Reinventing Pink Floyd

by Bill Kopp

  The Committee does feature some interesting music, and nearly all of that music was created expressly for the film by Pink Floyd. Peter Jenner recalls the informal approach surrounding the entire project. He says that producer Max Steuer “was someone I knew from the London School of Economics. We were on the scene, so various film people would say, ‘produce the music for it,’ and we’d go and do some music for them. We didn’t really know about stage licenses and contracts and things like that, so if one artist wanted you to do some music, you did some music.” He notes that with Syd Barrett more or less out of the picture, the band faced a challenge. “It became very hard to deliver anything coherent, because there was no one [else] who could really write songs. But the Floyd did sort of pick up quickly and start; they realized that they had to write.”

  In early April 1968, Pink Floyd assembled at the London home of two actors in the film; The Committee was projected onto a screen, and the band largely improvised along to the moving images. Save for a pair of songs from The Crazy World of Arthur Brown (who, unlike Pink Floyd, appears onscreen during The Committee’s most engaging and memorable few moments), the remaining music is largely instrumental. Two tracks—best described as the film’s theme music—are built around a pop-leaning progression of seven chords, led mostly by Rick Wright’s organ and subdued guitar from Gilmour. Nick Mason plays an atypically “straight” drum part with fills in between phrases, and Roger Waters’s bass part largely confines itself to the root notes of the chords. The reprise of the theme features a keyboard lead melody played over the chord progression.

  Another of the tracks features much more significant contributions from David Gilmour; screeching guitar figures showcase the “whale” effect he would use extensively on Meddle’s “Echoes.” One track features Rick Wright’s organ as a central instrument, with bits of piano, suggesting either that the sessions involved overdubbing or that one of the other musicians played the piano. A longer track features a throbbing, deliberate, one-note Roger Waters bass line that suggests the “heartbeat” sound Nick Mason would create for The Dark Side of the Moon.

  Though it’s not credited as such, a single-length (2:38) version of “Careful With That Axe, Eugene” forms part of The Committee’s soundtrack. While the track features a bit of quiet, wordless warbling, it ends without segueing into the studio version’s musically explosive section.

  Approximately fifteen minutes of audio from that session was used in the film, spread throughout, but used primarily during The Committee’s laborious second half, during which Jones’s character is engaged in mock-philosophical conversation that’s meant to “sound” deep yet reveals itself as bereft of content and meaning. At one point, the central figure says, “I know that sounds awful; I probably don’t even mean it.” That sentence sums up the “plot” and dialogue of The Committee quite tidily. Yet as a sonic backdrop for the extended interchanges between the two characters, Pink Floyd’s untitled instrumentals are effective; if nothing else, they convey the arty end of the hip, swinging London scene of 1968.

  The film’s soundtrack does contain a mysterious anomaly. The first thirty-second snippet of music used is played backward in the film. It features a most unusual mix of sounds: drums sound like Indian tabla, guitars sound like sitars (or electric sitars), and the keyboard sounds seem to be coming from an early modular synthesizer. It’s worth noting that none of these instruments had made an appearance on a Pink Floyd recording previously, and none—save synthesizer—would in the near future. Since there is no official soundtrack album from The Committee, there is good reason to suspect that this first bit of music may be some other (uncredited) group of musicians. Had Pink Floyd made use of sitar and tabla, it stands to reason that those instruments—still relatively exotic in the pop landscape of 1968—would have made at least a fleeting appearance in the sessions for A Saucerful of Secrets, already in progress. In any event, this untitled piece of music (which plays over the film’s opening credits) doesn’t sound very different played backward as opposed to forward.

  The provenance of this piece of music is hinted at in Julian Palacios’s book, Syd Barrett & Pink Floyd: Dark Globe. As Palacios points out, when producer Max Steuer contracted with Pink Floyd to provide the film’s soundtrack, Syd Barrett was still in the group. And more than two months before Pink Floyd began their session for the film soundtrack, Syd Barrett reported for duty. Apparently Barrett showed up at Sound Techniques studio on the appointed day, January 30, 1968, without a guitar or band. As Steuer had booked session time in advance, phone calls were made, and an ad hoc band was assembled. That group may have included Steve Peregrin Took (later of T. Rex) and Brian “Blinky” Davidson, Davy O’List’s band mate in the Nice. Though Palacios does not suggest that the single track they recorded was actually used in the film, he asserts that Barrett insisted the twenty-minute recording be played backward once it was completed. The untitled number has never received official release, but does circulate among collectors.

  While not a landmark project within the context of Pink Floyd’s body of work, the band’s soundtrack music for The Committee nonetheless represents a progression. The group’s earliest forays into creating music for film were executed with little regard for the specific images that would be displayed simultaneously with that music. Simply put, in those cases—Tonite Let’s All Make Love in London and the other film projects from 1967—Pink Floyd recorded some music from its repertoire and handed it over to the filmmakers. In contrast, the music made for The Committee—however formless that music might be—was created with the express purpose of enhancing the viewer’s experience of watching the film. That aesthetic would be built upon as Pink Floyd embarked on its next major studio project/film soundtrack, 1969’s More.

  Long unavailable in any legitimate form, The Committee was included (on DVD and Blu-ray) as part of the 2016 Pink Floyd box set, The Early Years 1965–1972. Two audio tracks—the ones described above as themes—are featured on a CD included in Volume 7 of The Early Years, the only part of that massive set not to receive subsequent break-out release as a standalone volume.

  Chapter 10

  BBC Two

  Pink Floyd appeared on BBC radio programs several times in 1968. The band’s selection of songs extended in wildly diverging directions: while the first sessions (two separate performances of the same four-song set, broadcast later on two different days) focused on music from the impending release of A Saucerful of Secrets, another radio session late in the year featured a tune never to be released (at least until the 2016 box set, The Early Years). And Pink Floyd’s final sessions for broadcast in 1968 on BBC radio featured a live performance of the band’s last single release for many years, a completely new song, and—in one last look backward—a reading of one tune from the band’s days with Syd Barrett.

  Around May 1968—and as captured on a widely circulating bootleg recording of an Amsterdam concert—Pink Floyd debuted a new work-in-progress called “Keep Smiling People.” By late June, the band had played a dozen more concerts, and the piece had tightened up enough for performance on BBC Radio 1’s Top Gear. A performance of that tune would be introduced by deejay John Peel as “‘The Murderotic Woman’ or ‘Careful With That Axe, Eugene.’”

  Perhaps the sound crew at BBC’s Piccadilly Studios wouldn’t allow it—lest it damage their equipment—or maybe it had yet to be incorporated as part of the arrangement of “Careful With That Axe, Eugene,” but the broadcast version of the song does not contain Roger Waters’s trademark scream. As it is, the one-chord song conveys a fair degree of malevolence in this purely instrumental reading.

  It’s worth considering just how far pop music had come in a short time in Great Britain; in response to pressures from “pirate” radio stations, the staid British Broadcasting Company had launched Radio 1 in September 1967. Less than a year later, listeners tuning in at 3 p.m. on a Sunday in August would have been treated to nine-plus minutes of the decidedly abstract tune soon to be known as
“A Saucerful of Secrets.” Even a half century later, “Saucerful” is no one’s idea of commercial, radio-friendly programming.

  “The Massed Gadgets of Hercules” was an early, working title for the title track of Pink Floyd’s second album. The Top Gear version of “A Saucerful of Secrets” follows its eventual studio counterpart’s four-movement structure, but the first movement (“Something Else”) is cut in half; presumably it was decided that radio listeners might not bear four minutes of atonal music. The second movement, “Syncopated Pandemonium,” is slightly shorter than the album version but otherwise follows its form.

  The brief “Storm Signal” movement features a Richard Wright organ solo that’s initially quite different melodically from the version released on the album. All of the section shortening allows for the full performance of the fourth and final movement, “Celestial Voices.” As performed on the BBC, it’s nearly a Rick Wright solo piece, with band members’ voices taking the place of the “choir” Mellotron. “Now, that is the sort of music they ought to have coming out of churches; it’s incredible,” enthuses Top Gear host John Peel once the piece concludes.

  Other than Nick Mason coming in with the drum beat a fraction of a second late, Pink Floyd’s BBC version of “Let There Be More Light” is nearly identical to its counterpart on A Saucerful of Secrets. David Gilmour struggles greatly on some of the song’s higher vocal lines; double-tracking inadvertently emphasizes the difficulty he experiences. Gilmour’s guitar solo enters late, and is more bluesy than on the studio take. The Top Gear performance is a full minute shorter than the album version.

  Roger Waters’s “Julia Dream” gets an intimate reading for the BBC. A more sparse arrangement showcases the song’s virtues. David Gilmour’s loose-limbed acoustic guitar work suits the song’s feel, and a slight retard at the song’s end emphasizes the “live” nature of the performance.

  Pink Floyd would remain exceedingly busy throughout most of the second half of 1968, but with the Christmas holidays looming, the band’s schedule let up a bit. In between the group’s still-packed list of appointments, more BBC spots were put on the band’s calendar.

  The first December appearance for the band was recorded on the second broadcast, on December 15. The band previews its upcoming single, “Point Me at the Sky,” and turns in a performance of the Barrett-era (but still popular) “Interstellar Overdrive.” The set also features a new tune, “Embryo.” Along with a clutch of other new compositions, “Embryo” would eventually form the core of a suite of extended set-pieces in Pink Floyd’s live performances. But for its initial BBC performance, “Embryo” runs just a shade over three minutes.

  The other song played at that session—and as of 2017, the only recording from the session to have received commercial release—would be a new instrumental, then titled “Baby Blue Shuffle in D Major.” A David Gilmour solo performance on acoustic guitar, “Baby Blue” displays a heretofore unheard side of the band, one that draws on the instrumental prowess of its guitarist. The piece would eventually be incorporated as the first section of a larger, twelve-minute, three-part work titled “The Narrow Way.” That studio track would fill half of an LP side on Pink Floyd’s 1969 double album, Ummagumma.

  A second performance would be recorded that same day, for broadcast the following January. It features nearly the same set list, but without Gilmour’s solo piece. “Point Me at the Sky” in particular benefits from the more straightforward (some would say primitive) recording facilities of the BBC; the performance for Top Gear has an energy and immediacy that the studio version would lack.

  “Embryo” is a Roger Waters composition, sung by David Gilmour. In this, its earliest form, “Embryo” points the way toward the largely acoustic textures Pink Floyd would explore on its next studio album, More. “Embryo” displays a greater attention to melody, moving decisively away from the experimental approach of much of the group’s other material from the period. Roger Waters’s bass line is a melody in and of itself, and Rick Wright’s organ work provides a pleasing countermelody while Gilmour sings in a hushed, lilting voice.

  After its premiere on Top Gear, “Embryo” would remain unheard for nearly a year. The song would resurface in greatly extended form as part of Pink Floyd’s live set beginning in early 1970.

  The centerpiece of Pink Floyd’s December 1968 BBC spots, however, would be “Interstellar Overdrive.” While the song itself had been part of the group’s set since before signing with EMI, the arrangement of the tune had changed a great deal from the manner in which it was played by the Syd Barrett–era lineup. Here, “Interstellar Overdrive” is taken at a slower, more deliberate pace, one that dials back the frenetic tone of Barrett’s guitar work in favor of something altogether more dreamlike. Rick Wright’s organ becomes a more central melodic element, and while the reading contains its fair share of improvisation, there’s a greater musicality to the instrumental work.

  Gilmour elicits all manner of otherworldly squeals from his guitar, while Waters turns in a hypnotic bass line that displays the progress he has made as a player. A new, stomping two-chord interlude has been introduced into the song, set against a section in which Gilmour plays more atonal figures on guitar; the call-and-response between the two sections serves both to heighten tension and root the more abstract parts of “Interstellar Overdrive” in a more conventional musical foundation.

  Guitarist Eric Clapton had seen Pink Floyd live onstage several times during this period, and counted himself as a fan. Trying to describe them to a Rolling Stone reporter, he said, “I can’t even think of a group you can relate them to,” adding, “They do things like play an hour set that’s just one number.”

  The countless hours spent playing in front of audiences in England and the continent (and, briefly, the United States) were now paying dividends in the form of a tighter, greatly improved instrumental ensemble. All that would be needed now were some suitable songs.

  Part III

  The Narrow Way (1969)

  Chapter 11

  Quicksilver

  As 1969 began, decisive changes were under way for Pink Floyd. After making two albums and a number of singles with Norman Smith in the control room, Pink Floyd began to move toward self-producing. And having had successful experiences, at least from a creative standpoint, working on film soundtracks, the band decided to plunge ahead and provide all of the music for a major motion picture.

  While some recording sessions for the album that would become Ummagumma had begun in January 1969 at EMI’s Abbey Road studios with producer Norman Smith, when Pink Floyd began work on the soundtrack for Barbet Schroeder’s More, the band booked studio time at Pye Recording Studios in London’s Marble Arch district.

  In 1969, Barbet Schroeder had already made a name for himself with his production company, creating edgy, well-received films. A dramatic motion picture chronicling the downward spiral of a young man who succumbs to heroin addiction, More would be the directorial debut for the Swiss-born Schroeder.

  For the soundtrack of this decidedly downbeat film, Schroeder chose Pink Floyd. Barry Miles quoted the director explaining his choice. “Pink Floyd were making the music that was best adapted to the movie at that time—spacey and very in tune with nature.”As used in the film, the songs the band wrote and recorded are subtle additions; often as not, the songs flit in and out of the soundtrack in the form of sounds coming from a radio. Because a variety of styles would be needed to evoke certain specific moods, Pink Floyd was called upon to create a suitably diverse collection of music. Over a period spanning all of February through May of 1969, the band worked on songs for More in between its now-customary schedule of concerts. For a variety of reasons—owing at least in part to difficulty obtaining overseas work permits—Pink Floyd largely remained in Great Britain during this period, playing at numerous festivals, benefit concerts, and other dates that often included several other acts.

  The band had a rather short deadline for the More film score, but the m
ovie itself was mostly complete when Pink Floyd set about creating music to accompany the moving images. Nick Mason recalled in his book Inside Out: A Personal History of Pink Floyd that the band “went into a viewing theatre [and] timed the sequences carefully” using a stopwatch. David Gilmour was quoted about the sessions in Miles’s Pink Floyd: The Early Years. “It was eight days to do everything from writing, recording, editing . . . but everything we did was accepted by the director. He never asked us to redo anything.”

  Record-buying fans who had been following along with Pink Floyd’s progress may have been nonplussed as the needle dropped on side one of More. The pastoral opening of “Cirrus Minor” features birds chirping in the trees for a full minute before the first strains of music begin. As he gently strums an acoustic guitar, David Gilmour sings of churchyards, rivers, and lying in the grass. Rick Wright’s Farfisa organ has its vibrato setting on full, causing his block chords to wobble in the background. Intentionally or not, the folky “Cirrus Minor” has surface similarities to some of Syd Barrett’s songwriting: the song has no chorus, and it is built on a foundation of descending chords. The vocal section of “Cirrus Minor” ends after a minute and a half; the remaining nearly three minutes of the song feature a stately Hammond organ melody from Richard Wright. Additional organ overdubs toward the tune’s end take on a woozy, otherworldly quality.

  “The Nile Song” is a true oddity in the Pink Floyd catalog. With a crushing sequence of guitar chords, the heavily distorted tune—with a heavy arrangement to match—has more to do with the kind of acid rock being churned out by such bands as Blue Cheer on its 1968 LP, Vincebus Eruptum. Perhaps Schroeder specifically asked for a heavy rock song to accompany that particular scene in the film, and the band willingly obliged. But the song’s forced, cliché lyrics (a character spreads her wings to fly) coupled with an unsubtle AAA rhyme scheme—eventually scaled back simply to AA—suggest that composer Roger Waters may have been having a laugh. Nearly half a century after its recording, “The Nile Song” sounds like nothing so much as a parody of heavy metal. Keyboardist Richard Wright doesn’t even play on the track.