Pink Floyd All the Songs
Page 45
Toward the middle of this first part, David Gilmour comes in on his “Black Strat,” playing a solo with a clean, very bluesy sound, very inspired and rather in the style of Peter Green (from 2:11 onward). His playing is brilliant and he picks his notes with feeling. The sound is compressed and amplified with generous, hovering reverb. The guitar-layer combination works like a dream, making this musical sequence a resounding success.
Part 2 (3:54–6:27)
B flat-F-G-E: so begins the second part, with these four sublime notes played by David Gilmour on his “Black Strat.” They have such an emotional force that they will undoubtedly always be one of Pink Floyd’s great signature phrases, along with the riff from “Money” or even the “ping” from “Echoes.” These four notes, which inspired Roger Waters to write some of his finest lyrics, cost Gilmour a great deal of effort and research before he achieved the effect he was after. He decided to decamp from Studio Three, where the band was working, to the enormous Studio One, normally reserved for large classical ensembles, in order to capture the atmosphere of a hall. With the help of Phil Taylor, his guitar technician since 1974, he set up on his own in this huge room. Taylor was later able to give a full rundown of the equipment used: “He played the Black Strat through a Binson Echorec 2 delay unit amplified by a Fender Dual Showman amp with a 2 x 15 cabinet, a Hiwatt amp with a WEM 4 x 12 cabinet and a Leslie 760 rotating speaker cabinet.”104 Brian Humphries, meanwhile, placed the mics quite a long way from the amplifiers in order to capture the whole depth and resonance of the immense studio. And the result was everything they had hoped for: the riff rings out masterfully. It was added to the twenty-four-track master from Studio Three on January 21. Gilmour plays it four times before Nick Mason comes in with a rising crescendo played on the tom-toms, underpinned by Roger Waters on the bass. The two of them produce a groove both heavy and weightless, carried by the layers of Rick Wright’s Hammond organ and Gilmour’s rhythm guitar. The latter goes into a second solo every bit as powerful as the first, very bluesy, his “Black Strat” slightly distorted by his Colorsound Power Boost. If you had to sum up his playing in three words, you would have to say: an exceptional touch. Even Roger Waters, who is very sparing with his compliments, did acknowledge the outstanding quality of Gilmour’s contributions on the album. This second part also goes by the title “Syd’s Theme.”
Part 3 (6:28–8:42)
The third part starts with quite a serene atmosphere, Rick Wright following on from Gilmour with a solo played with great subtlety on his Minimoog. The sound is warm and faintly resonant. He accompanies himself on a Steinway grand piano as well as on his Hammond organ. As for the drums, there is a palpable difference between the approach taken by Alan Parsons, who, on The Dark Side of the Moon, insisted they must not be compressed, and that of Brian Humphries, who doesn’t hesitate to do this in quite an emphatic way. In particular the bass drum is much more percussive, but less natural. It’s a matter of differing points of view. Waters plays a very good bass line, and Gilmour plays two rhythm guitars, opting mainly for chord licks on the second one. He then goes into a third solo after Wright’s, this one much more aggressive than the two previous ones (at 7:36). His “Black Strat” is distorted and colored by phasing from his MXR Phase 90, the whole thing enhanced with a slight delay from his Echorec.
Part 4 (8:43–11:08)
Roger Waters’s vocal kicks off this fourth part. His singing is excellent, and very unexpected since, until that point, he had only ever adopted a more confidential or medium-loud register, as on “Eclipse.” Now he stretches his vocal cords to their limits to express his emotions as precisely as possible. The result is superb; the lyrics come across as heartfelt. He later admitted that the recording of his vocal parts took a lot out of him, and that rings true because one senses Waters is close to the breaking point (for example at 9:25). His voice is doubled for greater assurance, and he seems to be supported by Gilmour and/or Wright on the vocal harmonies. And as on Dark Side, it is the female backing singers who provide the backing vocals. Venetta Fields and Carlena Williams bring a radiant gospel feel, accentuated by Rick Wright’s Hammond organ. Gilmour most notably records two distorted guitar parts: the first (on the right), which he plays as a solo, and the second (on the left) as a rhythm part, which allows him to support the tune with power chords but also to deliver descants. He also performs a solo, or rather a line of melody, that he doubles (at around 9:46) and harmonizes with a third and even a fourth guitar.
Part 5 (11:09–13:33)
The fifth part, which completes this first section, starts with the return of Dick Parry and a remarkable baritone saxophone solo recorded on May 15. The playing is “on the breath,” with rhythm ’n’ blues and jazz influences. David Gilmour reprises his first riff, this time played clean and an octave higher, before providing an arpeggio accompaniment on his “Black Strat” (doubled in stereo). The sequence develops and the time signature moves from 6/8 into 12/8, which generates a sense of speed. Parry continues to improvise, but on a tenor saxophone. It is a shame that Nick Mason remains a bit too static on his drum kit; his hi-hat playing is distinctly lacking in groove and slows down the sequence somewhat. The sequence concludes with layers of strings from Wright’s ARP, before Waters’s VCS3 announces, Welcome to the Machine.
IN YOUR HEADPHONES
At 8:49, a laugh can be heard just before the phrase You shone like the sun. One naturally thinks of Syd Barrett, though this is very unlikely. It is more likely to be Peter Watts, their road manager, who had already done something similar on Dark Side, particularly on “Brain Damage.” But this is pure conjecture, as none of the Floyd band members has ever confirmed or denied it.
Note the strange handling of the credits for the fifth part, which is attributed to Roger Waters alone, whereas on the first edition of the original vinyl, the credit was shared by Waters, Gilmour, and Wright. Considering this sequence is all instrumental, it is surprising that Gilmour’s and Wright’s names have completely disappeared in the later editions (vinyl and CD).
Welcome To The Machine
Roger Waters / 7:27
Musicians
David Gilmour: vocals, vocal harmonies, acoustic rhythm guitar, lead electric guitar, EMS VCS3 (?)
Rick Wright: keyboards
Roger Waters: bass, EMS VCS3
Nick Mason: timpani, cymbals
Recorded
Abbey Road Studios, London: February 25–27, May 8–9, 12–15, 27–28, June 2, July 9, 28, 1975 (Studios Two and Three)
Technical Team
Producer: Pink Floyd
Sound Engineer: Brian Humphries
Assistant Sound Engineer: Peter James
Genesis
The second song on Wish You Were Here was penned and composed by Roger Waters alone. In the DVD The Story of Wish You Were Here, he explains that this piece is not just the product of his own experience of the record industry, but “all of our [the musicians’] experience in the face of that monstrous, grinding thing that chews us up and spits us out.”102 Although inspired by a shared real-life experience, Waters’s composition nevertheless seems to refer particularly to Syd Barrett, who once again finds himself the hero—or rather antihero—of a track on the album. In two verses and a chorus, Waters presents an imagined dialogue between two people. The first, symbolizing “power,” takes a paternalistic tone as he addresses the second (Syd, presumably), who is there but doesn’t say a word. The dual function of the latter is simple: to create and obey.
Welcome my son, welcome to the machine, Waters has the paternalistic figure say. The “machine” is the record industry, the entertainment industry in general—which makes kings as quickly as it destroys them. The songwriter then gets to the heart of the subject. He recalls the childhood of his friend, a Boy Scout who had bought a guitar to punish his mother with a demonstration of his insubordination. Then, in the second verse, it’s the merciless law of the star system that is the focus of Waters’s criticism—where dreams of g
lory, riches, and luxury are achievable, provided one toes the line laid down by the machine. It’s not such a far cry from the totalitarian society and its “Big Brother is watching you” maxim evoked by George Orwell in his novel 1984… In 1976, Roger Waters would analyze the lyrics in the following terms: “The idea is that the Machine is underground. Some subterranean and therefore evil power that is leading us towards our various bitter fates. The hero has been exposed to this power. Somehow he has gone down into the machinery and seen for himself, and the Machine (Power) has admitted this fact and it tells him that it is watching him because he knows. And it also tells him that all his actions are Pavlovian responses, that they are all just conditioned reflexes and that his responses do not come from himself. And in fact he doesn’t exist, except in that he has a feeling inside of him that something is really not right. And that’s the only reality.”105
A Shocking Video
The first time Pink Floyd performed “Welcome to the Machine” in public was on the “In the Flesh Tour” in 1977. For the occasion, the illustrator and cartoonist Gerald Scarfe, whose collaboration with the band had started with Wish You Were Here, produced a music video for the song. We see a strange prehistoric creature, followed by rats running along steel girders and then steel towers that metamorphose into foul beasts, one of which decapitates a man; next a sea of blood engulfs a town and its inhabitants; a single tower at first escapes the apocalypse and flies up into the sky, before being swallowed up by an enormous bubble. “This particular creature I created, I remember showing it to the gang, who sort of went along with everything I said at that point,” Gerald Scarfe revealed. “They didn’t correct anything.”102
Production
On February 25 the Floyd began the recording, under the title “The Machine Song,” of Roger Waters’s indictment of a “system” that manipulates and crushes all individuality. The opening of the song has a muffled, disturbing feel to it, conveying the atmosphere of the room that houses this frightening machine, and we hear the stealthy throbbing of its motor (produced on the VCS3). An electronic bell (at 0:03) is followed by the sound of a double door opening. Its presence has a metaphorical significance, as Roger Waters explains: “It’s a phrase that gets used all the time in English, ‘and the doors open to…,’” which is naturally associated with “the symbol of doors, keys, the symbol of discovery, of advancement, of progress, of agreement.”9 In this case, Waters had the door opening not to knowledge, but to the trap laid by the machine, that monster that tramples everyone’s dreams.
The way “Welcome to the Machine” was produced was quite unusual for the group. There was no backing track laid down in advance as a guide for the overdubs; instead, it was created by a process of trial and error. As David Gilmour confirms: “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.”100 This throbbing is not actually a machine motor; it is the sound of a bass synthesizer that we hear from 0:30 on the left of the stereo field, which is repeated on the right with a delay. The whole song consists of a buildup of sound effects and all kinds of instruments. “[It’s] a form of collage using sound,”100 Gilmour adds. The atmosphere of the piece is derived mainly from the many parts produced on the synthesizers: the VCS3s, of course (synthesizer models A and AKS synthesizer); the Minimoog, which Rick Wright uses for the solo parts at 5:09, for example; but also the strings of the ARP Solina, which have a strong presence and are one of the predominant keyboard effects. David Gilmour in fact talked about how difficult it was to record the synthesizers, and what technique to opt for, between a direct take on the console or a take via the amplifier: “Eventually what we decided to do was to use D.I. on synthesiser because that way you don’t increase your [signal] losses and the final result sounds very much like a synthesizer through a stage amp.”100
Roger Waters underpins the throbbing from the VCS3 with an overly quiet bass line, which is hard to make out amid the synthesizers. On May 13, Nick Mason recorded orchestral timpanis and cymbals to add to the tension of the piece (from 3:19 onward). David Gilmour, meanwhile, delivers not only an acoustic guitar part played on his Martin D-35, which is double-tracked starting from the verses, and a few phrases played clean on his “Black Strat” (which can be heard at 2:34), but also, notably, the lead vocal. It is pitched high. He double-tracks himself an octave lower. But he struggled with some notes that were too high for him. Whereas normally he would persevere until the result was to his liking, this time he decided to employ a trick whereby the tape recorder was noticeably slowed down: “It was a line I just couldn’t reach,” he admitted, “so we dropped the tape down half a semitone and then dropped the line in on the track.”100 The line in question could well be It’s alright we told you what to dream, where you really hear his voice straining (at 4:17).
The track ends with the door closing and the sound of an oscillator rising then falling, before the mood changes to a lively atmosphere. “Yes, it’s like a party. That was put in there because of the complete emptiness inherent in that way of behaving, celebrations, gatherings of people who talk and drink together. To me, that epitomizes the lack of contacts and of real feelings.
While Pink Floyd continued to record at Abbey Road, the Beatles’ former stomping ground, Gerald Scarfe, who would go on to produce the animation for The Wall (1979), in 1981 married Jane Asher, who had been Paul McCartney’s fiancée in the 1960s. Strawberry Fields Forever…
COVERS
“Welcome to the Machine” has been covered by several bands. The most famous version is the one by Queensrÿche on their album Take Cover (2007).
Have A Cigar
Roger Waters / 5:08
Musicians
David Gilmour: electric rhythm guitar, electric lead guitar, VCS3 (?)
Rick Wright: keyboards
Roger Waters: bass, VCS3 (?)
Nick Mason: drums
Roy Harper: vocals
Recorded
Abbey Road Studios, London: March 10–13, May 6–9, 16, 30–31, June 2, July 8–9 19, 28, 1975 (Studios Two and Three)
Technical Team
Producer: Pink Floyd
Sound Engineer: Brian Humphries
Assistant Sound Engineer: Peter James
Genesis
“Have a Cigar” was born in the days following Pink Floyd’s North American tour (April 1975). Roger Waters composed it as a logical follow-up to “Shine On You Crazy Diamond.” “The verses (tune and words) were all written before I ever played it to the others,” he confided to Nick Sedgwick. “Except the stuff before and after the vocal, that happened in the studio.”100
In terms of the subject matter, “Have a Cigar” is a direct follow-up to “Welcome to the Machine”—it is another swipe at the record industry. And although, for once, there is a touch of humor in the tone: Come in here, dear boy, have a cigar/You’re gonna go far, you’re gonna fly high… the criticism is unambiguous. The head of the record label is on marvelous terms with the artist as long as the latter is a success. But when it comes down to it, he knows nothing of his protégé’s artistic identity—or rather he doesn’t care as long as the money comes pouring in. The record industry magnate doesn’t even know the name of the artists. In his mind they are nothing more than consumer products to be exploited. In a nutshell, money prevails over everything. Everything else is trivial. As a result, the artist is gripped by feelings of incomprehension, disappointment, frustration, and loneliness. For Brian Humphries, “the lyrics so much sum up the recording business.”102 David Gilmour would often repeat that he thought Syd’s madness had largely come about due to “the demands of the record industry.”102
“Have a Cigar” was released as a single from Wish You Were Here (with “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” as its B-side in several European countries and with “Welcome to the Machine” in the United States). It reached only number 119 on the Cash Box magazine charts.
Production
“Have a Cigar” starts with an ex
cellent riff played by Gilmour on his “Black Strat,” distorted by his Colorsound and heavily colored above all by his MXR Phase 90. Waters supports him with his Fender Precision, which slots perfectly into his harmonic motif. The rhythm is heavy, with Mason really pounding his Ludwig kit; Wright assists with a funky Wurlitzer section before playing a melodic phrase on the Minimoog, double-tracked, which is underpinned by the Strat and the bass. He also provides an accompaniment on the Hammond organ, layers of strings on his ARP Solina, and a Clavinet part that comes in just before the first verse (probably double-tracked by ADT). Gilmour, for his part, delivers a number of overdubbed solo passages. Then comes the first verse.
At the initial recording sessions for “Have a Cigar,” Roger Waters and then David Gilmour tried to record the lead vocals and sing together (session on May 8)—without much success. “With ‘Have a Cigar’ both of them knew that neither of them could sing it,” comments Brian Humphries. “I always thought that Dave’s voice was not deep enough.”102 After numerous attempts, by Gilmour and Waters, the Floyd ended up opting for Roy Harper, a folk singer who was a regular at big pop gatherings, particularly ones where Pink Floyd was headlining. Having made his name with the remarkable Stormcock (1971), Harper was in the middle of recording the album HQ (1975) in Studio Two at Abbey Road (with, on the console, the same John Leckie who had been involved in the early recording sessions for “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”). He offered to give it a go. “For a price,” he joked. He would later admit how astonished he was at the huge success of the album and the song: “It was played around the world. That was my vocals on a number one selling single. Everybody thought it was Roger.”102 Although Humphries was enthusiastic about this performance and David Gilmour was also won over, it was greeted with a certain reticence, to say the least, on the part of Roger Waters, who thought Harper’s version was too much of a parody, “which I don’t like. I never liked it. […] I think if I’d sung it, it would be more vulnerable and less cynical than the way he did it.”102 He had to resign himself to his inability to sing this number, though, because the attempts he recorded after Harper’s performance on May 9 proved no more conclusive than his previous attempts. So it was with a heavy heart that he finally threw in the towel, probably on May 31.