89) where Tim Renwick played lead guitar, while Gilmour played a 12-string acoustic guitar. These renditions were not synchronised to the film.

The song was performed by Roger Waters during his 1984-85 Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking Tour, on the 1987 Radio K.A.O.S. Tour, with Mel Collins as saxophone soloist. All of these performances were perfectly synchronised to the film. These live versions deviated significantly from the album version. It was also played on the 1999–2002 In the Flesh tour (only stills from the animation were used) and appears on the In the Flesh concert DVD and CD. Waters also performed the song on his Us + Them Tour (2017–18), in a version which resembles the album version, in which the music is yet again synchronised perfectly with the screen video.

Studio notes
David Gilmour's quotes on the recording process, taken from the Wish You Were Here songbook.

The only time we've ever used tape speed to help us with vocals was on one line of the Machine song. It was a line I just couldn't reach so we dropped the tape down half a semitone and then dropped the line in on the track.

— David Gilmour, 1975, WYWH Songbook

It's very much a made-up-in-the-studio thing which was all built up from a basic throbbing made on a VCS 3, with a one repeat echo used so that each 'boom' is followed by an echo repeat to give the throb. With a number like that, you don't start off with a regular concept of group structure or anything, and there's no backing track either. Really it is just a studio proposition where we're using tape for its own ends -- a form of collage using sound.

— David Gilmour, 1975, WYWH Songbook

It's very hard to get a full synthesiser tone down on tape. If you listen to them before and after they've been recorded, you'll notice that you've lost a lot. And although I like the sound of a synthesiser through an amp, you still lose something that way as well. Eventually what we decided to do was to use D.I. on synthesiser because that way you don't increase your losses and the final result sounds very much like a synthesiser through a stage amp.

— David Gilmour, 1975, WYWH Songbook"

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Side two

3. "Have a Cigar" (featuring Roy Harper) (Waters) 5:08
Excellent guitar riff and the second major Roger number begins side two. I didn't know for years that Roy Harper sings this. His voice fits right in with the Floyd vibe and it's more or less something Roger could have handled. The music machine theme is continued and this is one of the more famous cuts on the record. Simply one of the best things the group ever cut. Dave gives us another seminal solo too.

""Have a Cigar" is the third track on Pink Floyd's 1975 album Wish You Were Here. It follows "Welcome to the Machine" and on the original LP opened side two. In some markets, the song was issued as a single. The song, written by Waters, is his critique of the rampant greed and cynicism so prevalent in the management of rock groups of that era.

English folk-rock singer Roy Harper provided lead vocals on the song. It was one of only two Pink Floyd recordings with a guest singer on lead vocals, the other being "The Great Gig in the Sky" with Clare Torry.

Composition and recording
The song's music and lyrics were written by Roger Waters in critique of hypocrisy and greed within the music business. Waters has frequently implied it to be a follow-up to "Money" with the lyrics representing the demands of a record executive after the runaway success of The Dark Side of the Moon.

The song is more straightforwardly rock-oriented than the rest of the album, and is the only one on the album that starts abruptly (the other four either fade in or segue from the previous song). It begins with a churning riff played on electric guitar and bass and is filled out with additional guitar, electric piano and synthesizer parts to create a rock texture.

"Have a Cigar" concludes with a guitar solo, which is abruptly interrupted by a synthesizer filter-sweep sound effect as the music reduces in volume to tinny, AM radio-like levels. Finally, the song ends with the sound of a radio being dialled off-station; this effect is used as a transition to the title track, "Wish You Were Here".

Harper's involvement with the recording arose from the dissatisfaction that Waters and David Gilmour felt with their own attempts to sing the lead vocal line. After trying it both separately and as a duet (available on the 2011 Experience and Immersion editions of Wish You Were Here), they turned to Harper, who was recording his album HQ at Abbey Road at the same time as Pink Floyd. Harper agreed to sing the part as a way of repaying a favour to Gilmour, who had earlier provided him with some guitar licks ("...for a price").

In his book Pigs Might Fly: The Inside Story of Pink Floyd, author Mark Blake recounts that Gilmour had been unwilling to sing the lead vocal as he did not share Waters' opinions, as expressed in the lyrics, on the nature of the music industry. Waters has since said he dislikes Harper's version, saying he would have liked it to emerge "more vulnerable and less cynical", adding that Harper's version was too parodic while Gilmour loved Harper's vocal delivery and called it the "perfect version".

Cash Box said that it "sounds to us like a synopsis of some of the fingerpoppers who have probably tried to capitalize off the talents of the Pink Floyd group. We re wrong, no doubt, but the music is the thing here: a cerebral message."

Live
Harper performed the song with the band on one occasion, the group's 1975 Knebworth Festival appearance, during the period Wish You Were Here was being recorded. The song was also performed on the band's 1975 North American tours sandwiched in between the multi-part "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", with Gilmour and Waters singing lead. It was last performed by the band on the 1977 In the Flesh tour, as part of the Wish You Were Here set with Waters on lead vocals, Gilmour on backing vocals and rhythm guitar and Snowy White playing the guitar solos.

Waters has also played the song on his solo tours, except for the 1999–2002 In the Flesh tour, The 2010-2013 The Wall Live Tour and the 2017 Us + Them Tour.

Quotes
A lot of people think I can't sing, including me a bit. I'm very unclear about what singing is. I know I find it hard to pitch, and I know the sound of my voice isn't very good in purely aesthetic terms, and Roy Harper was recording his own album in another EMI studio at the time, he's a mate, and we thought he could probably do a job on it.

— Roger Waters, October 1975, Interviewed by Nick Sedgewick in the Wish You Were Here songbook

"Have a Cigar" was a whole track on which I used the guitar and keyboards at once. There are some extra guitars which I dubbed on later, but I did the basic guitar tracks at one time.

— David Gilmour, October 1975, Interviewed by Gary Cooper in the Wish You Were Here songbook

We did have people who would say to us "Which one's Pink?" and stuff like that. There were an awful lot of people who thought Pink Floyd was the name of the lead singer and that was Pink himself and the band. That's how it all came about, it was quite genuine.

— David Gilmour, December 1992, In the Studio with Redbeard for "Making of Shine On" and "Making of Wish You Were Here"

Cover versions
In 1979, Warner Bros. Records released a 12" single containing a special disco version of "Have a Cigar" by Rosebud, a studio group led by composer Gabriel Yared, from their album Discoballs: A Tribute to Pink Floyd. The song peaked at number 4 on Billboard's Disco Top 80 chart in June 1979. The B-side was a disco version of "Money".
In 1992, the band Primus recorded a cover of the song and included it as the closing track to their Miscellaneous Debris EP. Their version changed the lyrics slightly: "The band is just fantastic, of the town you are the talk/Man, but who the hell's this guy they call Bob Cock?"
Foo Fighters recorded two different cover versions of the song. The first was used as b-side for the "Learn to Fly" CD single, while the second one, with Brian May on lead guitar, first appeared on the Mission: Impossible 2 soundtrack, and later as an Amazon.com bonus track on their 2009 Greatest Hits album and in the 2011 limited-edition vinyl only release Medium Rare, released for Record Store Day. Both versions were sung by drummer Taylor Hawkins.
The album Instead, released in 2007 by Onetwo, contains a cover version of "Have a Cigar".
The main riff of "Have a Cigar" is incorporated into the song "Peruvian Skies" by progressive metal band Dream Theater on their 1998 live album Once in a LIVEtime and on the Live DVD 5 Years in a Livetime. Also, from their album Images and Words (1992), using the main riff from "Have a Cigar" at the beginning of "Metropolis: Part I".
A free CD given with the October 2011 issue of UK music magazine Mojo includes a cover version of "Have a Cigar" by John Foxx and The Maths. This version was later announced by Mojo as 'not the finished version' and the correct version was offered as a free download from the website.
Gov't Mule performed the song as part of their Dark Side of the Mule live album from 2008, which consisted of half original material, half Pink Floyd covers.
Fidlar recorded a cover of the song featuring Dr. Dre and AM in 2018 with slightly modified lyrics (“We’ll buy you a new liver. By the way, which one is FIDLAR/fiddler?”)." - Wiki

4. "Wish You Were Here" (Waters, Gilmour) 5:35
Is this the best song here? Difficult to say, as the last three could easily be contenders for that title. The marriage of words and music is sublime, and David couldn't sing it any better really. Roger's lyrics were really spot on and the band probably never again achieved this level of perfection after 1975, but they came damn close for the rest of the decade in my opinion.

Wikipedia - "In 2021, the song was ranked No. 302 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

The song is popular on Classic rock radio stations. For example, it was voted the #20 best song of all time by listeners of NYC’s Q104.3 in 2020.

Composition
In the original album version, the song segues from "Have a Cigar" as if a radio had been tuned away from one station, through several others (including a radio play and one playing the opening of the finale movement of Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony), and finally to a new station where "Wish You Were Here" is beginning. The radio was recorded from Gilmour's car radio. He performed the intro on a twelve-string guitar, processed to sound like it was playing through an AM radio, and then overdubbed a fuller-sounding acoustic guitar solo. This passage was mixed to sound as though a guitarist were listening to the radio and playing along. As the acoustic part becomes more complex, the 'radio broadcast' fades away and Gilmour's voice enters, while the rest of the band joins in.

The intro riff is repeated several times before Gilmour plays further solos with scat singing accompaniment. A third verse follows, featuring an increasingly expressive vocal from Gilmour and audible backing vocals. At the end of the recorded song, the final solo crossfades with wind sound effects, and finally segues into the second section of the multi-part suite "Shine On You Crazy Diamond".

Lyrically, the song is often considered to be a direct tribute to Syd Barrett. However, on the documentary The Story of Wish You Were Here, Gilmour and Waters separately describe the original concept that differs from this interpretation. Waters, who mainly wrote the lyrics complementing Gilmour's initial riff idea and subsequent joint composition, describes the lyrics as being directed at himself, as his lyrics often are. Being present in one's own life and freeing one's self in order to truly experience life is a main topic in this song. Gilmour, on the other hand, recognizes that he does not ever perform the song without remembering Syd Barrett. Waters later adds that the song is nevertheless open to interpretation.

Both David Gilmour and Roger Waters have praised the song as one of Pink Floyd's finest. Roger Waters has noted that the collaboration between himself and David Gilmour on the song was "really good. All bits of it are really, really good. I'm very happy about it." David Gilmour has playfully called "Wish You Were Here" "a very simple country song" and stated that "because of its resonance and the emotional weight it carries, it is one of our best songs."

Recording
"Wish You Were Here" was recorded at Abbey Road Studios, as part of the sessions for the entire album.

A noted part of the song was a planned contribution by Stéphane Grappelli. A jazz violinist popular at the time and well known for his collaborations with Yehudi Menuhin, both violinists were recording in a downstairs studio at Abbey Road at the time. Gilmour had suggested that there be a little "country fiddle" at the end of the song and invited them to participate. Grappelli duly obliged (Menuhin declined) on arranging a session fee of £300, equivalent to £2,600 in 2022. Ultimately during mixing it was decided to almost remove his contribution, although it can just be heard around 5:21. According to Waters it was decided that it would be insulting to credit Grappelli in the sleeve notes for something so inaudible, although he did receive the agreed-upon fee.

In the introduction, Gilmour can be heard coughing followed by some breathing right before the main guitar comes in. Legend has it that he could not hold in the cough due to his heavy smoking at the time. When he heard the final take, he was so disappointed, he quit smoking cold turkey the following day.

As part of the Why Pink Floyd...? campaign, the Experience and Immersion versions of the Wish You Were Here album include an alternative version of the song where Grappelli's part is heard in the instrumental break after the second verse and throughout the third verse before a considerably extended outro. Other less obvious differences are audible, for example at the section leading into the second verse.

The master tape of the original recording includes guitar solos that were not used in the final mix.

Live performances
"Wish You Were Here" made its stage debut on the band's 1977 tour, which featured a performance of the entire album at every show. It was not played live by the band for nearly ten years after this, yet became a concert staple after its reappearance in 1987, and was performed at nearly all subsequent Pink Floyd concerts. In the original 1977 concert performances, Gilmour would play his Fender Stratocaster instead of acoustic guitar, while Snowy White played a twelve-string Ovation acoustic guitar. At these shows, Nick Mason tuned an actual transistor radio on stage to a local radio station, seguing into the pre-recorded part from the album to start the song and Richard Wright would perform an extended piano coda as the wind effects played. Roger Waters provided backing vocals for the final verse. A live version is included on Pulse, arranged more closely to the original album version, with Gilmour playing a Gibson J-200 acoustic guitar and the twelve-string part supplied by touring guitarist Tim Renwick. When Pink Floyd were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Gilmour and Wright (Mason was in the audience) performed the song with the assistance of their presenter Billy Corgan on rhythm guitar.

Gilmour has made the song a part of most of his tours, and included live versions on his Live in Gdansk and Live at Pompeii albums.

With the exception of The Wall Live, Waters has performed the song on every one of his tours as a solo act; it is one of only a handful of Pink Floyd songs (including "Time" and "Welcome to the Machine") where Waters sings lead vocals formerly sung by Gilmour himself rather than delegating them to a member of his touring band. Live versions were released on Waters' live albums and concert films In the Flesh – Live in 2000 and Roger Waters: Us + Them in 2019.

In 2005, Waters and Eric Clapton performed the song at the Tsunami Aid concert, and in 2005's Live 8, Waters rejoined his former bandmates in London to perform it, along with four other classic Pink Floyd songs. Waters and Gilmour shared lead vocals.

On 13 December 2014 David Gilmour was a guest performer at a concert by the Bombay Bicycle Club at Earls Court Arena, their concert being the final event ever to take place there before its demolition. Band member Jamie MacColl introduced Gilmour, saying; "This man gave me my first guitar and was one of the first people to play this venue and by my count has played here more than 27 times." Gilmour then played with the band on their song "Rinse Me Down" before a performance of "Wish You Were Here".

Other recorded versions by Pink Floyd
"Wish You Were Here" appeared as the fifth track on A Collection of Great Dance Songs in 1981 (with the radio intro following the end of a heavily edited "Shine On You Crazy Diamond") and as the 23rd track on the Echoes compilation in 2001 (with the radio intro following "Arnold Layne", and at the end crossfading with "Jugband Blues").

A live recording included on the 1995 live album Pulse was issued as a single/EP. Its intro replicates the sound of the original, semi-ambient intro. The cover of the EP features two men whose faces are distorted by fish bowls, referring to the line "We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year".

The Experience edition of Wish You Were Here from the 2011 Why Pink Floyd...? re-release campaign includes a version of "Wish You Were Here" featuring Stéphane Grappelli on violin much more prominently. The recording of Grappelli, which Nick Mason had thought he might have recorded over in subsequent sessions for "Wish You Were Here", was uncovered in the EMI vaults during re-mastering work for the Why Pink Floyd...? campaign. Mason discussed the alternative version on the BBC Radio 4 Front Row programme, and revealed that Yehudi Menuhin, who was recording with Grappelli in Abbey Road's Studio Two, was also invited to play on "Wish You Were Here" but declined, as he was not as comfortable as Grappelli at improvising."

5. "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" (Parts VI–IX) (Wright, Gilmour, Waters) (Parts VI–VIII) (Wright) (Part IX) 12:28
And here we have the second half of a song which was originally supposed to take up an entire LP side like "Atom Heart Mother" or "Echoes." I have to say I like the way the album splits up the track and puts other songs in the middle. I feel this approach better serves the listening experience. I probably like the first half better, but this is still superb music and I have no complaints regarding this album.

"Parts VI–IX
Part VI (Wright, Waters, Gilmour; from 0:00 to 4:39) begins with a howling wind from the preceding song "Wish You Were Here". As the wind fades away, Gilmour comes in on the bass guitar. Waters adds another bass with a continuing riff pattern. Then Wright comes in playing a Solina String Ensemble Synthesizer and after a few measures, several rhythm guitar parts (Gilmour played the power chord rhythm part using his black Fender Stratocaster before switching to lap steel guitar for the solo in live performances from 1974–77. Snowy White did the rhythm guitar parts on this track on the band's 1977 "In the Flesh" tour) and drums come in, as well as a Minimoog synthesizer to play the opening solo. At the two-minute mark, Wright's Minimoog and Gilmour's lap steel guitar play notes in unison before Gilmour does a lap steel guitar solo (the lap steel had open G tuning with the high D string tuned to E) with some counterpointing from Wright's synthesizers. It lasts for about three minutes (four when played on the band's In the Flesh tour) and Gilmour played each section an octave higher than the previous one. The highest note he hit on the lap steel/slide solo was a B♭6, followed by a reprise of the guitar solo from Part IV (which was played by White live on Pink Floyd's 1977 tour so Gilmour could switch back to his Fender Stratocaster). The song then switches time signatures to 6/8 (found in Parts II–V), giving the appearance of a slower tempo and reintroducing the vocals.

Part VII (Gilmour, Wright, Waters; from 4:39 to 5:49) contains the vocals, in a similar vein to Part IV though half the length, before segueing into Part VIII. Waters again sings the lead vocals with Gilmour, Wright, Fields and Williams providing backing vocals.

Part VIII (Gilmour, Wright, Waters; from 5:49 to 9:17) brings in Waters to play a second electric guitar for a high-noted sound riff while Gilmour plays the arpeggio riff that bridges Parts VII and VIII. A solid progression of funk in 4/4 plays for about two minutes before very slowly fading out as a single sustained keyboard note fades in around the nine-minute mark. Throughout this section, Wright's keyboards dominate, with the use of a Minimoog synthesizer, and a Hohner Clavinet. Originally the section clocked in at 8 minutes before it was edited down to three minutes on the final version (the unedited Part 8 without the electric piano and Minimoog overdubs surfaced on a bootleg called The Extraction Tapes). When performed on the In the Flesh tour in 1977, the section would be extended to between 5 and 10 minutes as it would feature guitar solos from Gilmour (which would vary from funky power chords to a proper solo as the Animals tour progressed) and Snowy White. In addition to their guitar solos, there was also occasional trading of leads from Gilmour and White instead of the keyboard sounds as heard on record.

Part IX (Wright, from 9:17 to 12:28) is played in 4/4 time. Gilmour described Part IX in an interview as "a slow 4/4 funeral march... the parting musical eulogy to Syd". Again, Wright's keyboards dominate, with little guitar input from Gilmour. Mason's drums play for much of this part, and the keyboards play for the final minute before fading out. On the fade-out, a short keyboard part of the melody of "See Emily Play" (at 12:07), one of Barrett's signature Pink Floyd songs, can be heard. Part IX, and the album, ends in G major, a Picardy third. When performed early on the Animals tour, the part begins with the piano (as heard on record) then the synth solo is played (as on record) by Dick Parry with some slide guitar accompaniment by Snowy White would then change to half synthesizer/half harmony lead guitar solo for the remainder of European leg and first US leg. For the final US leg, after the piano began it was a bluesy guitar solo from Gilmour then harmony guitars from Gilmour and White (Gilmour playing the highest parts) and then ending like on record. This was the final solo writing credit Wright would receive in Pink Floyd during his lifetime, as well as his last writing credit of any kind until The Division Bell in 1994.

Live performances
The song series was first performed as "Shine On", during the band's French tour in June 1974. It was introduced as "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" on the British tour in November 1974. The set was originally performed as one whole suite with some of the parts differing from the album versions, and samplings of Barrett's solo song "Dark Globe" during the opening of the performance. The version from the British tour was included on the 2011 Experience and Immersion editions of Wish You Were Here. The multi-part version of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" was first performed on the band's 1975 North American tour with "Have a Cigar" in between the two halves of the piece. The 1975 versions were close to the final versions, except parts one and nine were still not refined yet. The band performed the whole nine-part "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" as part of the Wish You Were Here portion of their 1977 In the Flesh Tour, with extra musicians White on guitar and backing vocals and Parry on saxophones.

Parts I–V became a staple of Floyd's performances from 1987 to 1994. The track opened shows for most of the A Momentary Lapse of Reason tour of 1987–89 and the tour closing performance at Knebworth in 1990 with Candy Dulfer on saxophone. The first eleven performances had "Echoes" as the show opener before the band proceeded to play all of A Momentary Lapse of Reason in the rest of the first half in a slightly different sequence to the album. A condensed edition of the track (without the Gilmour solo in Part III) would then open the second half of the shows on the group's 1994 The Division Bell tour, except in shows where all of The Dark Side of the Moon was performed, in which case "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" opened the first half of the concert. In the last month and a half of the tour, the band added part VII to Parts I–V (as documented on the live album Pulse). A similar version was also played during David Gilmour's Rattle That Lock Tour in 2015 with the according screen film on display.

Gilmour performed almost the whole suite (save part IX) at his 2001 and 2002 semi-unplugged concerts (documented on his 2002 David Gilmour in Concert DVD). "There was," he said, "a moment of thinking, 'Shall I attempt an acoustic guitar version of the long, synthesised opening?' It came to me one day how I could do it, and it worked out not too badly."

Gilmour performed parts I–II and IV–V (in a new arrangement) on his 2006 On an Island solo tour. Part III was omitted and Parts I and II were simplified and more guitar-focused. Gilmour performed Parts I–V on his Live in Gdańsk album on disc two and on the DVD in the four-disc edition of the album. The five-disc edition and the online downloads available in the three and four-disc editions include Parts I–V recorded in Venice and Vienne in 2006. In many of his performances, solo and with Pink Floyd, Gilmour alters the vocal melody to avoid the higher notes that were originally sung by Waters.

Waters has also performed the epic on his 1999 and 2000 tours documented on his In the Flesh – Live album and DVD which was a condensed parts I, II, IV, VI, VII, and IX. Part VI on these performances had a lap steel solo from Jon Carin then guitar solos from Doyle Bramhall II and White. Then on Waters' 2002 tour, he played all nine parts like on record (although part VIII was shortened). An abridged version of parts I–V was performed on Waters' 2006–07 The Dark Side of the Moon Live tour, Waters also performed the song on the 2016 concerts, including the free concert of the Mexico City's Zócalo, and the concert at the Desert Trip festival; besides the parts VI–IX, Waters performed all the Wish You Were Here album live in order.

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Release
The album was released on 12 September 1975 in the UK, and on the following day in the US. It was Pink Floyd's first album with Columbia Records, an affiliate of CBS; the band and their manager Steve O'Rourke had been dissatisfied with the efforts of EMI's US label Capitol Records. The band remained with EMI's Harvest Records in Europe.

In Britain, with 250,000 advance sales, the album debuted at number three and reached number one the following week. Demand was such that EMI informed retailers that only 50 per cent of their orders would be fulfilled.With 900,000 advance orders (the largest for any Columbia release) it reached number one on the US Billboard chart in its second week. Wish You Were Here was Pink Floyd's fastest-selling album ever. The album was certified Silver and Gold (60,000 and 100,000 sales respectively) in the UK on 1 August 1975, and Gold in the US on 17 September 1975. It was certified six times platinum on 16 May 1997, and by 2004 had sold an estimated 20 million copies worldwide."Have a Cigar" was chosen by Columbia as their first single, with "Welcome to the Machine" on the B-side in the US. The album was a commercial hit in Europe, topping Dutch, English and Spanish charts – in Spain, the album remained at number one for 20 weeks.

Critical Reception
On release, the album received mixed reviews. Ben Edmunds wrote in Rolling Stone that the band's "lackadaisical demeanor" leaves the subject of Barrett "unrealised; they give such a matter-of-fact reading of the goddamn thing that they might as well be singing about Roger Waters's brother-in-law getting a parking ticket." Edmunds concluded the band is "devoid" of the "sincere passion for their 'art'" that contemporary space rock acts purportedly have. Melody Maker's reviewer wrote: "From whichever direction one approaches Wish You Were Here, it still sounds unconvincing in its ponderous sincerity and displays a critical lack of imagination in all departments." A positive review came from Robert Christgau in The Village Voice: "The music is not only simple and attractive, with the synthesizer used mostly for texture and the guitar breaks for comment, but it actually achieves some of the symphonic dignity (and cross-referencing) that The Dark Side of the Moon simulated so ponderously." Years later, he reflected further on the record: "My favorite Pink Floyd album has always been Wish You Were Here, and you know why? It has soul, that's why – it's Roger Waters's lament for Syd, not my idea of a tragic hero but as long as he's Roger's that doesn't matter."

Wish You Were Here has since been frequently regarded as one of the greatest albums of all time, and is generally ranked as one of the greatest progressive rock albums. According to Acclaimed Music it is the 212th most celebrated album in popular music history. In 2003, it was ranked at number 209 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, ranked at number 211 in a 2012 revised list, and ranked at number 264 in a 2020 revised list. In 2015, it was chosen as the fourth-greatest progressive rock album by Rolling Stone. In 2014, British rock magazine Louder ranked it as the seventh-greatest progressive rock album of all time. In 1998, Q readers voted Wish You Were Here the 34th-greatest album of all time. In 2000, the same magazine placed it at number 43 in its list of the 100 Greatest British Albums Ever. In 2000 it was voted number 38 in Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums. In 2007, one of Germany's largest public radio stations, WDR 2, asked its listeners to vote for the 200 best albums of all time. Wish You Were Here was voted number one. In 2004, Wish You Were Here was ranked number 36 on Pitchfork Media's list of the Top 100 albums of the 1970s. IGN rated Wish You Were Here as the eighth-greatest classic rock album, and Ultimate Classic Rock placed Wish You Were Here second best in its list of "Worst to Best Pink Floyd Albums".

Despite the problems during production, the album remained Wright's favourite: "It's an album I can listen to for pleasure, and there aren't many Floyd albums that I can." Gilmour shares this view: "I for one would have to say that it is my favourite album, the Wish You Were Here album. The end result of all that, whatever it was, definitely has left me an album I can live with very very happily. I like it very much."

Reissues and remastering
Wish You Were Here has been remastered and re-released on several formats. In the UK and US the album was re-issued in quadraphonic using the SQ format in 1976, and in 1980 a special Hi-Fi Today audiophile print was released in the UK. It was released on CD in Japan in October 1982, in the US in 1983, and in the UK in 1985, and again as a remastered CD with new artwork in 1994. In the US, Columbia's CBS Mastersound label released a half-speed mastered audiophile LP in 1981, and in 1994 Sony Mastersound released a 24-carat gold-plated CD, remastered using Super Bit Mapping, with the original artwork from the LP in both longbox and jewel case forms, the latter with a cardboard slipcover.The album was included as part of the box set Shine On,and five years later Columbia Records released an updated remastered CD, 17 seconds longer than the EMI remasters from 1994, giving a running time of 44:28.

The label was a recreation of the original machine handshake logo, with a black and blue background. The album was subsequently re-released in 2000 for its 25th anniversary, on the Capitol Records label in the US. The album was re-released and remixed in 2011 in multiple editions as part of the Why Pink Floyd...? reissue campaign. The Wish You Were Here – Immersion Box Set includes the new stereo digital remaster (2011) by James Guthrie on CD, an unreleased 5.1 Surround Mix (2009) by James Guthrie on DVD and Blu-ray, a Quad Mix (which had been released only on vinyl LP and 8-track tape) on DVD, as well as the original stereo mix (1975) on DVD and Blu-ray. This campaign also featured the 2011 stereo remaster on 180g heavyweight vinyl, as well as the 2011 stereo remaster and the 5.1 surround sound mix (2009) as a hybrid Super Audio CD (SACD). In 2016, the 180g vinyl was re-released on the band's own Pink Floyd Records label (with distribution by Warner Music and Sony Music) this time remastered by James Guthrie, Joel Plante and Bernie Grundman." - Wiki

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robertff
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Re: Pink Floyd

Postby robertff » 13 Apr 2022, 07:20

Wish You Were Here, their last truly great album - it was a gradual drop off after this as far as I was concerned with Waters at the helm. Animals is fine but the two after that are dull and depressing. Preferred them once he had gone.



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ConnyOlivetti
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Re: Pink Floyd

Postby ConnyOlivetti » 13 Apr 2022, 08:16

Wish You Were Here, probably their best album.
Like with DsotM, rarely play it these days.
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Brickyard Jack
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Re: Pink Floyd

Postby Brickyard Jack » 13 Apr 2022, 16:38

These reviews could be really good if you just put some effort in!

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mudshark
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Re: Pink Floyd

Postby mudshark » 14 Apr 2022, 17:23

Agree with Conny, WYWH is hands down their best album.
Shine,,,, with Echoes, are the 2 songs I'll never tire of.
There's a big difference between kneeling down and bending over

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Re: Pink Floyd

Postby C » 15 Apr 2022, 17:19

I know it's my loss but I cannot play either Dark Side or Wish You anymore.

I haven't for decades




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Re: Pink Floyd

Postby C » 15 Apr 2022, 17:20

1. Atom Heart Mother
2. A Saucerful
3. Meddle




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Lord Rother wrote:And there was me thinking you'd say "Fair enough, you have a point Bob".

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Re: Pink Floyd

Postby mudshark » 15 Apr 2022, 19:20

C, why can't you turn to the Dark Side any longer?
There's a big difference between kneeling down and bending over

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Matt Wilson
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Re: Pink Floyd

Postby Matt Wilson » 18 Apr 2022, 17:17

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Animals 1977
When I was a young Floydian way back when, this was the runt of the classic '71 - '79 litter, but subsequent decades have shown it to be yet another fine LP every bit as worthy as the surrounding records. The tracks were too long to be played on the radio, which perhaps swayed my opinion with regards to its merits. This is where Roger really takes over both in terms of the songwriting and even the singing. Previous PF albums were more democratic in nature. Not since Syd's dominance on Piper had an LP bearing the Pink Floyd name been so controlled by one member. Naturally, Waters fan boys love this album, and I gotta admit - so do I!

Wiki: "Animals is the tenth studio album by the English rock band Pink Floyd, released on 23 January 1977 through Harvest and Columbia Records. It was recorded at the band's Britannia Row Studios in London throughout 1976, and was produced by the band. The album continues the longform compositions that made up their previous works, including Wish You Were Here (1975). The album received positive reviews from critics and was commercially successful, reaching No. 2 in the UK and No. 3 in the US.

Animals is both a progressive rock album and a concept album, focusing on the social-political conditions of mid-1970s Britain, and was a change from the style of their earlier work. Tension within the band during production culminated in keyboardist Richard Wright being fired two years later. The album's cover shows an inflatable pig floating between two chimneys of the Battersea Power Station, conceived by the band's bassist and lead songwriter Roger Waters, and was designed by long-time collaborator Storm Thorgerson. The band released no singles from the record but promoted it through the In the Flesh tour. Waters' agitation with audiences during this tour inspired their next record, The Wall.

Recording
In 1975, Pink Floyd bought a three-story block of church halls at 35 Britannia Row in Islington, north London. Their deal with Harvest Records' parent company EMI for unlimited studio time in return for a reduced percentage of sales had expired, and they converted the building into a recording studio and storage facility. Its construction took up most of 1975, and in April 1976 the band started work on their tenth studio album, Animals, at the new facility.

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Animals was engineered by a previous Floyd collaborator, Brian Humphries, and recording took place at Britannia Row from April to December 1976, continuing into early 1977. "Raving and Drooling" and "You've Got to Be Crazy", two songs previously performed live and considered for Wish You Were Here, reappeared as "Sheep" and "Dogs" respectively. They were reworked to fit the new concept, and separated by a Waters-penned composition, "Pigs (Three Different Ones)". The only other new composition, "Pigs On The Wing" (split into two parts to start and end the album), contains references to Waters' private life; his new romantic interest was Carolyne Anne Christie (married to Rock Scully, manager of the Grateful Dead). With the exception of "Dogs" (co-written by David Gilmour) the album's five tracks were written by Waters. Gilmour was distracted by the birth of his first child, and contributed little else towards the songwriting of the album. Similarly, neither Mason nor Wright contributed as much as they had on previous albums, and Animals was the first Pink Floyd album not to contain a composer's credit for Wright.

The band had discussed employing another guitarist for future tours, and Snowy White was therefore invited into the studio. When Waters and Mason inadvertently erased one of Gilmour's completed guitar solos, White was asked to record a solo on "Pigs on the Wing". Although his performance was omitted from the vinyl release, it was included on the 8-track cartridge version. White later performed on the Animals tour. Mason recalled that he enjoyed working on Animals more than he had on Wish You Were Here.

Concept
Loosely based on George Orwell's political fable Animal Farm, the album's lyrics describe various classes in society as different kinds of animals: the predatory dogs, the despotic ruthless pigs, and the "mindless and unquestioning” herd of sheep. Whereas the novella focuses on Stalinism, the album is a critique of capitalism and differs again in that the sheep eventually rise up to overpower the dogs. The album was developed from a collection of unrelated songs into a concept which, in the words of author Glenn Povey, "described the apparent social and moral decay of society, likening the human condition to that of mere animals".

Apart from its critique of capitalist society, the album is also a part response to the punk rock movement, which grew in popularity as a nihilistic statement against the prevailing social and political conditions, and also a reaction to the general complacency and nostalgia that appeared to surround rock music. Pink Floyd were an obvious target for punk musicians, notably Johnny Rotten of The Sex Pistols, who wore a Pink Floyd T-shirt on which the words "I hate" had been written in ink. Rotten has constantly said it was done for a laugh (he was a fan of several progressive rock bands of the era, including Magma and Van Der Graaf Generator). Drummer Nick Mason later stated that he welcomed the "Punk Rock insurrection" and viewed it as a welcome return to the underground scene from which Pink Floyd originated. In 1977, he produced The Damned's second album, Music for Pleasure, at Britannia Row, after they failed to entice the retired Syd Barrett to the role.

In his 2008 book Comfortably Numb, author Mark Blake argues that "Dogs" contains some of David Gilmour's finest work; although the guitarist sings only one lead vocal, his performance is "explosive". The song also contains notable contributions from Wright, which echo the synthesizer sounds used on the band's previous album, Wish You Were Here.

"Pigs (Three Different Ones)" is audibly similar to "Have a Cigar", with bluesy guitar fills and elaborate bass lines. Of the song's three pigs, the only one directly identified is morality campaigner Mary Whitehouse, who amongst other things is described as a "house-proud town mouse".

"Sheep" contains a modified version of Psalm 23, which continues the traditional "The Lord is my shepherd" with words like "he maketh me to hang on hooks in high places and converteth me to lamb cutlets". Towards the end of the song, the eponymous sheep rise up and kill the dogs, and later retire back to their homes. Wright played the song's introduction unaccompanied on the electric piano, but did not receive a writing credit for it.

The album is book-ended by each half of "Pigs on the Wing", a simple love song in which a glimmer of hope is offered despite the anger expressed in the album's other three songs. Described by author Andy Mabbett as "[sitting] in stark contrast to the heavyweight material between them", the two halves of the song were heavily influenced by Waters' relationship with his then wife.

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Packaging
Once the album was complete, work began on its cover. Hipgnosis, designer of the band's previous album covers, offered three ideas, one of which was a small child entering his parents' bedroom to find them having sex: "copulating, like animals!" The final concept was, unusually, designed by Waters. At the time he lived near Clapham Common, and regularly drove past Battersea Power Station, which was by then approaching the end of its useful life. A view of the building was chosen for the cover image, and the band commissioned German company Ballon Fabrik (who had previously constructed Zeppelin airships) and Australian artist Jeffrey Shaw to build a 12-metre (40 ft) porcine balloon (known as Algie). The balloon was inflated with helium and maneuvered into position on 2 December 1976, with a marksman ready to fire if it escaped. Inclement weather delayed work, and the band's manager Steve O'Rourke neglected to book the marksman for a second day; the balloon broke free of its moorings and disappeared from view. The pig flew over Heathrow, resulting in panic and cancelled flights; pilots also spotted the pig in the air. It eventually landed in Kent and was recovered by a local farmer, who was apparently furious that it had scared his cows. The balloon was recovered and filming continued for a third day, but as the early photographs of the power station were considered better, the image of the pig was later superimposed onto one of those.

During the Isles of Wonder short film shot by Danny Boyle and shown as part of the Opening Ceremonies of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, the camera zooms down the length of the River Thames, from a small spring in the countryside all the way to the Olympic venue. During the fly-by, a pig can be seen floating above Battersea Power Station.

The album's theme continues onto the record's picture labels. Side one's label shows a fisheye lens view of a dog and the English countryside, and side two features a pig and sheep, in the same setting. Mason's handwriting is used as a typeface throughout the packaging. The gatefold features monochrome photographs of the dereliction around the power station.

Tour
The album became the subject material for the band's In the Flesh Tour, which began in Dortmund on the same day the album was released. The tour continued through continental Europe in February, the UK in March, the United States for three weeks in April and May, and another three weeks in the United States in June and July. Algie became the inspiration for a number of pig themes used throughout. An inflatable pig was floated over the audience, and during each performance was replaced with a cheaper, but explosive version. On one occasion the mild propane gas was replaced with an oxygen-acetylene mixture, producing a massive (and dangerous) explosion. German promoter Marcel Avram presented the band with a piglet in Munich, only for it to leave a trail of broken mirrors and excrement across its mirrored hotel room, leaving manager O'Rourke to deal with the resulting fallout.

The band was augmented by familiar figures such as Dick Parry and Snowy White, but relations within the band became fraught. Waters took to arriving at the venues alone, departing as soon as each performance was over. On one occasion, Wright flew back to England, threatening to leave the band. The size of the venues was also an issue; in Chicago, the promoters claimed to have sold out the 67,000 person regular capacity of the Soldier Field stadium (after which ticket sales should have been ended), but Waters and O'Rourke were suspicious. They hired a helicopter, photographer and attorney, and discovered that the actual attendance was 95,000; a shortfall to the band of $640,000. The end of the tour was a low point for Gilmour, who felt that the band had by now achieved the success the members had originally sought, and that there was nothing else they could look forward to. In July 1977 – on the final date at the Montreal Olympic Stadium – a small group of noisy and excited fans in the front row of the audience irritated Waters to such an extent that he spat at one of them. He was not the only person who felt depressed about playing to such large audiences, as Gilmour refused to join his bandmates for their third encore. Waters later spoke with producer Bob Ezrin and told him of his sense of alienation on the tour, and how he sometimes felt like building a wall to separate himself from the audience. The spitting incident would later form the basis of a new concept, which would eventually become one of the band's most successful album releases, The Wall."

Pink Floyd
David Gilmour – lead vocals (2), lead guitar (2–4), bass guitar (3, 4), acoustic guitar (2), talk box (3)
Roger Waters – lead vocals (all tracks), harmony vocals (2, 3), acoustic guitar (1, 5), rhythm guitar (3, 4), bass guitar (2), tape effects (3, 4), vocoder (2–4), sleeve concept
Nick Mason – drums, percussion (2–4), tape effects (4), graphics
Richard Wright – Hammond organ (2–4), ARP string synthesizer (2–4), Fender Rhodes (2, 4), Minimoog (2, 4), Farfisa organ (2), piano (3), clavinet (3), EMS VCS 3 (4)

Additional musicians
Snowy White – guitar solo (on 8-track version of "Pigs on the Wing")

All tracks written and all lead vocals performed by Roger Waters, except where noted.

Side one

1. "Pigs on the Wing (Part One)" 1:24
Since there were no 45s released from this record, one would think something this short would have received radio exposure at the time, but I don't believe I ever heard it. Much like they broke up "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" on Wish You Were Here, they do the same thing here with "Pigs on the Wing," making it both start and end the album. Pleasant little ditties offering a respite from the unrelenting Waters gloom and doom which forms the meat of the LP. As had been noted, Snowy White played the solo on the eight-track version which wasn't broken up like on the album. Since the other Floyd members don't appear on this track, it's a Roger solo number basically.

""Pigs on the Wing" is a two-part song by English rock band Pink Floyd from their 1977 concept album Animals, opening and closing the album. According to various interviews, it was written by Roger Waters as a declaration of love to his new wife Carolyne Christie. The song is significantly different from the other three songs on the album, "Dogs," "Pigs" and "Sheep," in that the other songs are dark, whereas this one is lighter-themed, as well as also being much shorter in duration, with each part at under a minute and a half while the others are all at least 10 minutes in length.

The title is a reference to the figure of speech "when pigs fly" and an image of a flying pig appears on the album cover and was subsequently used by Pink Floyd in their live concerts.

Composition
The song is divided into two parts, which are the first and last tracks of the album. Both are in stark contrast to the album's middle three songs. Without the inclusion of this track on Animals, Waters thought the album "would have just been a kind of scream of rage."

According to Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason, and confirmed by Waters, it is a love song directed towards Waters' new wife at the time, Carolyne. She was really the only one of Waters' friends Mason had ever met who could hold her own in an argument with Waters. According to Mason, someone had to be very good with semantics to win an argument against Waters. Waters wrote the song because that is what he had been looking for all along: someone who could stand up to him, an equal.

The songs are constructed simply and feature no instrumentation besides a strummed acoustic guitar played by Waters.

A special version of the song was made for the 8-track cartridge release. The 8-track format featured a loop-play function where the end of the recording looped back to the beginning, allowing an album to play continuously without having to turn over the cartridge. To exploit this feature, the special 8-track version of the song linked part 2 and part 1 with a guitar solo, performed by Snowy White, who would later play the guitar solo in live performances on the 1977 In the Flesh Tour. The complete version of the song, including the instrumental bridge, was re-released on White's Goldtop compilation album in 1995.

Reception
In a review for Animals, Brice Ezell of Consequence of Sound described "Pigs on the Wing (Part One)" as "a brief acoustic framing device. Its major key signature is a clear contrast to the frequently sinister riffs that form the landscape of "Dogs," "Pigs (Three Different Ones)" and "Sheep." " Ezell would describe "Part Two" as "a reminder that humans find ways to stick together even amidst the turmoil of a cravenly capitalist world." - Wikipedia

2. "Dogs" (David Gilmour, Waters) 17:04
The longest cut since "Echoes" is a collaboration between Roger and Dave which stands as perhaps the highlight of the project. Both of them sing as well and this is the major contribution Gilmour made to the record. Great guitar solo too. All the Orwellian themes are present as Waters lays his worldview out in detail. I'm a little less burned out on this track than "Echoes," so it might be my current fave long Floyd cut.

Wiki - "This song was one of several to be considered for the band's 2001 compilation album Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd.

Musical components
The music was written in 1974 by David Gilmour and Roger Waters, with lyrics by Waters, and originally titled "You've Got to Be Crazy" and was part of the Wish You Were Here setlist. Waters modified the lyrics in some parts, transposed the key to suit both Gilmour's and his vocals, and re-titled it "Dogs". The version on Animals is 17 minutes long.

The main theme features what were, for Pink Floyd, rather unusual chords. In the final version's key of D minor, the chords are D minor ninth, E♭maj7sus2/B♭, Asus2sus4, and A♭sus2(♯11). All these chords contain the tonic of the song, D—even as a tritone, as is the case in the fourth chord.

The song fades in with an acoustic guitar in D tuning strumming the chords with a lively, syncopated rhythm, with a droning Farfisa organ playing chord tones (A, B♭, A, and A♭, respectively). After the first sixteen-bar progression, Gilmour begins the vocal. For the third repetition, bass guitar, Hammond organ, drums and lead guitar (playing a subtle drone of D) enter. After this repetition comes the first of several guitar solos, played by Gilmour on a Fender Telecaster rather than his usual Fender Stratocaster. Next is another verse of lyrics, followed by a keyboard solo. Finally, after six repetitions of the main theme, the tempo is cut in half, dramatically slower, a new chord progression is introduced, resolving gradually to the relative major, F major, with two lead guitars loudly playing a slow harmonized melody, and a quieter third guitar adding decorative string bends, with heavy use of reverb and echo.

The song is then stripped back down to acoustic guitar, droning on the Dm9 chord, with the bass softly striking E, the ninth of the chord, in the same range as the guitar's lowest note, D. Another slash chord movement follows, B♭ to C/B♭, followed by the key's dominant, A major, with the minor sixth heard first at the top of the chord, in an A(add♭6), and later, as its bass note (in a progression of A, A/F, A/E, to D minor). After another guitar solo over the new progression, Gilmour sings a melismatic vocal with overdubbed harmonies from Richard Wright, ending with the lyric "So have a good drown/As you go down all alone/Dragged down by the stone", as the dissonant A/F leads back to Dm9.

The middle section, in a slow, metronomic 6/4 time, is built upon several layers of synthesizers, sustaining the four chords of the main theme, with the sound of dogs barking processed through a vocoder and played as an instrument. (One dog moan is excerpted from the group's earlier recording "Seamus".) Gilmour's last word, "stone", echoes slowly for many measures, gradually fading out (it reappears later in the instrumental section of "Sheep"). There are no guitars in this section. Gradually, a synthesizer solo emerges, and as it reaches its climax, the acoustic guitar returns, at the original tempo, once again lively and syncopated.

The formula of the first section is followed, but this time with Waters singing the lead. A third guitar solo ends in three-part harmony, playing descending augmented triads, leading to Gilmour's slow, harmonized guitar melody in F major, in a section of music indistinguishable from its first appearance in the song. This leads to the final verse, with Waters singing a new, repeating melody for the sixteen lines beginning "Who was...". Originally sung over the tonic only, in the final recording the multiple harmonized guitars alternate between D minor and C major, while the bass further extends the harmony with a descending F, E, D, and C, creating the sense of an F sixth chord followed by C/E. Originally, Waters' lyrics ("Who was born in a house full of pain", etc.) were echoed by Gilmour and Wright in a round style, but in the final recording only the last few are repeated, and done so by Waters himself, using tape delay. This section resolves first to B♭, then to A, before concluding with the A, F, E bass movement to a sustained Dm9, as the lyrics again end with "dragged down by the stone".

"Dogs" is the only song on Animals in which Gilmour sings a lead part or receives a co-writing credit. It was also Wright's last vocal contribution before leaving the band in 1979.

Concept
Fitting into the album's Orwellian concept of comparing human behaviour to various animals, "Dogs" concentrates on the aggressive, ruthlessly competitive world of business, describing a high-powered businessman. The first two verses detail his predatory nature — outwardly charming and respectable with his "club tie and a firm handshake, a certain look in the eye and an easy smile", while behind this facade he lies waiting "to pick out the easy meat...to strike when the moment is right", and to stab those who trust him in the back. Subsequent verses portray the emptiness of his existence catching up to him as he grows older, retiring to the south rich but unloved: "just another sad old man, all alone and dying of cancer", and drowning under the weight of a metaphorical stone.

The final verse explores a number of aspects of business life and how it compares to dogs, for example taking chances and being "trained not to spit in the fan", losing their individuality ("broken by trained personnel"), obeying their superiors ("fitted with collar and chain"), being rewarded for good behaviour ("given a pat on the back"), working harder than the other workers ("breaking away from the pack") and getting to know everyone but spending less time with family ("only a stranger at home"). Recommended by a friend of Waters named Joel Eaves, this line was personal to him as he was split from his family at infancy, being "broken away", as he put it. He later joined the Air Force squadron known as "Wolfpack", which directly inspired the implementation of this line. Every line of this verse begins with the words "Who was", which prompted comparison to Allen Ginsberg's poem "Howl". However, Waters has denied the Ginsberg poem was any influence on his lyrics. Instead, these lines can be seen as subordinate clauses to the lyric line that precedes them ("And you believe at heart everyone's a killer/Who was born in a house full of pain/Who was [etc.]").

Early versions
During 1974 performances of "You've Got to Be Crazy", which can be heard on the Immersion Box Set and the Experience version of Wish You Were Here, the band performed the song faster than it would eventually become, and in its original key of E minor, before they started using D tuning on their guitars, for a concert pitch of D minor. The lyrics, though different, were thematically similar to the final version of "Dogs". The lyrics were modified by the time the song was played live in 1975, and then the lyrics changed again when recording Animals.

Once in a while I would find something uncomfortable to sing. The first lot Roger wrote for "Dogs" when it was called "You Gotta Be Crazy", were just too many words to sing. ... "Dogs" had so many words, I physically couldn't get them in. [We] just cut out two-thirds of his words, to make it possible rather than impossible.

- David Gilmour

Equally impossible was for Gilmour or Waters to sing the song's highest part, "dragged down by the stone", in the original key, which would begin on the first B above middle C. As any recording of the early performances will attest, neither singer could quite reach and sustain it, even when attempting it together. The line appears twice, as the climax to each singer's performance. It was likely for the sake of achieving high-quality lead vocals, specifically on this line, that they lowered the key before committing the song to record (Waters, however, would go on to reach even higher notes on songs like "Hey You", "Every Stranger's Eyes" and "One of My Turns").

The bootleg release From Abbey Road to Britannia Row: The Extraction Tapes (2014) includes a work-in-progress studio version of "Dogs." This version is closer musically to the official album version than the earlier "You've Got to Be Crazy" live versions, but it has distinct differences. Unlike the album version, it is sung almost entirely by Waters; Gilmour sings only the middle section ("And when you lose control..."). The synthesizer solo (with barking dog effects) is missing (accounting for the track's duration of just under 14 minutes, in contrast to the 17-minute version on Animals), and some of the lyrics are different, most notably in the closing "Who was..." verse.

Live versions
The song was performed nightly during the 1977 tour. Gilmour would sing all but the last section and played his acoustic parts on electric guitar, making it easy to switch between lead and rhythm with his Telecaster played in D standard tuning. Some solos were different from the studio version and before the final guitar solo Gilmour would perform an extra solo. Waters would sing the "who was born in a house full of pain" section. Then for the last part, Waters would sing "breaking away from the pack" with Gilmour and Wright singing a round (similarly to performances on the 1974/75 Gotta Be Crazy tour) and both Gilmour and Waters singing the final "who was dragged down by the stone".

Waters regularly performed the song on his In the Flesh Tour, with Jon Carin and Doyle Bramhall II replacing Gilmour on vocals and guitars, respectively. Waters also performed the song to open the second set of his Us + Them Tour shows, with Dave Kilminster and Jonathan Wilson on guitars, and the latter on vocals. However, despite Wilson replacing Gilmour's role on vocals during this tour, the sample of Gilmour's voice echoing the word "stone" from the original studio recording was utilized on a backing track during the middle section.

Cover versions
Les Claypool's Frog Brigade performed and released a live version of "Dogs" on the album Live Frogs Set 2 (2001). The entire album is a complete performance of Pink Floyd's Animals album, recorded in October 2000."

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Side two

3. "Pigs (Three Different Ones)"
11:28
Side two is entirely a Roger Waters affair, with the band functioning as backup musicians. I think this is the exact moment when he began to think of himself as the leader of the group, the one whose opinions were more important than anyone else's. Listen to the wonderful Rick Wright introduction to this number and ask yourself why he wasn't given any songwriting credit on the record. This is another great track and I get the vocal melody stuck in my head sometimes for days. The idea that Roger can't really sing has some merit, but he acquits himself fine here, and his future speak/sing style hasn't really taken effect yet. I think one of the chief pleasures of Animals is that these songs don't suffer from overexposure.

"In the album's three parts, "Dogs", "Pigs" and "Sheep", pigs represent the people whom Roger Waters considers to be at the top of the social ladder, the ones with wealth and power; they also manipulate the rest of society and encourage them to be viciously competitive and cut-throat, so the pigs can remain powerful.

Summary
The song's three verses each present a different "pig", the identities of which remain a subject of speculation because only the third verse clearly identifies its subject as being morality campaigner Mary Whitehouse, who is described as a "house proud town mouse" who has to "keep it all on the inside." In 1992, on the Westwood One radio special Pink Floyd: The 25th Anniversary Special, Roger Waters told Jim Ladd that the "Whitehouse" mentioned had nothing to do with the home of the U.S. president, the White House, after Ladd told Waters he interpreted the last verse as referring to Gerald Ford, who was US president at the time the song was recorded (although the verse also includes Whitehouse's first name).

Halfway through the song, David Gilmour uses a Heil talk box on the guitar solo to mimic the sound of pigs. This is the first use of a talk box by Pink Floyd. Gilmour also plays a fretless bass guitar, with a pick, doing two short, syncopated bass solos—one before the first verse, another before the third. When the final verse ends and a guitar solo emerges, the bass line moves into a driving eighth note rhythm, sliding up and down the E minor scale in octaves, beneath the chords of E minor and C major seventh. Roger Waters, usually the band's bassist, played a rhythm guitar track on the song instead.

The song was released as a promotional single in Brazil, albeit in an edited form of only four minutes and five seconds in length. On some cassette tape versions of Animals, the song was divided into two parts after the first verse, fading out on side one and fading back in on side two, in order to minimize the total length of tape.

Live versions
The normal length of the song performed live was roughly 17 minutes (some would top out at 20 minutes), compared with the album length of 11 minutes and 28 seconds. Live renditions basically followed the album version with a few notable differences: an extra guitar solo was played after the second verse, the talk-box solo on guitar was substituted with a Minimoog solo and to the coda were added a quiet Hammond-led section and a crescendo reprise of the guitar solo with aggressive drumming. Waters, who sang on both the studio and live versions of "Pigs (Three Different Ones)", also added his signature screams throughout live performances of this song during the 1977 tour.

While playing on the 1977 tour, Waters shouted a different number for each concert. This purportedly had the purpose of identifying bootleg recordings. Also, Snowy White would play bass guitar while Waters played rhythm electric guitar with his black with white pickguard Fender Stratocaster.

When this song was performed in Montreal on 6 July 1977, a disruptive fan angered Waters by throwing a beer bottle onto the stage. While the band played toward the climax of the song's jam section, Waters called the fan onto the stage through the microphone, then spat in his face after pretending to help him up. This concert, of which bootleg recordings exist, has been cited as a catalyst for Pink Floyd's next album, The Wall.

In 1987, on tour to promote his solo album Radio K.A.O.S., Waters performed a shortened version of the song, featuring only the first two verses and shorter guitar solos between them as part of an extended Pink Floyd medley. Waters played Gilmour's original bass parts rather than rhythm guitar, and would do so again on all subsequent live performances.

Waters would not play the song live again until 2016, on a brief tour of the US and Mexico. These performances were almost identical to the studio version and were accompanied by a large amount of anti-Donald Trump imagery, including caricatures, displays of controversial quotes by Trump, and the words "Fuck Trump" (changed to "Trump Is a Pig" on some dates) displayed at the end of the song.

The song remained in Waters' setlist for his 2017 Us + Them Tour, once again being played in its entirety and with the anti-Trump images. While the response to the anti-Trump images has been mostly positive, some fans at his shows have booed or even walked out during the song over their anger at the anti-Trump images and political message. Waters responded to the anti-Trump critics saying "I find it slightly surprising that anybody could have been listening to my songs for 50 years without understanding" and said to those critics if they didn't like what he was doing "go see Katy Perry or watch the Kardashians. I don't care." Waters also said that, due to his anti-Trump images, he lost sponsors such as American Express who refused to have their company associated with his shows." - Wiki

4. "Sheep" 10:20
The last of the animals-as-metaphors-for-people songs, "Sheep" is another major statement from the resident cynic of the band, and is virtually as good as the two preceding cuts. As a distillation of Roger's views and the souring of his personality, side two of Animals can't be beat. It's not that I disagree with the opinions of these songs either, rather that they could be leavened by some kind of lightness other than the opening and closing cuts. This darkness would continue with the next album of course.

Wiki: "History
During their tours in 1974, Pink Floyd played three new songs in the first half of the shows, followed by The Dark Side of the Moon in its entirety. The three new songs were "You've Got to Be Crazy" (which later became "Dogs"), "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" and "Raving and Drooling" (which later became "Sheep").

During performances of "Raving and Drooling", a recording of a DJ at BBC Radio called Jimmy Young was played after being cut up and reassembled randomly. This was Roger Waters' idea of a man "raving and drooling" (or being insane). The lyrics of the song at this point were quite different from the ones that were to become "Sheep".

"Raving and Drooling" was originally a more jam-based song. While the basic motif was already in place—a held note from the vocalist (Waters) being crossfaded into the same note on a synthesizer, with various inhuman effects applied—Waters had yet to write anything for the sections repeating F♯7 and A7 (such as "You better watch out! There may be dogs about", and so on), and so these sections, while clearly part of the song structure, were rendered instrumentally. While Gilmour later stated that "Dogs" in its earlier incarnation as "You've Got to Be Crazy" simply had too many words for him to sing, "Raving and Drooling" appeared to suffer more from a lack thereof.

"You've Got to Be Crazy" and "Raving and Drooling" were originally planned to be on the album following the 1974 tours, Wish You Were Here, but plans changed and they ended up in different forms on Animals. In November 2011, versions of both tracks recorded at Wembley in 1974 were officially released as part of the Experience and Immersion versions of the Wish You Were Here album.

In live versions from 1977, backing guitarist Snowy White played bass guitar as Waters shared electric guitar duties with David Gilmour. The performance was almost identical to the album version except that it would give way to a slower ending with Richard Wright playing an organ solo.

Ian Peel, a musical columnist for The Guardian, noted the resemblance of "Sheep" to the Doctor Who theme, due to its bassline and sound effects.

Recording
The song was recorded during April, May and July 1976 at the band's own Britannia Row Studios, Islington, London.

On Animals Roger played bass on "Dogs" and I played bass on "Sheep" and "Pigs." Most of the bass line on "Sheep" (apart from the ending) was what Roger had been playing onstage, as we had been performing it as "Raving and Drooling" for a couple of years. However, in the studio Roger had a rhythm guitar part he wanted to play, so we swapped roles. On "Pigs" the part and the playing are mine.

— David Gilmour, 1998, to Karl Coryat, Bass Player"

5. "Pigs on the Wing (Part Two)" 1:24
And we end with almost the same song we began with. As I've said - over the years I've come to regard this LP as a classic virtually on par with the surrounding albums. When you examine the current prog greats of 1977 (Songs from the Wood, Going for the One, etc), Animals can definitely hold its head in that company, and I feel it's better than those ELP records or even what Van der Graaf were doing that year. The band were splintering in terms of getting along with each other, but the quality of their music hadn't taken a downwards turn yet.

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"Release
The album's release followed Capital Radio's broadcast two days earlier of The Pink Floyd Story, and an evening press conference held at the power station two days before that. The broadcast was originally to have been an exclusive for the DJ Nicky Horne, who since mid-December had been broadcasting The Pink Floyd Story, but a copy was given to John Peel, who played side one of the album in its entirety a day earlier.

Animals was released in the UK on 21 January 1977, and in the US on 12 February. It reached number two in the UK, and three in the US. Thanks to the album and the band's back catalogue, noted The Guinness Book of British Hit Albums, "Pink Floyd bested ABBA for most weeks on chart (in 1977), 108 to 106."

NME called Animals "one of the most extreme, relentless, harrowing and downright iconoclastic hunks of music to have been made available this side of the sun", and Melody Maker's Karl Dallas described it as an "uncomfortable taste of reality in a medium that has become in recent years, increasingly soporific". Rolling Stone's Frank Rose was unimpressed, writing: "The 1977 Floyd has turned bitter and morose. They complain about the duplicity of human behavior (and then title their songs after animals – get it?). They sound like they've just discovered this – their message has become pointless and tedious." However, in June 2015 Rolling Stone magazine placed the album at the thirteenth position of the 50 best progressive albums of all time. Robert Christgau of The Village Voice gave the album a "B+" rating and found the negative reaction overly cynical, reasoning that the album functions simply as "a piece of well-constructed political program music ... lyrical, ugly, and rousing, all in the right places".

In his 2004 autobiography Inside Out, Nick Mason suggests that the album's perceived harshness, when compared to previous Floyd releases, may be a result of a "workman-like mood in the studio", and an unconscious reaction to the accusations from the aforementioned punk genre that bands like Pink Floyd represented "dinosaur rock". Animals was certified by the RIAA as 4× Platinum on 31 January 1995. David Gilmour said on Westwood One's Pink Floyd 25th Anniversary Special about the album "It wasn't one of the more productive periods of our life I don't think. We used those two tracks which went back to '74, changed the names, doctored them around and stuck them on the album. It was a great, I love the album, it was exciting and noisy and fun. It really had some great bits and stuff of effects on there but it was not one of our creative high points really". Rick Wright on the BBC Omnibus Special in 1994 was less kind saying "I didn't really like a lot of the music on the album. I didn't fight hard to put my stuff on the album and I didn't have anything to put on. I played well but did not contribute to the writing and also Roger was not letting me write. This was the whole start of the whole ego thing in the band, Animals". Roger Waters remains fiercely proud of the album.

Reissues
Originally released on Harvest Records in the UK and Columbia Records in the US, Animals was issued on Compact Disc (CD) in 1985, and in the US in 1987. It was reissued as a digitally remastered CD with new artwork in 1994, and as a digitally remastered limited-edition vinyl album in 1997. An anniversary edition was released in the US in the same year, followed in 2000 by a reissue from Capitol Records. The album was also included in the Shine On box set in 1992, in the 2007 Oh, By The Way box set and in the 2011 Why Pink Floyd...? re-release series both in the box set and as a standalone Discovery edition CD.

In an April 2020 interview, Waters said he had pushed for the release of a remixed and remastered vinyl of Animals by James Guthrie, but that it had been rejected by Gilmour and Mason. In June 2021, Waters released a statement announcing a new release with stereo and 5.1 surround mixes. Waters cited a dispute between himself and Gilmour over a set of liner notes written by Mark Blake as the reason for the delay, and posted the rejected liner notes on his website. The 5.1 remix of the album is expected to be released in June 2022."

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robertff
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Re: Pink Floyd

Postby robertff » 18 Apr 2022, 19:21

I like Animals but for me this was where the decline began to set in - until Waters left. The next two Floyd albums are dreary, dull and depressing, I know others think The Wall is wonderful but I can barely play it and as for The Final Cut …….



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ConnyOlivetti
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Re: Pink Floyd

Postby ConnyOlivetti » 18 Apr 2022, 19:30

Great album, love it
Charlie O. wrote:I think Coan and Googa are right.


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Matt Wilson
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Re: Pink Floyd

Postby Matt Wilson » 18 Apr 2022, 21:08

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David Gilmour 1978
If I had to choose a fave Dave LP, this would be it. While certainly not as weighty as your typical PF record, this has an easy going charm and a listener-friendly sound which makes it fun to throw on now and then. Some of the songs sound like Floyd, others sound like Gilmour - who is so associated with Pink Floyd, that they're basically one and the same. I get a similar vibe with Roger Waters solo LPs. Waters and Gilmour don't sound alike, yet they both sound like PF.

Dave albums all have a kind of laissez faire attitude where it seems he is taking time off from the group to mess around in the studio and explore his musical ideas. There's not a truly great song here, but there's not a mediocre one either. Almost like he's freed from the burdens of Animals on one side and The Wall on the other, Gilmour can just play his guitar with some friends and relax. At least that's the impression I get when I listen to it. Roger's solo stuff may have more care taken with the themes/lyrics, but I'm not sure I dig any of his records more than this one.

Wiki: "David Gilmour is the debut solo studio album by Pink Floyd guitarist and co-lead vocalist David Gilmour. The album was released in May and June 1978 in the United Kingdom and the United States, respectively. The album reached number 17 in the UK and number 29 on the Billboard US album charts; it was certified Gold in the US by the RIAA. The album was produced by Gilmour, and consists mostly of blues and guitar-oriented rock songs, except for the piano-dominated ballad "So Far Away".

Personnel
David Gilmour – lead vocals, electric and acoustic guitars, lap steel guitar on "No Way" and "I Can't Breathe Anymore", Hammond Organ (tracks 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9) , Solina String Synthesizer on "No Way" and "I Can't Breathe Anymore", piano on "So Far Away", harmonica on "There's No Way Out of Here", production, cover design
Rick Wills – bass guitar, backing vocals
Willie Wilson – drums, percussion

Additional personnel
Mick Weaver – additional piano on "So Far Away"
Carlena Williams – backing vocals on "There's No Way Out of Here" and "So Far Away"
Debbie Doss – backing vocals on "There's No Way Out of Here" and "So Far Away"
Shirley Roden – backing vocals on "There's No Way Out of Here" and "So Far Away"

All music composed by David Gilmour except "There's No Way Out of Here" written by Ken Baker. All lyrics by Gilmour, except where noted.

Side one

1. "Mihalis" [instrumental] 5:46
The LP starts off with a nice, unassuming cut with no vocals which sounds like a backing track before any overdubs were added. When David begins his solo he's merely following the main melody. I've described his guitar playing before as economical and it's certainly that here. He takes off right before the three-minute mark though and there's no doubt who you're listening to.

"Production and recording
The tracks used for the album were recorded between February and March 1978 with engineer John Etchells at Super Bear Studios in France. They were then mixed at the same studio by Nick Griffiths. Session musicians included bass guitarist Rick Wills and drummer Willie Wilson, both of whom used to be part of Jokers Wild with Gilmour." - Wikipedia

2. "There's No Way Out of Here" (Ken Baker) 5:08
He didn't write this at all, throwing a bone to Baker by recording this song. With lyrics which deal with Floydian topics such as time, life, the uncertainty of decision-making, etc. Not as good as top-quality Floyd, this still scratches your Gilmour itch even if the guitar solo sticks too closely to the melody line at first. It would have sounded fine on the radio too.

Wiki - Single and songs
The album's only single was "There's No Way Out of Here." The single flopped in Europe, but became popular on Album-oriented rock radio stations in the US. The song was originally recorded by the band Unicorn (as "No Way Out of Here") for their 1976 album Too Many Crooks (Harvest Records, US title Unicorn 2), which Gilmour produced. It was also recorded later by New Jersey stoner rock band Monster Magnet on their Monolithic Baby! album, and by Iron & Wine on his 2015 covers album Sing Into My Mouth."

3. "Cry from the Street" (Gilmour, Eric Stewart) 5:13
Are those power chords Dave's playing? They certainly sound like it. One of the least-Floyd-sounding numbers which makes sense as it's co-written with someone else. The over-five-minute length of so many of these songs gives Gilmour a chance to stretch out when soloing, which he does a lot of. I don't know if he gets enough credit as a guitarist either, as his style and tone is instantly identifiable. He's also the best singer Pink Floyd ever had.

"Album's cover artwork
The album cover used for the first EMI pressings of the album LP was done by Hipgnosis and Gilmour and includes Gilmour, Rick Wills and Willie Wilson in the cover photo; Gilmour was credited on the cover for contributing "Keyboards, Vocals" although he played guitar. The CBS/Columbia pressings (outside Europe) listed Gilmour as contributing "Guitars, Keyboards, Vocals". Among those depicted on the inner sleeve is Gilmour's then-wife, Ginger." - Wiki

4. "So Far Away" 5:50
This piano ballad is the longest song here. More uncertainty with regards to the narrator's life and woman, and another long Gilmour solo are takeaways for me. This is a good LP to put on in the background. Some of his guitar lines remind me of what he's played with PF on other albums.

Wikipedia: "One unused tune that was written and demoed at the time would later evolve, via collaboration with Roger Waters, into Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb" from The Wall. However, a song included on this album, the piano ballad "So Far Away", uses a chorus progression not unlike the chorus to "Comfortably Numb", albeit in a different key."

Yeah, I guess I can hear that.

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Side two

5. "Short and Sweet" (Gilmour, Roy Harper) 5:30
This is another co-write, this time with buddy Roy Harper. The lyrics aren't as sharp as Roger at his best, but they're not bad. Neither uptempo nor slow at first - this doesn't make much of an impression on me one way or the other to be honest. Doesn't sound like PF either, but it does work up a head of steam intermittently. I guess it's just the riff which doesn't do it for me.

"Likewise, the song "Short and Sweet" can be seen as a musical precursor to "Run Like Hell" (also from The Wall), with its shifting chords over a D pedal point, using a flanged guitar in Drop D tuning. "Short and Sweet" was written in collaboration with Roy Harper, who recorded his own version for his 1980 album The Unknown Soldier." - Wiki

So this sounds like "Run Like Hell?" Hmmmm......

6. "Raise My Rent" [instrumental] 5:33
Moody and atmospheric, I quite like this 'un. Cool riff, awesome solo, this is what I'm thinking of when I say the album is good background music. It sounds like he could have tossed this off in his sleep, but what I wouldn't give for sleep like this! LOL.

Wiki: Promotion
A five-song promotional film was made to promote the album. The band comprised Gilmour himself on guitars and vocals plus the two musicians on the album (bass player Rick Wills and drummer Willie Wilson) plus David Gilmour's brother Mark on rhythm guitar and Ian McLagan on keyboards and performed "Mihalis", "There's No Way Out of Here", "So Far Away", "No Way", and "I Can't Breathe Anymore". There were three female backing singers on "There's No Way Out of Here" and "So Far Away": Debbie Doss, Shirley Roden, and Carlena Williams. The promo was recorded live at The Roxy, London.

Also, Gilmour promoted the album with his first ever interviews with North American media and FM rock radio stations. The promotion paid off as the album made a respectable showing on the Billboard album charts peaking at number 29, which - until 2006's On an Island - was Gilmour's highest charting solo album in the US, eventually going Gold."

7. "No Way" 5:32
Another highlight to these ears, he sounds tougher, word-wise, than usual - not as uncertain or confused. These songs would need more work to make it as Pink Floyd tunes, but work just fine in this context. The only year in the seventies that there was no PF record, nor a solo enterprise, was 1976 - making that decade Floyd's best for me.

"2006 Remastered Edition
David Gilmour was re-released by EMI Records in Europe as a digitally remastered CD on 14 August 2006. Legacy Recordings/Columbia Records released the remastered CD in the US and Canada on 12 September 2006. It features expanded versions of some of the tracks." - Wikipedia

The 2006 CD is the one I have.

8. "Deafinitely" [instrumental] 4:27
One of the faster tempos here and more Floyd-sounding than others (without the dark vibe). I can't decide if I enjoy the instrumentals or the ones with vocals more. I don't pull this album out much, but it's sounding good now!

9. "I Can't Breathe Anymore" 3:04
It ends with a ballad (at least at first - toward the end not so much) filled with more uncertain words whereupon David is frustrated with not knowing if he's got his feet on the ground or not. I guess the lyrics on this album deal with his not knowing his proper place in the band. Pity, as he was still in his prime, and should have learned to take it easier.

Wiki: Release and Reception
The album was released in the UK on 25 May 1978, and on 17 June 1978 in the US, on Harvest and Columbia respectively.

In an interview with Circus in 1978, Gilmour said: "This album [David Gilmour] was important to me in terms of self-respect. At first I didn't think my name was big enough to carry it. Being in a group for so long can be a bit claustrophobic, and I needed to step out from behind Pink Floyd's shadow."

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Re: Pink Floyd

Postby trans-chigley express » 19 Apr 2022, 05:27

I like the David Gilmour album and get more enjoyment listening to his debut or About Face than any solo Waters albums I've heard. I prefer Harper's version of Short and Sweet on The Unknown Soldier, probably because I heard it first and just got used to it.

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Re: Pink Floyd

Postby trans-chigley express » 19 Apr 2022, 05:34

Regarding Animals:
Matt Wilson wrote:. This is where Roger really takes over both in terms of the songwriting and even the singing. Previous PF albums were more democratic in nature.


As far as songwriting and vocals go Waters is taking over but musically it still sounds like a real group effort and I think they all on top form and contribute enormously to the overall sound. Even with the vocals I think Waters vocal is better suited to the songs but I would have liked Gilmour to have sang Pigs on the Wing.

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Hightea
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Re: Pink Floyd

Postby Hightea » 19 Apr 2022, 18:03

WYWH and DSOTM are two classic albums. While a rarely listen to either these days due to over played, they are both outstanding albums with no filler.
I rate DSOTM lower that WYWH, Pipers, Obscured and Animals but mostly due to the fact it was overplayed. Songs like Time, The Great Gig in the Sky, Money,Us and Them and Brain Damage are all masterpieces.

WYWH is my favorite PF album and will always remember seeing PF play the whole album twice in 77. Amazing live!!!

In 2000 there was a band called Blue Floyd (featured Mark Ford, Allen Woody, Matt Abts and Johnny Neel) they did cool versions of Pink Floyd covers. Saw them a few times including a guest appearance by Warren Haynes. They also did a sync of Wizard of Oz with DSOTM.

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robertff
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Re: Pink Floyd

Postby robertff » 20 Apr 2022, 16:44

I like all of Gilmour’s solo albums.



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