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Thread: Pink Floyd

  1. #31
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    Default Re: Pink Floyd

    Quote Originally Posted by tjrrockandrollmaster View Post
    Roger just became powerful and domineering and drove David Gilmour and Rick Wright to seclusion and not contribute like they did on Atom Heart through Wish You Were Here.
    Yes, this is an interesting question, because while Gilmour and Wright have said at times that Waters didn't allow them to contribute, they have also actually admitted that they weren't pulling their weight. So the truth lies probably somewhere in between.

  2. #32
    Out on the Border Sebastian's Avatar
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    Default Re: Pink Floyd

    I'll bump this because I don't want to start a new topic when there's already one going on. Coincidentally, I happen to be listening to 'Watching TV' right now

    Lately I've been listening to Pink Floyd a lot and watching documentaries, and that's sort of rekindled my interest in the band, in all of their incarnations.

  3. #33
    Stuck on the Border Jonny Come Lately's Avatar
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    Default Re: Pink Floyd

    I love Pink Floyd. I don't think any other act can touch their incredible run of 1970s albums from Meddle through to The Wall - 5 out of 6 of those albums are total classics in my book and the odd one out, the film soundtrack Obscured By Clouds, isn't exactly bad either.

    As for the Waters v Gilmour debate - I don't think the band would have been as good without either, for Waters was the lyricist and ideas man whereas Gilmour was the superior musician, along with the late, great Rick Wright. I will admit that I probably side with Gilmour slightly, and I do rather like The Division Bell. However, the less said about A Momentary Lapse Of Reason (one of the most unfortunately titled albums of all time), the better...

    My top five Pink Floyd albums are as follows:
    1=) Wish You Were Here
    1=) The Dark Side Of The Moon
    (I prefer not to separate these two exceptional albums, which are probably my two favourites of all time. If pushed really hard I might just about go for WYWH).
    3) Animals
    4) The Wall
    5) Meddle

    I find it somewhat more difficult to rank the other albums, although I think the unfairly maligned Atom Heart Mother would come sixth - that's the album where their 1970s sound seems to fall into place. The title track isn't perfect but the best parts are stunning with some fantastic Gilmour guitar. I am partial to The Division Bell and while I would agree that it's not as lyrically strong as the Waters-era albums, I think it's a very solid and enjoyable Pink Floyd album in its own right and with Wright co-writing nearly half the songs I consider it to be a legitimate Floyd work.

    The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, while undoubtedly being highly influential and possessing some great material (Astronomy Domine is my favourite) is a bit overrated. I don't care that much for Bike and there is filler, although ironically, the worst song is the Waters composition Take Up Thy Stethoscope and Walk. I actually prefer A Saucerful Of Secrets, which is the first album featuring Gilmour's guitar playing - he has a good solo on Let There Be More Light, and Waters penned the excellent Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun. Barrett also provided a great track in Jugband Blues, his final Floyd song, which is an insight into his condition at the time the album was being put together.

    There was a surprise last year when after 20 years a new album, The Endless River, was released. I'm pretty happy with it myself although I say so as a big fan and especially so of Gilmour and Wright - I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who wasn't already into. The album is almost entirely instrumental and mostly ambient (although I think it is 'good' ambient music with a classic Pink Floyd atmosphere, not elevator ambient music).

  4. #34
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    Default Re: Pink Floyd

    I love Saucerful Of Secrets, but I'm probably the only one on the planet who loves it with the exception of Jugband Blues. It has never done nothing for me. Rick sort of disowned his songs from this era, but I like to think that it was because of his lyrics. Maybe he felt that he was trying too hard to write like Syd lyrically, and failing miserably. Musically I find Remember A Day and See-Saw fantastic.
    At some point when Rick was knocking his old songs, he said that Roger's Corpolal Clegg is "just as bad", while Roger has said fairly recently that CC was a great piece of work. Roger was probably thinking that lyrically the song pointed him towards a future direction - sarcastic stuff like winning a wooden leg in the war! I remember Roger mentioned that line.

  5. #35
    Stuck on the Border Jonny Come Lately's Avatar
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    Default Re: Pink Floyd

    I had another listen to A Saucerful Of Secrets today - I agree it's a strong album, I certainly enjoyed listening to it. I also agree that Rick Wright was unduly harsh on his compositions on that album. Remember A Day and See-Saw may not be lyrical masterpieces but I would not say either that song was terrible in this regard and in any case the lyrics are not highlighted especially in the mix so are not that prominent. Out of the two I think I prefer Remember A Day - I really like the piano parts and also the slide guitar which I believe was played by Syd. It certainly sounds like his style rather than David's (which is clearly highlighted in Let There Be More Light). See-Saw is nice although the band did give it the alternative title of 'The Second Most Boring Song I've Ever Heard (Bar Two) - again, harsh. I wasn't too fond of it when I first heard it as I thought it was a weak Beach Boys pastiche, but now I'm sure why I ever thought that - it doesn't sound like The Beach Boys particularly.

    I love Corporal Clegg. It has some great guitars but above all, it's funny - the lyrics make me smile and you can even hear the band laughing during the final kazoo solo! It's funny to think that Roger once wrote such a humorous and whimsical song about war when you consider the bleakness of songs from The Wall and The Final Cut covering similar themes. Having said that there is also Free Four from Obscured By Clouds which combines a happy, catchy tune with bleak lyrics from Roger about his father's death, and death in general. Returning to the lyrics, I think that 'winning' a wooden leg in the war is a clever yet funny lyrical idea, although I am also amused every time by the line about his medal, which he 'found in a zoo'. It doesn't make Clegg sound especially heroic, that's for sure!

    It took me a couple of listens to get into the title track before I really appreciated but I do like it quite a lot now. Reading Nick Mason's comments about it being very carefully structured (I'm sure I read that Roger and Nick, unable to read sheet music, planned out the song using a sort of architectural diagram with a series of symbols). My favourite part of the song is the final section - Celestial Voices - I really like the combination of the organ with the wordless vocals. One other thought I have about this song is that if Pink Floyd hadn't worked out as a rock band, they could have turned to horror movie soundtracks, some of the sections of this song and other early compositions are kind of scary if listened to in the right circumstances!

    I have to say I do love Jugband Blues myself. In just three minutes it chronicles the sad decline of Syd Barrett from rising star to the tragically erratic figure he became quite brilliantly. The moment when the Salvation Army band stops and the acoustic guitar comes in is chilling, especially when followed by the final lyrics. I think 'And what exactly is a joke' is a powerful closing line. Sadly, it wasn't a joke.

    Having said that, I can understand why not everyone likes it - quite whether telling a Salvation Army to 'play anything' was a wise move I'm not sure, it's one think for a four- or five-piece rock band but another for that kind of musical group.

    I won't discuss Let There Be More Light or Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun in as much depth as I mentioned those in more detail before although I do love both, I think they showed how Roger improved as a songwriter compared to his sole effort on Piper, with the former featuring some very memorable quirky limits about aliens landing in the Fens as well as a cool bass intro and vocals shared between Rick Wright and David Gilmour, while the very chilled atmosphere of Set The Controls combined with its introspective lyrics is classic Roger. I think as well as being a fine song in itself, marked the way forward to later, similarly immersive songs such as Welcome To The Machine.

  6. #36
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    Default Re: Pink Floyd

    JCL, I decided to return to this thread because I just heard Lost For Words from The Division Bell. What a great song....especially the 'twist' at the end!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3Mycieh-kE
    Last edited by Freypower; 10-31-2015 at 10:55 PM.

  7. #37
    Stuck on the Border Jonny Come Lately's Avatar
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    Default Re: Pink Floyd

    Thank you for posting that. I am very fond of Lost For Words too - it is like a dark version of the classic Wish You Were Here. I've always thought the lyrics are about Roger Waters, and I also think it's unusual in that the unexpected use of an obscenity ('tell me to please go f*** myself') actually benefits the song. It's more emotionally powerful than if they had simply read 'get lost' or something like that, it doesn't feel gratuitous at all.

    One comparison I have often read is that The Division Bell album is to Waters what Wish You Were Here was to Syd Barrett. A look at the lyrics to songs like A Great Day For Freedom, Poles Apart and Wearing The Inside Out seem to validate this, although the central theme of The Division Bell is a lack of communication in general, even the instrumentals Cluster One (a 'conversation' between Gilmour's guitar and Rick Wright's piano) and Marooned (the music provides a clear sense of isolation, as much as the title itself) fit this theme. It is also probably the album which comes closest to WYWH in overall feel and sound.

    My favourite song from The Division Bell has got to be High Hopes. It's a true epic with the ringing church bell, thoughtful lyrics and the slide solo is sublime. I find it quite moving - it's difficult for me to listen to it without thinking of all the great music that came before it. One clever thing is how the song's final line ('the endless river, forever and ever') echoes the early Syd-era single See Emily Play, which has the lyric 'Float on a river forever and ever'. A nice touch.

    One 'Easter egg' you can find on High Hopes is that if you wait until the very end, and have the volume turned up sufficiently loud, you can hear an amusing phone call between the late Steve O'Rourke (Floyd's long-time manager) and Charlie Gilmour, who was three years old at the time.

    If anyone's been wondering, part of the reason why I've decided to do Pink Floyd songs exclusively in the Never Ending Song Game is because it presents a bit of a challenge - off the top of my head I don't think there's a single Floyd song with 'love' in the title, for instance (Young Lust is the closest you can get) so I have to try and think of more unusual links. I've been having fun with it so far!

  8. #38
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    Default Re: Pink Floyd

    Yes, there is definitely an unbelievable change in Roger's songwriting from Piper to Saucerful. When you listen to LTBML with a guitar in hand, you'll notice that there are rather clever chord changes. I can't explain this in words, but it's also brilliant how the chorus appears from the verse in terms of harmony. No, I haven't analyzed what happens there, but I do know that that kind of harmony wasn't in every rock song - still isn't. Above all, it gives me a spooky feeling, which works perfectly with the lyric. Especially the chromatically descending chord movement that concludes the chorus (when Gilmour sings the word "hall"). A great piece of work, although it's not mentioned nearly as often as STCFTHOTS.

    As for Division Bell, I still don't care for it, but Wearing The Inside Out is absolutely amazing, and High Hopes is great too. Lyrically High Hopes would have worked better on a Gilmour solo album at that point.

  9. #39
    Border Desperado MortSahlFan's Avatar
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    Default Re: Pink Floyd

    Pink Floyd is my favorite group ever... I know Roger and David liked the Eagles, Henley even sang with Roger Waters on an album..


    Favorite Songs
    1. Time
    2. Shine On You Crazy Diamond
    3. Dogs
    4. Us and Them
    5. Welcome to the Machine

    Albums
    1. Dark Side of the Moon (greatest ever)
    2. The Wall
    3. Wish You Were Here
    4. Animals
    5. Meddle

  10. #40
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    Default Re: Pink Floyd

    According to Roger it was Jim Ladd who suggested that Roger and Don sing together: http://www.pink-floyd.org/artint/96.htm

    Here Roger praises Don's work: http://www.rogerwaters.org/atdwestwood.html

    I don't remember Roger saying that he loves the Eagles, but it's cool if he does.
    Last edited by chaim; 11-01-2015 at 12:26 PM.

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