Pink Floyd All the Songs
Page 8
New instruments make an appearance on this track: a small bell struck rapidly at 0:57, a twelve-string acoustic guitar (Harmony 1270? Levin LTS5?), and an acoustic piano. At 1:11 and again in the following verse, a Clavinet or, more probably, a varispeed piano (recorded slowly and then played back at normal speed) can be heard. This is more pronounced at the beginning of the instrumental bridge, where the effect is supplemented by emphatic use of the Binson Echorec. In this same section we can hear the sound of a mechanical toy with a characteristic clicking sound, and new vocal effects. Wright plays a sped-up piano solo, Barrett plays arpeggios and lead on his Fender Esquire, Waters plays a melodic motif in the upper register of his bass, and Mason incorporates numerous tom breaks into his drumming. After a final verse, the track ends cleanly with an organ chord and a peal of bells.
For Pink Floyd Addicts
The Floyd performed “Flaming” on the French television show Bouton Rouge, produced by Jean-Paul Thomas and broadcast on February 24, 1968. Syd was absent and was replaced by David Gilmour on lead vocals and guitar. Fans would be treated to the sight of Roger Waters playing his slide whistle with an earnest look on his face!
Pow R. Toc H.
Syd Barrett, Roger Waters, Rick Wright, Nick Mason / 4:27
Musicians
Syd Barrett: acoustic guitar, electric rhythm and lead guitar, vocal effects
Roger Waters: bass, vocal effects
Rick Wright: keyboards, vocal effects
Nick Mason: drums, vocal effects (?)
Unidentified musician: orchestral timpani, various sound effects
Recorded
Abbey Road Studios, London: March 21, 29, July 18, 1967 (Studio Three)
Technical Team
Producer: Norman Smith
Sound Engineers: Peter Bown, Norman Smith
Assistant Sound Engineers: Jeff Jarratt, Graham Kirkby
Genesis
Hard-bitten Floyd fans have scrutinized this title for a meaning that corresponds to its musical atmosphere. Some think that Barrett, Waters, Wright, and Mason (this was a collective composition) were indulging in wordplay, notably by removing certain letters. Thus “Pow R. Toc H.” can be read as power touch, or alternatively power toke. There is another, more rational explanation according to which “Pow R. Toch H.” refers to a British club founded during the First World War, Talbot House, where officers and rank-and-file soldiers were shown equal consideration. Toc H. subsequently became the name of a Christian interdenominational organization. Andrew King, however, suggest that it might simply have been for the sounds that this title was chosen: “The ‘Pow R. Toc H.’ name is just a noise, it’s onomatopoeic. There’s no meaning… I mean it might have been something to do with Toc H because of the war and everything, but I think basically it was onomatopoeic.”10
“Pow R. Toc H.” is the first instrumental on The Piper at the Gates of Dawn. It is a largely improvised piece of experimental music that would not have been out of place as a musical development of “Interstellar Overdrive.” We are certainly a long way from the psychedelic and heroic fantasy style of Syd Barrett, whose influence is less in evidence here than on the album’s other tracks. It is no doubt for this reason that “Pow R. Toc H.” would have an afterlife under the highly evocative title “The Pink Jungle.” This is the name the track was given in 1969 when it was incorporated into the musical suite The Man and the Journey.
Production
While not exactly known for their humor, the members of Pink Floyd display no shortage of it in this tumultuous instrumental. Syd Barrett opens the curious “Pow R. Toc H.” with onomatopoeia centering on the sounds poom chi chi. In doing so, he shows himself to be a forerunner of today’s beatboxers, a well-known phenomenon in hip-hop. As in “Matilda Mother,” he marks the first beat of his vocalization by tapping his mic (or perhaps by exaggerating the plosive start of poom, while at the same time doubling himself by means of ADT). His bandmates are not exactly idle either, and it seems that Roger Waters is responsible for the doi doi, while Rick Wright and Nick Mason fill the space with various calls and sympathetic noises. A percussive sound can even be heard that seems to have been made by striking the teeth with a fingernail or tapping the flat of the hand. There follows an exclusively instrumental section, based around a single F-sharp chord, in which Barrett plays his Harmony Sovereign H1260 acoustic and is accompanied by Mason (mainly on the toms), Waters on bass, and Wright with a bluesy solo, entirely characteristic of his style, on acoustic piano (almost certainly the Model B Steinway). At 1:45 the atmosphere changes, with the return of the calls and miscellaneous sounds, including effects produced by Syd on his Fender Esquire, again using his ever-present Binson Echorec, but also now with the intervention of orchestral timps played by a professional musician hired for the occasion. Peter Bown recalls: “It was played, as far as I remember, by a proper tympanist… I don’t think he… he had no idea what was going to be asked of him and I seem to remember there were some pretty tricky tymp things asked.”10 The session records do not mention the hiring of any outside musician, but “I wouldn’t be surprised,” agrees Peter Jenner, “if we did bring in a proper tympani player, because [Norman] might have tried with Nick and it didn’t quite work and didn’t sound like we wanted it to sound, because we didn’t know quite how to hit the tympani with all those pedals and things.”10 Either way, the Floyd then pursue their instrumental journey with some organ whose panoramic image switches rapidly from right to left (at 2:20), with another section in which Barrett plays an arpeggiated motif on his Fender (at 3:07), and with a return to the onomatopoeia of the beginning. There then follows a finale in which shrieks and the Echorec share in a frenzied conclusion against a background of tom rolls.
This number was recorded on March 21, the group laying down the backing track in four takes between 2:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., and, following a break for supper, adding the various guitar, timpani, and organ overdubs between 8:30 p.m. and 1:30 a.m. The sessions of March 29 and July 18 were devoted to the mono and stereo mixes.
For Pink Floyd Addicts
As well as being the day “Pow R. Toc H.” was recorded, March 21 was also when the first mixing session for “Lovely Rita,” one of the tracks the Beatles were working on in neighboring Studio Two at Abbey Road, took place. Norman Smith took his protégés into the studio, allowing them to witness the creation of a part of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Take Up Thy Stethoscope And Walk
Roger Waters / 3:06
Musicians
Syd Barrett: electric rhythm and lead, backing vocals
Roger Waters: vocals, bass
Rick Wright: organ, backing vocals
Nick Mason: drums
Recorded
Abbey Road Studios, London: March 20, 29, July 18, 1967 (Studio Three)
Technical Team
Producer: Norman Smith
Sound Engineers: Peter Bown, Norman Smith
Assistant Sound Engineers: Jeff Jarratt, Graham Kirkby
Genesis
“Take Up Thy Stethoscope and Walk” is the first Roger Waters number to be recorded by Pink Floyd. The title was inspired by a passage in the Gospel according to Saint John 5:8: “Jesus said unto him, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk.” The scenario is that of a patient who, lying on his hospital bed, complains to his physician that his head hurts and he has lost his appetite, before sinking into a verbal delirium that incorporates the phrases Jesus bled, pain is red, greasy spoon, and June gloom. The final verse offers a hint of optimism: Music seems to help the pain/Seems to motivate the brain. It looks as if Waters also enjoyed playing with the sound and rhyme of the words.
Above all, this song provides a sense of the difference in character between Barrett and Waters: while the first is a kind of dandy-dreamer who explores the infinite spaces of psychedelia, the second is more pragmatic, cynical, and mocking. Thus he sings Doctor Doctor nine times in a row with a sufficient sense of irony to suggest that a white coat is going
to do nothing to solve his problem…
“Take Up Thy Stethoscope and Walk,” which received its first two live performances at the Opera House in Blackpool and the Chinese R&B Jazz Club in Bristol on November 25 and 28, 1967, respectively, is reasonably faithful to Pink Floyd’s stage performances, with masterly slide improvisations from Barrett.
Production
This first song credited to Roger Waters does not seem to have aroused any great interest on the part of his fellow band members because just one day was earmarked for its recording (March 20; March 29 and July 18 being reserved for the mono and stereo mixes, with Norman Smith at the console for the latter). The Floyd came to grips with the backing track between 2:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m., recording six takes and retaining the fifth as the best. In the evening (from 7:30 p.m. until midnight), the four musicians overdubbed the voices.
It is Nick Mason, for a change, who launches the song, with a rhythmic snare or bass drum pattern that is pretty unusual for the Floyd. His playing, which from the beginning of the album is generally undermixed, is finally given the prominence and volume it deserves. As soon as the singing starts, the rock atmosphere of this track—hinted at by Nick’s drumming—is confirmed, not only by the different vocal parts that answer one another, but also by the bass. The overall effect resembles the Kinks or the Who. For eight bars the voices are accompanied merely by Waters on his Rickenbacker 4001 and Mason on his Premier kit. It is apparently the bassist who spits out the Doctor Doctor call to which Syd Barrett and Rick Wright respond. Barrett enters on guitar with a very good rhythm part, demonstrating that he is more than capable of excellent timing on his instrument, before launching into an amazing funky passage at 0:33. Wright accompanies him on his Farfisa Compact Duo organ and plays an inspired solo over which Syd really takes off with a fairly unorthodox improvisation, finding his notes high up by the bridge, with tremolo, in a psychedelic frenzy akin to the way he used to play onstage. Roger supports his bandmates with a Tamla Motown–inspired bass riff, while Nick delivers a drum part in his own inimitable style, marking the beat on the toms rather than on his snare drum and hi-hat. It is all too often forgotten that Mason’s highly individual style of playing, resembling free-jazz improvisation, with ethnic-sounding, Ginger Baker–influenced touches, is one of the distinctive features of Pink Floyd. The group can be heard speeding up during this section (from 0:48), presumably intentionally. One of the most successful effects on the track occurs at 2:20, when the drums and organ switch places in the stereo image, indicating that they were recorded on the same track of the tape recorder. Finally, as happens so often, there are vocal effects (for example at 0:40 and 1:48) throughout the arrangements.
While “Take Up Thy Stethoscope and Walk” cannot, perhaps, be described as the best track on the album, this dry run from Roger Waters is nevertheless pretty good. Lacking any particular connection with the world of Syd Barrett, it is also far from representative of the masterpieces Waters would pen for the group in the years to come.
For Pink Floyd Addicts
Roger Waters would take up the exclamation Doctor Doctor again at the very beginning of his solo album Amused to Death, released in 1992.
COVERS
“Take Up Thy Stethoscope and Walk” was covered by At The Drive-In (a hardcore band from El Paso, Texas) for Invalid Litter Dept. (2001), a four-track CD intended for the United Kingdom and recorded under the aegis of the BBC DJ Steve Lamacq. It is also worth drawing attention to the version by Ty Segall and Mikal Cronin on their album Reverse Shark Attack (2009).
Interstellar Overdrive
Syd Barrett, Roger Waters, Rick Wright, Nick Mason / 9:41
Musicians
Syd Barrett: lead guitar
Roger Waters: bass
Rick Wright: keyboards, cello (?)
Nick Mason: drums, percussion (?)
Recorded
Abbey Road Studios, London: February 27, March 1, 16, 22, June 5, 27, 30, July 18, 1967 (Studio Three)
Technical Team
Producer: Norman Smith
Sound Engineers: Peter Bown, Norman Smith
Assistant Sound Engineers: Jeff Jarratt, Geoff Emerick, Graham Kirkby
Genesis
After “Astronomy Dominé,” this incandescent instrumental is another episode in Pink Floyd’s flirtation with space rock, whatever Roger Waters may think. The Floyd may have found the title in the pages of “The Ruum” (1953), a famous short story by the American science fiction author Arthur Porges (“The cruiser Ilkor had just gone into her interstellar overdrive beyond the orbit of Pluto”).
Musically, the number originated in a riff that came to Syd Barrett in a slightly strange way. During the course of a rehearsal, Peter Jenner was humming a tune the band Love had just recorded for its first album, a song whose title he had forgotten (actually “My Little Red Book”). Barrett immediately started playing the tune on the guitar, adding various nuances of his own. “Interstellar Overdrive” was born. A lengthy improvisation then developed around this riff, the source of sonic experimentation that does indeed give the impression of a journey to the stars.
Pink Floyd had been playing “Interstellar Overdrive” since the end of 1966 (and had also performed it at the Roundhouse gig on December 31). During the course of these concerts, in particular at the UFO Club, this track, in which the four musicians gave themselves a great deal of freedom, became a kind of hymn of London’s underground scene. In other words, it marked a complete break with the pop music of the day calibrated on the requirements of radio and television. Nick Mason provides a good explanation of the extent to which the recorded version and the stage version could differ: “‘Interstellar Overdrive’ is an example of a piece that on vinyl (as was) is a cut-down version of the way it was played at gigs. ‘Interstellar’ had formed a central plank of our live shows ever since Powis Gardens [the early shows at All Saints Church Hall]. Based around Syd’s riff, the piece would generally be played with different elements structured in the same order each time. On the album it runs to less than ten minutes; live it could have lasted as long as twenty minutes.”5 In other words the familiar dichotomy between stage and studio.
This is what attracted the filmmaker Peter Whitehead: “I had an affair with Jenny Spires, who was Syd’s girlfriend at the time. It was she who then introduced me to Syd in London when I was making Tonite Let’s All Make Love in London. It was Jenny who kept saying ‘your film’s a bit odd, a bit weird… this music, you should listen to it,’ so I went along to UFO and saw them performing. It was then that I decided out of the blue to use Pink Floyd as the music of Tonite…”18
Post-Barrett Version
Pink Floyd would continue to play “Interstellar Overdrive” live after David Gilmour had replaced Syd Barrett—up to the end of the seventies in fact (and often as an encore, as if to demonstrate the group’s close connection with its roots in London’s underground clubs). While Gilmour enhanced it with his virtuosity, the number was not fundamentally transformed. One notable change is that the riff would only begin after a long and very “spacey” organ intro from Wright. This development can be heard on various bootlegs.
Production
Before being immortalized at Abbey Road for the group’s debut LP, “Interstellar Overdrive” had already been recorded twice in the studio. An initial recording of 14:56 duration was made in 1966 at the modest Thompson Private Recording Studios in Hemel Hempstead on the fringes of London. In spite of the very limited resources available to the group, this recording was of sufficient quality to be used the following year as the soundtrack for a short film by Anthony Stern entitled San Francisco. Pink Floyd recorded the track for a second time at Sound Techniques in London on January 11 and 12, 1967, with Joe Boyd producing and John Wood engineering. This is the recording used by Peter Whitehead in his documentary Tonite Let’s All Make Love in London.
On Monday, February 27, 1967, Pink Floyd was in Studio Three, Abbey Road, for the first definitive takes, with Norman Sm
ith producing. The session kicked off with “Chapter 24” before progressing to the second instrumental of the album (the first being “Pow R. Toc H.”). Two takes were recorded, with the second, lasting 10:20, being retained as the best. Peter Bown, the sound engineer, recalls the volume being painfully high, forcing him to systematically employ limiters and compressors in order to avoid maximum distortion during recording. As it is, he thinks “‘Interstellar Overdrive’ may have been the one where I broke the microphones… I think it was.”10 As Peter Jenner would later aptly comment, at this time the Floyd lacked studio experience and found it difficult to handle the constraints that recording imposed. But they also needed to rediscover the feeling they used to experience during their marathon stage performances—hence the volume.
Right from the intro, Syd attacks with a low E chord on his Fender Esquire. He then launches into the amazing riff that is entirely typical of his style. As he has repeatedly proved, not least on “Astronomy Dominé,” he adores descending (or ascending) progressions in intervals of a semitone. The sound is raw, with distortion from the amp, probably the Selmer Truvoice Treble-n-Bass 50 (captured with a Neumann U67 mic). Syd’s riff rises in volume with the entrance of the bass, Roger following him, producing an aggressive, driving sound on his Rickenbacker 4001. Syd then reinforces his first guitar with a second (0:19), whose distorted tone is no doubt produced by his Selmer Buzz Tone pedal. When Nick enters on the drums, the listener is sent off on an interstellar journey with a veritable explosion of decibels. “Interstellar Overdrive” is constructed around Syd’s riff, and the rest of the track is essentially a long improvisation divided into various more or less well-defined sections before returning to the initial riff for a magnificent finale. The sensations experienced by the listener during this track are inevitably influenced by the title. While it is true that the Floyd evoke a spacey atmosphere, they do this in part through the idea of experiencing an acid trip. The musicians apply themselves to giving these sensations shape with guitars drenched in Binson Echorec (Syd often playing Zippo-slide), with layers of organ sometimes laid-back and sometimes harrowing, with rhythmic breaks; hypnotic, tribal drumming; and sound effects worthy of the finest moments of musique concrète.