Pink Floyd All the Songs
Page 70
For Pink Floyd Addicts
Roger Waters had apparently rejected this composition by David Gilmour at the time of the recording of The Final Cut.
Round And Around
David Gilmour / 1:13
Musicians
David Gilmour: guitars, programming
Jon Carin: keyboards, programming (?)
Bob Ezrin: programming (?)
Recorded
Astoria, Hampton: November 1986 to February 1987
Britannia Row Studios, Islington, London: February 1987
Mayfair Studios, Primrose Hill, London: February 1987
Audio International Studios, London: February 1987
A&M Studios, Los Angeles: February to March 1987
The Village Recorder, Los Angeles: February to March 1987
Can-Am Studios, Los Angeles: February to March 1987
Technical Team
Producers: David Gilmour, Bob Ezrin
Sound Engineer: Andy Jackson
Assistant Sound Engineers: Robert Hrycyna, Marc DeSisto, Stan Katayama, Jeff DeMorris
Genesis
The Pink Floyd atmospherics continue with “Round and Around.” It is not really a song in its own right, but rather the finale to “Yet Another Movie” (which segues into it).
Production
The precise rationale behind “Round and Around” is rather unclear: why does this short instrumental, this kind of coda to “Yet Another Movie,” bear a different title? If you don’t count the few seconds of silence at the end of the track or the fade-out, the whole track is no more than fifty-five seconds long. In fact this title was one of a number of demos that David Gilmour had probably put together prior to the production of A Momentary Lapse of Reason.
In any event, “Round and Around” starts on the last slide note of “Yet Another Movie.” Then there is a dramatic mood shift as we move into what is primarily a programmed sequence involving a bass sound and a loop consisting of various percussion elements (in the left channel). Swirling layers in stereo—probably from the Kurzweil K250—along with other synthesizers add to the dreamlike ambiance of this curious instrumental. Gilmour’s 1955 Gibson Les Paul Goldtop comes in after a few bars with simple, short lines that are sometimes harmonized on two strings, with the familiar blues coloring that characterizes his playing. Then, after fifty-five seconds, “Round and Around” begins its fade-out. It is not the shortest track on the album, but the second shortest after “A New Machine (Part 2)” (0:39).
For Pink Floyd Addicts
The live version of “Round and Around,” from Delicate Sound of Thunder, lasts little more than thirty seconds (0:33 to be precise). It is the shortest song ever to feature on a Pink Floyd record.
A New Machine (Part 1)
David Gilmour / 1:46
Musicians
David Gilmour: vocals, vocoder, synthesizers, programming
Pat Leonard: synthesizers, programming (?)
Bob Ezrin: synthesizers, programming (?)
Recorded
Astoria, Hampton: November 1986 to February 1987
Britannia Row Studios, Islington, London: February 1987
Mayfair Studios, Primrose Hill, London: February 1987
Audio International Studios, London: February 1987
A&M Studios, Los Angeles: February to March 1987
The Village Recorder, Los Angeles: February to March 1987
Can-Am Studios, Los Angeles: February to March 1987
Technical Team
Producers: David Gilmour, Bob Ezrin
Sound Engineer: Andy Jackson
Assistant Sound Engineers: Robert Hrycyna, Marc DeSisto, Stan Katayama, Jeff DeMorris
Genesis
“A New Machine” comes in two parts. The first serves as a kind of introduction to “Terminal Frost,” while the second wraps it up. This first part was composed and written by David Gilmour alone (his first solo composition since “Childhood’s End” on Obscured by Clouds). I have always been here […] Sometimes I get tired of the waiting, he writes in the first verse. The last verse takes the form of questions and answers: Do you ever get tired of the waiting? […] Don’t worry, nobody lives forever, comes the reply. Gilmour never commented on the lyrics of this song. As he told the journalist Matt Resnicoff in 1992: “I don’t know if I want to get into that. Whether you want to take [the song] as optimistic or not… I mean, a lot of people didn’t use it as an excuse to go and jump off a cliff or something, did they?”133
So is this a song about imprisonment, or more generally about isolation? About patience, self-belief? One comment by David Gilmour may perhaps give us a clue as to what was in his mind: “On the Momentary Lapse Of Reason album, Nick’s belief in himself was pretty well gone, and Rick’s belief in himself was totally gone. And they weren’t up to making a record, to be quite honest about it.”36 So perhaps lack of self-belief and lack of belief in the future are an underlying theme of “A New Machine.” Despite its title, this song has no connection whatsoever to “Welcome to the Machine” on Wish You Were Here.
Production
“A New Machine (Part 1)” is certainly one of the strangest tracks that Pink Floyd recorded. No acoustic instruments were used, and the arrangement mainly consisted of just a vocoder and some keyboards. The last time the band used this voice synthesizer was back in the days of Animals (on “Dogs” and “Sheep”). So Gilmour’s singing is distorted by the vocoder, most likely a Roland VP-330 Plus, and backed by a layer of sound from the Kurzweil K250 and sounds from other synthesizers (also fed through the vocoder). But between the lines, there is stillness; only the dying chords, the reverb, and the repetitions produced by the delay penetrate the silence, in the last verse (at around 1:09), a held note fades in, a shrill, rather distorted note, which is a constant presence from here to the end of the track.
For Pink Floyd Addicts
“If you had a reasonably adept producer,” Roger Waters commented one day, “Pink Floyd could go on for two hundred years after the original members were dead.”36 Another possible explanation of the hidden meaning of “A New Machine”?
Terminal Frost
David Gilmour / 6:15
Musicians
David Gilmour: electric rhythm and lead guitars, solo acoustic guitar, programming
Nick Mason: percussion (?)
Richard Wright: piano, Kurzweil, organ
Jon Carin: keyboards (?)
Bob Ezrin: keyboards (?), programming
Tony Levin: bass
John Helliwell: saxophone
Tom Scott: saxophone
Recorded
Astoria, Hampton: November 1986 to February 1987
Britannia Row Studios, Islington, London: February 1987
Mayfair Studios, Primrose Hill, London: February 1987
Audio International Studios, London: February 1987
A&M Studios, Los Angeles: February to March 1987
The Village Recorder, Los Angeles: February to March 1987
Can-Am Studios, Los Angeles: February to March 1987
Technical Team
Producers: David Gilmour, Bob Ezrin
Sound Engineer: Andy Jackson
Assistant Sound Engineers: Robert Hrycyna, Marc DeSisto, Stan Katayama, Jeff DeMorris
Genesis
David Gilmour had already recorded a demo of “Terminal Frost” some time before the sessions for A Momentary Lapse of Reason got under way. “But there was a long period of time where I thought I might get words for it and turn it into a song,” the composer explained. “In the end it decided for itself that it would remain the way it was.”36 There are just a few words faintly audible in the echo: Oh, yeah, yeah… one thing… never, ever again.
The words terminal frost can be read in two ways. The title of this instrumental can be taken to mean “ultimate coldness,” or alternatively “total fiasco.” In the first case one inevitably thinks of death; in the second, of a failed life. In either case, the piece doesn’t exactly insp
ire optimism and comes across as just as dark as some of Roger Waters’s compositions for The Wall and The Final Cut. Musically, though, there is little in common with the two conceptual works by the ex–Pink Floyd member. “Terminal Frost” follows in the same vein as “One Slip” and “Yet Another Movie”: it is an atmospheric number. Gilmour’s guitar is what makes it, but also the exquisite contributions of saxophonists Tom Scott and John Helliwell. The former, an icon of West Coast jazz and composer of the theme songs to the TV series The Streets of San Francisco and Starsky & Hutch, also played and recorded with the cream of the rock scene, from the Beach Boys to the ex-Beatles George Harrison and Paul McCartney, not to mention Rod Stewart, the Grateful Dead, and the Blues Brothers Band (of which he was one of the founding members). The latter, who joined Supertramp in 1972, was one of the architects of the success of albums including Crime of the Century (1974), Crisis? What Crisis? (1975), and Breakfast in America (1979). “Terminal Frost” featured as the B-side of the “Learning to Fly” single in some countries, including France and the West Germany.
Production
The rhythm part of the track starts with a programmed drum machine (LinnDrum? Linn 9000? E-mu SP 1200?) and percussion (tambourine, shaker). Tony Levin is on the bass, and his playing meshes perfectly with the sounds from these various machines to produce a typical eighties groove. “Terminal Frost” is an instrumental with quite an ethereal flavor and a dreamlike atmosphere, enhanced by the fact that the melody David Gilmour plays on the guitar features very prominent reverb and delay. The sound of his “Red Strat” is unmistakably distorted by his Big Muff and colored by the chorus of his Boss CE-2. Numerous keyboard parts, piano samples, and sound layers are audible, some played by Rick Wright, others presumably by Jon Carin and/or Bob Ezrin. In reply to Gilmour’s guitar, we hear the saxophone of first John Helliwell, and then Tom Scott, each of them delivering an excellent performance. “Terminal Frost” flirts with a certain brand of jazz rock, a style more in tune with David Gilmour’s tastes than Roger Waters’s. Distorted guitars underscore the rhythm (at around 2:03), before it transitions into more of a rock beat, with Wright, especially, playing an excellent accompaniment on the Hammond organ (from 2:49 onward). From time to time an acoustic guitar can be heard; this sound is almost certainly produced on the Kurzweil K250 (listen at 3:59, for example). Then, in the coda, Gilmour plays some solo lines, this time on a real acoustic guitar (Martin D-35?), the sound apparently faintly colored by a harmonizer (from 5:15). It is also possible to make out a voice (at around 4:26), an effect used regularly since The Dark Side of the Moon.
“Terminal Frost” is a good track, enjoyable to listen to, but probably not the best piece on the album. The quality is nowhere near that of the instrumentals we had become accustomed to hearing from the band in the past…
For Pink Floyd Addicts
There was a Pink Floyd tribute band from Liège, in Belgium, that went by the name of Terminal Frost.
Even in a piece as remote from the blues tradition as “Terminal Frost,” one can recognize in David Gilmour’s playing the influence of the grand masters of the twelve-bar blues, and of Albert Collins in particular, who had an aggressive playing style—to the extent that some even used to claim he used an ice pick. (In 1978 he released an album entitled Ice Pickin’.)
A New Machine (Part 2)
David Gilmour / 0:38
Musicians
David Gilmour: vocals, vocoder, synthesizers, programming
Pat Leonard: synthesizers, programming (?)
Bob Ezrin: synthesizers, programming (?)
Recorded
Astoria, Hampton: November 1986 to February 1987
Britannia Row Studios, Islington, London: February 1987
Mayfair Studios, Primrose Hill, London: February 1987
Audio International Studios, London: February 1987
A&M Studios, Los Angeles: February to March 1987
The Village Recorder, Los Angeles: February to March 1987
Can-Am Studios, Los Angeles: February to March 1987
Technical Team
Producers: David Gilmour, Bob Ezrin
Sound Engineer: Andy Jackson
Assistant Sound Engineers: Robert Hrycyna, Marc DeSisto, Stan Katayama, Jeff DeMorris
Genesis
“A New Machine (Part 2)” is obviously the continuation of the first part. The main difference is in the tense chosen by the narrator. This time he talks about the future, not the past, which immediately precludes all questions: I will always be in here […] It’s only a lifetime.
Production
In terms of production, this second part of “A New Machine” is built around the same elements as the first: vocoders, noise gates, reverb, delays, and synthesizers. The only notable change is in David Gilmour’s singing, in that he reaches for higher notes, which he sings falsetto. But the effect remains just as surprising as in the first part, and it is a soundscape that Gilmour was very pleased with: “‘New Machine’ has a sound I’ve never heard anyone do,” he commented. “The noise gates, the Vocoders, opened up something new which to me seemed like a wonderful sound effect that no one had done before; it’s innovation of a sort.”133
Although the vocoder was made popular in the seventies by groups like Kraftwerk or the Buggles, there was one musician who surprised everybody when he made extensive use of it on his 1982 album, Trans: Neil Young.
Sorrow
David Gilmour / 8:45
Musicians
David Gilmour: vocals, vocal harmonies, electric rhythm and lead guitars, keyboards, programming, drum machine
Rick Wright: Kurzweil, organ
Tony Levin: bass
Bob Ezrin: keyboards
Darlene Koldenhoven, Carmen Twillie, Phyllis St. James, Donny Gerrard: backing vocals
Recorded
Astoria, Hampton: November 1986 to February 1987
Britannia Row Studios, Islington, London: February 1987
Mayfair Studios, Primrose Hill, London: February 1987
Audio International Studios, London: February 1987
A&M Studios, Los Angeles: February to March 1987
The Village Recorder, Los Angeles: February to March 1987
Can-Am Studios, Los Angeles: February to March 1987
Technical Team
Producers: David Gilmour, Bob Ezrin
Sound Engineer: Andy Jackson
Assistant Sound Engineers: Robert Hrycyna, Marc DeSisto, Stan Katayama, Jeff DeMorris
Genesis
David Gilmour revealed that this song was probably the only one where he had written the words before the music, “which is rare for me,”133 he said. Once again, Gilmour’s lyrics are infused with sadness, disillusionment… sorrow. Plumes of smoke rise and merge into the leaden sky: he is obviously alluding to the ravages of pollution, which mean that green fields and rivers are now nothing but a dream. The song’s protagonist surveys the world around him and is frightened by what he sees: he is haunted by the memory of a lost paradise. He is gripped by anxiety: his blood has frozen, his knees and hands tremble…
What can he do about it? The truth is: nothing. Except to say his final goodbyes to this lost world. In the cryptic penultimate verse, we infer that the man plunges into the river—a river of dark and troubled waters that flow toward an oily sea…
Gilmour, who is realistic about his skills as a lyricist, especially compared to Roger Waters, nevertheless considers “Sorrow” to be one of his successes, as he confided to Alan di Perna in 1993: “I’m proud of some of ones I’ve done. ‘Sorrow’ is a very good lyric.”29
Production
The environment of the Astoria clearly had an influence on the writing and production of “Sorrow.” Phil Taylor remembered that, during the recording of A Momentary Lapse of Reason, David “stayed on board for one weekend and recorded the entirety of ‘Sorrow’ including all the guitar parts, vocals and the drum machine, so that when we reconvened on the Monday, there was only a bit o
f spit and polish required.”5 But rather than the romantic river ambiance one might have expected, the song is largely rock based, even containing hard-rock elements, if only in the incredible guitar introduction: “That very nasty distortion you hear at the beginning of the song,” Gilmour explained, “is basically the result of the Steinberger going through two little amps in the studio—a Fender Super Champ and a Gallien-Krueger. I use a Boss Heavy Metal distortion pedal and a Boss digital delay pedal, which then goes into the Fender Super Champ. And that in combination with the internal distortion on the Gallien-Krueger was how I got that particular sound.”152 In actual fact, there was a further step involved in creating the amazing sound on the intro, as Bob Ezrin recounted: “We actually hired a 24-track truck and a huge P.A. system, and brought them inside the L.A. Sports Arena. We had the whole venue to ourselves, and we piped Dave’s guitar tracks out into the sports arena and re-recorded them in 3D. So the tracks that originally came from a teeny little Gallien-Kruger and a teeny little Fender, but piped through this enormous P.A. out into a sports arena, sound like the Guitar From Hell.”29 The result is truly impressive, and is enhanced by the low-pitched synthesizer drone in the background. It is only at about 1:50 that the piece really gets going, a drum machine programmed by Gilmour marking the beat, supported by Tony Levin’s bass guitar and a programmed rhythm sequence on one of the keyboards. Atmospheric layers enrich the sonic texture, as well as distorted guitar effects involving long reverb and delays.