Pink Floyd, The #54 Artist of the Rock Era, Part Two

 

(Continued from Part One)

 

Pink Floyd enlisted the help of engineer Alan Parsons for their next album, a concept release about lunacy.  The band released the album The Dark Side of the Moon in 1973.  The single "Money" stalled at #13.  

The group was able to add many sound effects with a new 16-track recorder.  But it wasn't like the digital recorders of today.  They still had to take a razor blade and splicing tape and splice the effects in.  Waters produced the cash register tape loop that plays throughout, with the sounds of tearing paper and bags of coins thrown into an industrial food-mixing bowl.  Waters achieved the loop by meticulously splicing and cutting the tape in a rhythmic pattern.  

 

The album briefly topped U.S. charts before falling.  But rather than completely dropping off the chart, it simmered for months, which became years.  In 1987, The Dark Side of the Moon finally dropped out of the Billboard Top 200 for the first time in 14 years.  It has now sold over 45 million copies worldwide.  

Waters was working on "Brain Damage" after the American portion of the Meddle tour.  Most of the song (then titled "The Dark Side Of The Moon") had been written while Pink Floyd was recording Meddle.  That title became that of the new album.  It's theme is inspired by former member Barrett and his mental breakdown.  We feature it here with "Eclipse".

 

Dark Side of the Moon was produced by Parsons in the same Abbey Road studio that he engineered several of the Beatles albums.  The group featured music from the album on an extensive world tour.  

 

Pink Floyd's masterpiece concept album includes things that can drive someone crazy.  One of three astounding songs on the album that are all included in The Top Tracks of the Rock Era*--This is "Us And Them".  Gilmour's plaintive, simple message about the futility of war is complemented perfectly by Wright's music, which conveys a bluesy feel at the open thanks to the saxophone solo and builds to a frenzied finish.

 

We also have "Time", a song about how time can slip by for all of us, and we don't realize it until it is too late.  Like its counterparts on Dark Side..."Time" also explores the pressures we deal with, in this case, mortality.  Wright and Gilmour share lead vocals.

Pink Floyd went through numerous approaches to this next song.  First, the song was an organ instrumental with spoken-word samples from the Bible.  When the song became a piano piece, the group attempted several different sound effects over the music, including splicing a sample of NASA astronauts communicating to each other in space, but none seemed to fit.  Just two weeks before the album was due to be finished, the group decided a female singer was what the song needed.

 

Parsons suggested Clare Torry, a 25-year-old session vocalist he had worked with previously.  Torry was brought in and performed three takes of the magnificent vocals.  All three takes are spliced in on "The Great Gig In The Sky", another of The Top Tracks of the Rock Era*.

Now having disagreements with EMI affiliate Capitol Records, which had made them rich, Pink Floyd switched to Columbia Records.  Waters wrote the songs on the group's next album as a tribute to Barrett, their former bandmate.  They had become a huge success with Dark Side of the Moon and with that masterpiece still in the Album charts, there was a good deal of pressure on the band to produce another outstanding project.

Barrett had recorded solo albums in an attempt to recapture his previous magic, but he was lost.  Even though Pink Floyd had been immersed in a three-year tour, Barrett's absence affected them deeply.  Centered on Water's lyrics, the group recorded another concept album, this time focusing on a chief theme of absence, Waters draws a sharp contrast between the band in its early days when they were a tight-knit group to the present, when, although they were superstars, the relationships between band members was strained.

Pink Floyd previewed songs from the album during an appearance at the Knebworth Festival before releasing the album Wish You Were Here in 1975.  Barrett wandered into Abbey Road studios on June 5 when engineer Brian Humphries was finishing the mix of the album.  Barrett had gained so much weight that others did not recognize him for several minutes.  Waters was shaken to see his former bandmate so disengaged from the world and Barrett's refusal to accept reality.  

 

The outstanding title track about Water's mixed feelings about both concern for Barrett as well as knowing the group made the right decision to oust him is another of The Top Tracks of the Rock Era*.

"Have A Cigar" is Waters' blistering critique of the music industry.  At the time they were recording the track, the voices of Pink Floyd members were hoarse, and they were about to abandon recording for the night.  Roy Harper, who was recording an album in the studio next to them, volunteered to sing the song, and that is how Harper wound up singing lead vocals on a Pink Floyd song.

 

The album has now sold over six million copies in the United States alone.  "Welcome To The Machine", written about the money-hungry managers, producers, and company executives asserting control over the band, is another Top Track*.

 

Yet another of Pink Floyd's entries in The Top Tracks of the Rock Era* is the nine-part "Shine On You Crazy Diamond".  Legend has it that Barrett stumbled into the studio while the band was finishing this song.  Waters recalled later, in the Charlie Kendall book Shades of Pink - The Definitive Pink Floyd Profile,

     Roger was there, and he was sitting at the desk,

     and I came in and I saw this guy sitting behind him – 

     huge, bald, fat guy. I thought, "He looks a bit... 

     strange..." Anyway, so I sat down with Roger at the

     desk and we worked for about ten minutes, and this 

     guy kept on getting up and brushing his teeth and

     then sitting – doing really weird things, but keeping 

     quiet. And I said to Roger, "Who is he?" and Roger 

     said "I don't know." And I said "Well, I assumed he 

     was a friend of yours," and he said "No, I don't know

     who he is." Anyway, it took me a long time, and then                 suddenly I realised it was Syd, after maybe 45 

     minutes. He came in as we were doing the vocals for               "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", which was basically 

     about Syd. He just, for some incredible reason 

     picked the very day that we were doing a song which 

     was about him. And we hadn't seen him, I don't think,

     for two years before. That's what's so incredibly...

     weird about this guy. And a bit disturbing, as well, I

     mean, particularly when you see a guy, that you

     don't, you couldn't recognize him. And then, for him to

     pick the very day we want to start putting vocals on, 

     which is a song about him. Very strange.

 

The group bought a church in Islington and launched their own 24-track recording studio.  In 1977, Pink Floyd released the bleak album Animals, the lyrics of which place society in three classes:  dogs, pigs and sheep.  "Pigs On The Wing, Parts I & II" is a standout track.  Waters said the final verse "is a nod towards the idea of safety and succor in the arms of a loved one.  It's the idea that we're not alone and that we have a responsibility to one another in a global society."

 Animals has sold over four million copies in the U.S. and is approaching five million worldwide.  In this song, and more largely on the album, pigs represent people who are wealthy and powerful who think they have the right to dictate to those below them on the social ladder how to live.  Sheep, then, are those who obey or conform to the pigs' rule, while the dogs represent business people who are opposed to the pigs but have their own agendas and will use whatever methods necessary to get their way.  Although two of the "pigs" referred to in "Pigs (Three Different Ones)" are unknown, the last pig is morality preacher Mary Whitehouse.

 

The "dogs" in this scenario are businesspeople who use their position to continue to get richer and more powerful on the back of others.  At the end of this song, "Dogs", they get old and fat and die of cancer.

Gilmour was beginning to develop as a talented songwriter, but Waters refused to recognize this and his material continued to dominate the group's albums.  This caused strife with not only Gilmour but Wright. 

On Pink Floyd's tour to promote the album, Waters arrived at each venue by himself and left immediately following each performance.  At the Olympic Stadium in Montreal, Waters spat on a group of fans in the front row who had "irritated him".

Be sure to catch Part Three!