Pink Floyd All the Songs
Page 74
Following this wonderful intro, Rick Wright launches into his lead vocal, colored by a harmonizer or similar effect. Sadly, this was the last lead he would ever sing for Pink Floyd. “I’d rehearsed it with Anthony Moore who wrote the lyrics,” explains Wright, “but I basically hadn’t really sung for twenty years. I did one take, and Bob Ezrin said ‘Okay, that’s it,’ which I couldn’t believe. I went in and listened to it, and yes, it is nearly it. We worked on it a bit. But it’s a song that really suits my voice. I don’t have a versatile voice. I’m not a Dave.”153 It is certainly true that Wright gives a moving performance, even if his lack of practice shows, and he conveys a good sense of the ordeals life has strewn in his way. Although his voice is not as serene as it had been in the early days, his inimitable gentle and reassuring timbre, familiar from “Echoes” and “Summer ’68,” is still there.
After the first verse, the backing vocals answer each of his phrases to great effect. The five backing vocalists then support Wright with harmonies, and Gilmour embellishes the end of each line with some very good bluesy, soaring licks on his Strat, again using the Whammy pedal to execute octave bends. At the end of this second verse, we hear a solo played on a keyboard whose resonant sonorities bring to mind the Minimoog (from 2:37). This is followed by a vocal bridge harmonized by a single voice, after which Gilmour takes an initial solo, which he shares with the silky tones of Dick Parry on sax. In addition to the pads, the keyboards heard in the accompaniment include the sound of a Fender Rhodes (or K2000?) and an acoustic piano. In the final verses, Wright also contributes to the backing vocals, and the warm tones of a Hammond B-3 can be heard coming through. Nick Mason—always perfectly at ease in medium tempi of this sort, where he manages to create a good groove while working his drums with no little power—lays down a very good beat. In this he receives the best possible support from Gary Wallis on programmed and “live” percussion, as well as from Guy Pratt’s excellent bass. At 5:15, David Gilmour then launches into a second solo, lasting for more than a minute, on his “Red Strat.” He was not fully satisfied with this performance, however: “Funnily enough, I never really liked the guitar solo on the out. Everyone else said they did like it, but I wanted to dump it and do something else on there, ’cos I thought, ‘God, I’ve got too many damn guitar solos again. They’re all over the bloody record.’ I didn’t think that one was so good, but lots of people like it, I guess. It’s grown on me a bit.”165
“Wearing the Inside Out” is one of the triumphs of The Division Bell, and for more than one reason: the quality of the composition and lyrics, Rick Wright’s moving voice, and the return of the talented Dick Parry.
For Pink Floyd Addicts
There are two videos of the group rehearsing “Wearing the Inside Out”: one on the Endless River deluxe DVD edition and another on the iTunes deluxe edition.
Take It Back
David Gilmour, Bob Ezrin, Polly Samson, Nick Laird-Clowes/6:12
Musicians
David Gilmour: vocals, acoustic guitar (with EBow), electric rhythm guitar, programming (?)
Rick Wright: keyboards, organ
Nick Mason: drums
Bob Ezrin: keyboards, programming (?)
Jon Carin: keyboards, programming (?)
Guy Pratt: bass
Tim Renwick: electric rhythm guitar (?)
Gary Wallis: percussion
Sam Brown, Durga McBroom, Carol Kenyon, Jackie Sheridan, Rebecca Leigh-White: backing vocals
Recorded
Britannia Row Studios, Islington, London: January 1993
Astoria, Hampton: February–May, September–December 1993
Metropolis Studios, Chiswick, London: September–December 1993
The Creek Recording Studios, London: September–December 1993
Technical Team
Producers: David Gilmour, Bob Ezrin
Sound Engineers: Andy Jackson, Keith Grant (The Creek), Chris Thomas (mixing)
Assistant Sound Engineer: Jules Bowen (Astoria)
Genesis
I was thinking all about her, burning with rage and desire… This line from the first verse leads us to believe that “Take It Back” is a love song. More specifically, a song about passion and its devastating consequences. A man is passionately in love with a woman—to the extent that he is totally obsessed with her and lives in permanent fear that she might withdraw her affection. This gives rise to jealousy, lies, and unrealistic promises on the part of the lover, who is transfixed by fear and ends up destroying everything… But David Gilmour, Polly Samson, and Nick Laird-Clowes, all three of whom share the lyric-writing credit, have made “Take It Back” much more than a simple love song. Not only does the heroine symbolize the feminine ideal, she is none other than Mother Nature herself—bestowing life and nourishing mankind. Laird-Clowes confirms: “[David Gilmour] had this great idea about Gaia [the Earth in Greek mythology] being a woman who could take the earth back anytime she wanted.”164 In the light of this, the message of “Take It Back” takes on a completely new dimension: if we treat her badly, if we subject her to the outrages of pollution and overconsumption, nature will take her revenge (Then I hear her laughter rising from the deep), making mankind the victim of his own reckless behavior (the rising tide that will engulf modern civilization). The message is clear: nature can take back everything she has given. In a sense, “Take It Back” can be seen as the ecological manifesto of the post-Waters Pink Floyd.
Released as a single on May 16, 1994, “Take It Back” peaked at number 23 on the UK charts on May 29.
Production
“Take It Back” opens with guitar-derived sounds drenched in very substantial reverb. These strange sonorities result from a combination of notes played with an EBow (an electronic resonator that creates a quasi-bowed effect) on David Gilmour’s acoustic Gibson J-200 and fed through a Zoom (a guitar multi-effects processor). The guitarist explains that he decided one day to “stick the E-bow on the strings and see what would happen. It sounded great, so we started writing a little duet for the E-bowed acoustic guitar and a keyboard. We never finished the piece, but Jon Carin [keyboardist] decided to sample the E-bowed guitar part. We kept the sample and ended up using it as a loop on ‘Take It Back.’”162 However, David Gilmour transformed the original sound of the loop by playing it backward! Enhanced by enormous reverb, the results are highly impressive.
He then plays a rhythm part with delay on his “Red Strat,” the sound distorted and compressed courtesy of his Boss CS-2 pedal. A programmed sequence answers him with a similar motif, and Nick Mason, assisted by Guy Pratt’s bass guitar, stresses the harmonic modulations of the intro with a series of cymbal–bass drum crashes. No sooner does the drumming get properly under way than U2 and the highly characteristic guitar of The Edge come to mind. Gilmour resumes the lead vocal after leaving Rick Wright to sing the previous song. This time he adopts his hard-edged rock timbre. As Wright has pointed out, Gilmour’s is a versatile voice. He is accompanied in the refrains by the five backing vocalists, and after the second verse the song takes a more cosmic turn with an instrumental break in which the loop of acoustic guitar played with the EBow makes a return (from 2:51). This sequence is made up of multiple sonorities drenched in reverb, ethereal-sounding synth pads, and various combinations of otherworldly sounds.
At around 3:02, an equally reverb-drenched voice can be heard reciting the nursery rhyme “Ring around the Rosie.” When the lead vocal returns, distorted rhythm guitars reinforce the excellent drumming, with Nick Mason in turn supported by Guy Pratt’s superb bass and Gary Wallis’s percussion. Finally, in the closing refrains, the warm tones of Rick Wright’s Hammond organ can be heard coming through the voices of David Gilmour and the backing vocalists. The track ends with the loop and the various guitars and sequencers from the beginning.
“Take It Back” is a very good song, and its choice as a single was thoroughly justified. Nevertheless, it is unexpected for Pink Floyd, and its US flavor offputting for some
fans.
For Pink Floyd Addicts
During the instrumental section in the middle of the song, it is just about possible to make out a voice reciting the nursery rhyme “Ring around the Rosie”: Ring around the rosie/A pocket full of posies/Ashes, ashes/We all fall down! This children’s song is thought to date from the 1880s about the Great Plague of London (1665) that claimed some 75,000 lives.
In May 2007, Nick Laird-Clowes and Joe Boyd organized a Syd Barrett tribute concert in London called “The Madcap’s Last Laugh” after Syd’s first solo album. Unlike the other artists invited to take part, Roger Waters performed a piece not by Syd, but by himself: “Flickering Flame.” Gilmour, Wright, and Mason brought the concert to a close with “Arnold Layne,” the group’s first hit, but without Waters…
Coming Back To Life
David Gilmour/6:19
Musicians
David Gilmour: vocals, acoustic rhythm guitar (?), electric rhythm and lead guitar, programming(?)
Rick Wright: keyboards, organ
Bob Ezrin: keyboards(?), programming(?)
Jon Carin: keyboards (?), programming (?)
Guy Pratt: bass
Tim Renwick: guitar(?)
Recorded
Britannia Row Studios, Islington, London: January 1993
Astoria, Hampton: February–May, September–December 1993
Metropolis Studios, Chiswick, London: September–December 1993
The Creek Recording Studios, London: September–December 1993
Technical Team
Producers: David Gilmour, Bob Ezrin
Sound Engineers: Andy Jackson, Keith Grant (The Creek), Chris Thomas (mixing)
Assistant Sound Engineer: Jules Bowen (Astoria)
Genesis
“Coming Back to Life” is a song with both words and music by David Gilmour. Once again, it is a song full of regrets… The narrator is addressing his partner (or ex-partner): Where were you when I was burned and broken, while the days slipped by from my window watching? The main character reproaches his former loved one for not having helped him when he needed it and for being interested only in someone else’s words, in the past when the couple concerned indulged in a dangerous but irresistible pastime.
What pastime might this be? David Gilmour has answered this question: “Oh, it’s sex, obviously. Sex and procreation.”36 For the wounded lover, this is a period of his life that now needs to be buried forever: I knew the moment had arrived for killing the past and coming back to life, sings Gilmour. This inevitably calls to mind the end of his marriage to Ginger and the start of his relationship with Polly. So the song is about the past, but it is also, and above all, about the present, which has in a sense brought him back to life… “This song is dedicated to my beautiful wife Polly,” he says about “Coming Back to Life” on the DVD David Gilmour in Concert (2002).
David Gilmour may also be alluding to the early years of Pink Floyd, to the relationship between Roger Waters, Rick Wright, and Nick Mason on the one hand, and Syd Barrett on the other, at a time when he was beginning to decline. Could Syd be the narrator blaming the other members of the group for their attitude toward him? A Syd Barrett Lost in thought and lost in time?
Production
A Kurzweil pad forming a chord of C, which has lingered on from the end of the previous track, gradually rises in volume, setting an ethereal, meditative tone. David Gilmour’s Strat can then be heard ringing out in space, his notes enhanced by generous reverb with a very present delay. He plays a clear-toned, bluesy solo that is highly inspired and brimming with emotion. His playing is magnificent in every respect: never demonstrative, but always searching for the right note, one that will get through to the listener. And this is a note he is always able to find, thanks not least to his multiple bends and use of the whammy bar. During the solo, he can be heard moving up to the bridge pickup in order to give his phrases a little more attack (at 1:12). It is not until after 1:30 that he launches into the lead vocal. His singing is every bit as moving as his guitar playing, and impressive amounts of reverb and delay are added to his words, amplifying their meaning a little more. The synth pads simply magnify this rare moment when an artist has succeeded in creating a perfect symbiosis of music, lyrics, and performance. Gilmour is singing of his own painful personal experience, and expresses himself both powerfully and subtly. The spell is broken slightly by the entrance of a combination of drum machine programmed with the sound of a cowbell (as supplementary percussion), acoustic guitar positioned at the back of the mix (right channel), a clear-toned rhythm guitar part played by Gilmour presumably on his Strat (also on the right), and bass guitar almost certainly played by the excellent Guy Pratt. From 3:26, the beginnings of the last three lines of the second verse are accompanied by Rick Wright with a swell on the irresistible Hammond organ. This is joined by another distorted guitar (doubled) that emphasizes the rhythm. Gilmour then launches into an initial and highly energetic solo (at 3:52), this time with very short reverb. His sound is distinctly rock, and in fact exudes a certain Californian color. After a final verse in which his voice betrays hope in a sunny future, he then plays a second solo that is just as inspired as the first and is supported by two very good organ parts. The track finishes cleanly for a change (at 6:08), and we hear the delay repeats caused by the action of removing his hand from the neck of his Strat (6:13).
Keep Talking
David Gilmour, Richard Wright, Polly Samson/6:11
Musicians
David Gilmour: vocals, acoustic guitar (loop), electric rhythm and lead guitar, programming (?)
Rick Wright: keyboards
Nick Mason: drums
Bob Ezrin: keyboards(?), programming(?)
Jon Carin: keyboards(?), programming(?)
Guy Pratt: bass
Tim Renwick: electric rhythm guitar (?)
Gary Wallis: percussion
Sam Brown, Durga McBroom, Carol Kenyon, Jackie Sheridan, Rebecca Leigh-White: backing vocals
Stephen Hawking: voice
Recorded
Britannia Row Studios, Islington, London: January 1993
Astoria, Hampton: February–May, September–December 1993
Metropolis Studios, Chiswick, London: September–December 1993
The Creek Recording Studios, London: September–December 1993
Technical Team
Producers: David Gilmour, Bob Ezrin
Sound Engineers: Andy Jackson, Keith Grant (The Creek), Chris Thomas (mixing)
Assistant Sound Engineer: Jules Bowen (Astoria)
Genesis
During an interview with Redbeard on the show In the Studio in March 1994, David Gilmour revealed that his inspiration for “Keep Talking” was a British Telecom ad. “This was the most powerful piece of television advertising that I’ve ever seen in my life. I thought it was fascinating, and I contacted the company that made it and asked if I could borrow the voice track from it, this voice-over track from it, which I did, which is this voice synthesizer thing, and I applied it to one of the pieces of music we already had.”153
<c=PANTONE Process Black C>For millions of years mankind lived just like the animals. Then something happened which unleashed the power of our imagination. We learned to talk. And (the following passage is played twice): It doesn’t have to be like this. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking. These words that so moved David Gilmour are spoken by Stephen Hawking, the famous British physicist and cosmologist with motor-neurone disease. As its title has already made clear, this song is about the need for human beings to communicate, a need that is almost as important as breathing. “I have moments of huge frustration because of my inability to express myself linguistically as clearly as I would like to. A lot of people think that I express myself most clearly through the guitar playing.”36 Viewed from this angle, “Keep Talking” rings out as a kind of appeal for the liberation of the spoken word for the sake of global harmony. There’s a silence surrounding me, I can’t seem to think stra
ight, sings David Gilmour after Stephen Hawking’s opening phrases. And in the last verse: What are you thinking?/We’re going nowhere/What are you feeling?/We’re going nowhere.
“Keep Talking” was chosen as the second single from The Division Bell (accompanied by “High Hopes”). Released on October 10, 1994, it reached number 26 on the British charts on October 29, 1994. The song is also on a three-track single with “High Hopes” and a live version of “One of These Days.”