In Barbet Schroeder’s movie, the calm and soothing melody of “Green Is the Colour” is heard for the first time in Estelle and Stefan’s house by the sea on Ibiza, when everything seems blissful for the couple. The second occasion is during the café scene when Charlie, having traveled to Ibiza, advises Stefan to leave Estelle and return with him to Paris. The words perfectly underline Stefan’s contradictory feelings: emotional harmony to start with, superseded by nagging doubts. In this song Roger Waters reveals himself to be an inspired poet (as well as a brilliant melodist): White is the light that shines through the dress that you wore/She lay in the shadow of a wave/Hazy were the visions her playing. And then, as if this serenity could only be fleeting: Sunlight on her eyes/But moonshine made her cry every time. Finally, intense sadness creeps into the last two lines: Quickness of the eye deceives the mind/Envy is the bond between the hopeful and the damned.
Pink Floyd would regularly perform “Green Is the Colour” onstage up to and including the Japan and Australia tour of August 1971.
Production
“Green Is the Colour” confirms Roger Waters’s great gift for delicate and subtle acoustic ballads. The song opens with David Gilmour strumming an acoustic guitar (his Levin LT 18) accompanied by Roger’s velvety bass. Almost straightaway, David comes in with an overdubbed solo on a second guitar, this time with nylon strings (a Levin Classic 3?), and continues to improvise in the same vein throughout the track. His vocal line is pitched toward the top of his range, and it sounds as if his voice is on the verge of cracking up, an effect that substantially reinforces the fragile, gentle, and poetic atmosphere evoked by the words. The timbre and texture of Gilmour’s voice are absolutely unique, and over the course of his career he would establish himself as one of rock’s greatest vocalists. While Nick Mason plays no part in this track (at least on the LP; in the film he can be heard on the drums), his wife Lindy, an experienced flutist, plays a penny whistle with plentiful reverb. Her interventions are of consistently high quality and contribute to the bucolic atmosphere of the song. Rick Wright plays an acoustic piano, initially supplying a rhythmic chord-based accompaniment before launching into a solo first on the Farfisa organ and then on the piano. This means that in the coda (from 2:20), three instruments can be heard improvising at the same time: classical guitar, flute, and piano! And yet none of them gives the impression of either overloading the musical texture or of getting in the way of the others.
“Green Is the Colour” is a great song by Roger Waters. Although little known, it is one of Pink Floyd’s undisputed successes. Barbet Schroeder uses it initially at normal volume and subsequently as background music.
IN YOUR HEADPHONES
In spite of her otherwise highly successful contributions on penny whistle, Lindy Mason stumbles over a D at 2:28!
Cymbaline
Roger Waters / 4:50
Musicians
David Gilmour: vocals, classical guitar
Rick Wright: acoustic piano, organ
Roger Waters: bass
Nick Mason: drums, congas
Lindy Mason: penny whistle
Recorded
Pye Studios, London: early February 1969
Technical Team
Producer: Pink Floyd
Sound Engineer: Brian Humphries
Genesis
In “Cymbaline,” Roger Waters raises the curtain on Shakespearian theater. Cymbeline is the title of a tale written by Shakespeare in 1611. In it, the great English playwright presents Imogen, the daughter of Cymbeline, king of Britain, who has defied the will of her father to marry Posthumus, a gentleman without fortune who is subsequently banished to Italy. Will Imogen remain faithful to him? Iachimo, whose acquaintance Posthumus has made in Italy, does his best to convince him otherwise…
This song takes us a long way from the Shakespearian plot, although it is possible to discern a strong interest in the fantastic on the part of the songwriter. A distinctly dark or ominous form of fantasy, that is, with ravens watching from a vantage point nearby before closing in and a butterfly with broken wings… falling by your side. The picture painted here is nothing short of a nightmare, and indeed it was under the title “Nightmare” that this song was incorporated into the musical concept The Man and the Journey (between “Quicksilver”/“Sleep” and “Daybreak, Part Two”/“Grantchester Meadows”). There is also, however, an element of humor and cynicism that ultimately makes the song even more captivating: Your manager and agent are both busy on the phone/Selling coloured photographs to magazines back home. Did Roger Waters already have some scores to settle with the music industry?
There are two versions of “Cymbaline”: the one in Barbet Schroeder’s movie (with an additional refrain and an extended organ solo, playing for a total of 5:18) and the one on the album, which has different words, particularly in the second verse, and is sung by a different voice. In the motion picture version, which plays while Stefan and Estelle are lying on her bed side by side smoking for the first time, Roger Waters sings: Apprehension creeping like a tube train up your spine/Standing by with a book in his hand/There’s peace in ’39, whereas on the album, David Gilmour sings: Apprehension creeping like a tube train up your spine/Will the tightrope reach the end?/Will the final couplet rhyme? Anxiety heaped on anxiety…
Production
“Cymbaline” is a relatively slow number with an uncluttered feel. David Gilmour opens this superb song with an E-minor chord on his classical guitar (Levin Classic 3?). The atmosphere is relatively dark and intimate, and yet the song possesses an airy, limpid quality thanks to the sublime melody composed by Roger Waters. Gilmour limits himself to playing chords on the guitar while singing the vocal line, which is subjected to heavy reverb. His performance is remarkable, far superior to that of Roger Waters in the movie version. He alternates a gentleness in the verses with flights of lyricism in the refrains, a combination that helps to make the song the great success it is. He doubles himself in order to reinforce his lead vocal, and a very clear time lag between the two voices (no doubt intentional) can be heard at 2:05 in the penultimate refrain. Gilmour then sings some scat passages, as he was fond of doing in concert. During the first four bars of the intro, careful listening (preferably through headphones) reveals the sound of a penny whistle in the far distance. This is Lindy Mason, Nick’s wife. However, the sound is so faint that one cannot help wondering whether it is a badly wiped or simply muted track.
To turn to the percussion, Nick Mason is responsible for both a very good drum part (playing his Premier kit) and what sound like congas, with long and present reverb added. The general atmosphere also owes a great deal to the various keyboard parts played by Rick Wright. The keyboardist initially provides a characteristically syncopated and highly efficient piano accompaniment. He then adds chords on his Farfisa organ, whose sound is colored by some very pronounced tremolo from the Binson Echorec, before combining the sounds of his Hammond M-102 organ (from 3:17) and his piano. The coda is mainly Wright’s (the guitar and drums having disappeared), and the combination of the various keyboards lends the song an almost mystical quality. Waters plays his Rickenbacker 4001 almost certainly plugged directly into the console, his clean, rhythmic accompaniment effectively underlining the harmonies of this track.
Of all the acoustic songs that Pink Floyd would record over the course of their career, “Cymbaline” is without doubt one of their greatest successes, in words, music, and interpretation.
For Pink Floyd Addicts
Roger Waters’s lyrics reference a certain Doctor Strange, the famous Marvel Comics superhero. This is the second appearance by this character in the work of Pink Floyd, the first being his inclusion on the cover of A Saucerful of Secrets.
COVERS
“Cymbaline” was covered by Hawkwind in 1970. The song is included on the 1996 remastered version of the band’s eponymous 1970 album.
For Pink Floyd Addicts
When performed live, “Cymbaline” would give rise
to long improvisations such as that at Royaumont Abbey in France on June 15, 1971, during which David Gilmour rushed onstage to retune Roger Waters’s G string while the bassist was in full flow!
Party Sequence
Roger Waters, Rick Wright, David Gilmour, Nick Mason / 1:07
Musicians
Nick Mason: congas (?)
Lindy Mason: penny whistle
Unidentified musician: tbila
Recorded
Pye Studios, London: early February 1969
Technical Team
Producer: Pink Floyd
Sound Engineer: Brian Humphries
Genesis
In Barbet Schroeder’s movie, “Party Sequence” provides the rhythmic accompaniment to a hippie party on the island of Ibiza, where Stefan has gone to join Estelle.
This track, which brings the first side of the LP to a close, is credited to the four members of Pink Floyd. Does this mean that Waters, Gilmour, Wright, and Mason all play percussion on it?
Production
Listening to this piece clearly raises questions about who played what. One of the musicians was without any doubt Lindy Mason, playing penny whistle for the third time on the record, after “Green Is the Colour” and “Cymbaline.” But who are the (presumably two) percussionists? In the movie sequence, the conga and the tbila, a kind of Moroccan pottery bongo, are seen being played by two different people. And in the studio version these two same instruments can be heard. Nick Mason may well be playing the conga, but it is less certain that he would also be playing the tbila, as this instrument is being handled by a true specialist. Either way, it is unlikely that Waters, Wright, or Gilmour are involved. It is possible, however, that they originally recorded instrumental parts that were then dropped during mixing. This seems particularly likely in David Gilmour’s case because in the movie version, which is longer than the album version (1:07 on the LP; 2:20 in the movie), an acoustic rhythm guitar part can clearly be heard.
In 2003, the Cité de la Musique in Paris held a Storm Thorgerson–designed exhibition dedicated to Pink Floyd, in which the original box of one of the master tapes for More was on display. On it, “Party Sequence” is listed as being in two parts (one and two). The second part is presumably the track heard in the movie immediately after the hippie party. This is a slower version featuring a single percussionist.
“Party Sequence” is a fitting evocation of the exotic nature of the location, Ibiza being geographically close to the coast of Africa, and in particular Morocco, a major producer of hashish, which is consumed in large quantities during the sequence in question.
For Pink Floyd Addicts
“Party Sequence” was chosen to accompany the menu page of the More DVD, which was released in 2015.
Main Theme
Roger Waters, Rick Wright, David Gilmour, Nick Mason / 5:28
Musicians
David Gilmour: electric lead guitar
Rick Wright: keyboards
Roger Waters: bass, gong (?)
Nick Mason: drums
Recorded
Pye Studios, London: early February 1969
Technical Team
Producer: Pink Floyd
Sound Engineer: Brian Humphries
Genesis
This instrumental credited to all four members is heard twice in Barbet Schroeder’s movie. The first time it is used to accompany the opening credits and initial scenes. Stefan has left Germany for France. He is shown hitchhiking in the pouring rain. Eventually, he is picked up and as Stefan dozes off, the following words of introduction can be heard: “I had imagined this journey as a quest. I’d finished my studies in math. I wanted to live. I wanted to burn all the bridges. All the formulas, And if I got burned, that was ok too. I wanted to be warm. I wanted the sun, and I went after it.”
The second time occurs almost at the end of the movie, when Stefan bitterly acknowledges his failure. Once again the voiceover can be heard: “The psychedelic revolution rejects alcohol and heroin. This descent into egoism and alienation is the opposite of the liberation that I can see in those who have passed through to the other side.” Words that accompanied Stefan’s “initiatory quest” before eventually sounding like a condemnation.
Production
“Main Theme” opens with the sound of a vibrating gong, presumably struck by Roger Waters, that repeatedly veers back and forth between the stereo channels. The effect is hypnotic and threatening and fully justifies the introductory role of this track in Schroeder’s movie. After thirty seconds or so, Rick Wright comes in with some pretty dissonant chords on his Farfisa organ, before being joined by Nick Mason’s vaguely bossa nova drum beat and Roger Waters’s bass, which is not unlike the rhythmic figure he plays on “Let There Be More Light” (A Saucerful of Secrets). It is Wright who plays the lead role in this “Main Theme,” not least because he also produces some swirling effects on the organ, using a wah-wah pedal (from 1:25), but above all because of his excellent melody—again with an oriental feel—on the Farfisa. From around 2:52, David Gilmour can be heard playing solo phrases on his Stratocaster, presumably with the help of his whammy bar, but also using a bottleneck. The sound is relatively clear with a degree of reverb. At the end of the track a second guitar joins in, this time highly distorted (listen from 5:14). Also in this section, some electronic interference can be heard. Was this an error or a deliberate effect?
For Pink Floyd Addicts
Pink Floyd performed “Main Theme” live a number of times, sometimes prolonging it for more than ten minutes.
The opening phrases Stefan speaks at the beginning of the movie were written by Barbet Schroeder’s friend and inspiration, the great American director Nicholas Ray, who made Rebel without a Cause (1955) with James Dean and Natalie Wood.
Ibiza Bar
Roger Waters, Rick Wright, David Gilmour, Nick Mason / 3:19
Musicians
David Gilmour: vocals, electric rhythm and lead guitar, backing vocals (?)
Rick Wright: piano, organ, backing vocals (?)
Roger Waters: bass, backing vocals (?)
Nick Mason: drums
Recorded
Pye Studios, London: early February 1969
Technical Team
Producer: Pink Floyd
Sound Engineer: Brian Humphries
Genesis
Contrary to what its title suggests, this collective composition fits into the soundtrack of Barbet Schroeder’s movie toward the beginning of the action, in other words before Stefan arrives in Ibiza. It marks the encounter between the young German student and Charlie in a bar, a Parisian one. The lyrics are not closely aligned with the plot of More. In fact there is no discernible connection other than a spirit of mea culpa: I’m so afraid of mistakes that I’ve made/Shaking every time that I awake/I feel like a cardboard cut-out man/So build me a time when the characters rhyme and the story line is kind.
Production
Musically, “Ibiza Bar” could easily be mistaken for “The Nile Song.” The confusion derives mainly from the intros, both of which modulate between two notes a tone apart while sharing more or less the same tempo (around 90 bpm), rhythmic figure, and hard rock sonority. Under these conditions it is difficult not to compare the two. “Ibiza Bar” differs in the way its harmonic structure develops, particularly in the refrains. These are harmonized by several voices (Waters, Wright?) in support of David Gilmour’s lead vocal, whose timbre is just as raucous and “hard rock” as it is in “The Nile Song.” The backing vocals with heavy reverb that emerge toward the end of Gilmour’s first guitar solo (from 1:50) are another new element. But the rest of the musical arrangement is based on the same formula: the bass and drums drive the rhythm with the same power as in “The Nile Song” (with a very good bass line from Waters), providing Gilmour and Wright with an opportunity to let off steam on their respective instruments. Rick Wright plays the Farfisa organ, the Hammond M-102, and acoustic piano. Gilmour, meanwhile, imposes his Jimi Hendrix influences o
n the track, with the same strongly distorted rhythm guitar (courtesy of his Fuzz Face), and plays multiple solos on his Stratocaster that are equally distorted and also drenched in reverb. Although his style has not yet developed into that which would eventually define him, certain characteristics of his playing can already be identified (for example at 1:27).
COVERS
Love Battery, a grunge band from Seattle, covered “Ibiza Bar” during the sessions for their EP and album Between the Eyes, released in 1990 and 1991 respectively.
More Blues
Roger Waters, Rick Wright, David Gilmour, Nick Mason / 2:13
Musicians
David Gilmour: electric lead guitar
Rick Wright: organ
Roger Waters: bass
Nick Mason: drums
Recorded
Pye Studios, London: early February 1969
Technical Team
Producer: Pink Floyd
Sound Engineer: Brian Humphries
Genesis
Barbet Schroeder uses “More Blues” in the second part of the film. Stefan is working as a barman for Ernesto Wolf and selling marijuana and heroin to pay off Estelle’s debts. This instrumental, credited to the four members of the group, serves as a reminder that Pink Floyd owe their name to two bluesmen of the Deep South, Pink Anderson and Floyd Council, and that they began life playing covers of classic blues numbers in London’s underground clubs.
Pink Floyd All the Songs Page 19