Everything Under the Sun

INTRODUCTION

No rock group has ever seized the imagination like Pink Floyd. In a field normally primarily concerned with sex, relationships, war and aggression, the self and others, Pink Floyd have explored space, psychosis, pastoralism, isolation, absence, business ethics, transcendence, death, madness, empathy, inertia, communication difficulties, war and the psychology of fascism. They have done so with a range of music perhaps surpassing anyone in the rock canon, from folky acoustic rural homages to ambient rhythms to orchestral grandiosity to ass-kicking hard rock. Yet there is something we can call 'Floydian': moderately-paced, spacious, repetitively melodic, coloured by the Farsifa keyboard, with lyrics of unusual verbal felicity about the human condition. This is not to say that Pink Floyd were formulaic: few bands have stretched themselves and worked so hard to improve their recorded output and their live performances. Many rock bands are spent creative forces after a few albums; Pink Floyd did not hit their golden period until their eighth album, sustaining it across three further works which remain among the highest-selling and most critically esteemed records ever made.

The context is important in understanding Pink Floyd. In the mid-1960s, rock 'n' roll was a juvenile art, but groups like The Beatles and The Who worked to develop it into a more mature artform, with increasing musical, recording and lyrical sophistication. The distance from The Beatles' album closers 'Twist And Shout' and 'Tomorrow Never Knows' was just three years, demonstrating the incredible rate at which the genre was developing. The Who, similarly, moved the album towards a symphonic piece with Tommy (1969), inaugurating the concept album as full thematically and musically integrated work (The Beatles' 1967 album Sgt. Pepper, often considered the first rock concept album, is not unified lyrically, instead really only having an overture and a curtain-closer). However, in the jazz world, Miles Davis had moved the album from being a disparate collection of individual tracks to a thematic whole, as on the acclaimed albums Kind of Blue (1959) and Sketches of Spain (1960). The LP, in rock as in jazz, was moving closer to becoming an integrated artistic unity, like a classical music symphony.

In this context Pink Floyd began in 1965. Starting as an R&B cover band based in London, and taking their name from two Piedmont blues musicians, the group developed rapidly during 1966 residencies at the Marquee club (in Wardour Street, Soho) and UFO (at Tottenham Court Road). Early bootlegs4 show setlists of basic R&B and Bo Diddley-style rock, with Barrett singing in an American style very far from his English manner on The Piper at the Gates of Dawn. However, they had artistic and musical backgrounds exceeding these floundering derivative efforts. Barrett was an art student coming from an intellectual middle-class family (his father was a noted doctor). Wright was privately educated, had learned the trumpet and trombone as well as guitar and piano while still a schoolboy, and was steeped in jazz rather than R&B. Waters' parents were teachers and left-wing political activists. So while their first steps were naturally rudimentary, it was equally unsurprising that their subsequent efforts should have greater artistic ambitions.

Yet while their first album is a very singular psychedelic masterpiece, the group's subsequent efforts demonstrate the balkanisation of rock music that had occurred in the late 1960s: towards a populist singalong style that eventually became glam rock; the electric thunder that became heavy metal; and the experimental progressive rock of groups like Yes, Genesis, Rush and King Crimson, as well, of course, as Pink Floyd. For a time it was perfectly acceptable to have twenty-minute multi-sectional epics and choirs and orchestras and lyrical themes drawn from any manner of esoteric philosophies. The more far out the better, man. Given this room to grow, and initially touring very hard too,5 Pink Floyd gradually developed songwriting chops, an astonishing lyrical facility, and a jaw-dropping live spectacle. The integration of guitarist and vocalist David Gilmour didn't really occur until three years into his career in the band, with 1971's Meddle album. But that heralded one of the greatest streaks of creativity in rock history, easily comparable with The Beatles' Revolver-Sgt Pepper-White Album-Abbey Road and The Rolling Stones' Beggars Banquet-Let It Bleed-Sticky Fingers-Exile on Main Street sequences.6 Once the group had truly found their voice, the albums Dark Side of the Moon (1973), Wish You Were Here (1975), Animals (1977) and The Wall (1979) display some of the most profound and moving writing in rock music as well as some of the most dazzlingly creative music. Perhaps more than any other albums in rock music, these four integrate lyrical depth with verbal dexterity and musically visionary songs, creating integrated artistic unities that retain the power to enthral and deeply move the listener fifty years on.

But career peaks do not last, and as intra-band relationships fragmented then collapsed during and following The Wall,7 so the work too declined. The Final Cut (1983), A Momentary Lapse of Reason (1987), The Division Bell (1994) and The Endless River (2014): all have their moments, all have their fans, all have sold millions around the world. Yet I think there is a clear arc to the career of Pink Floyd, as I shall argue in the song analyses that follow. But then, quite understandably, some fans are most passionate about the fervent creativity of the group's early years, while others adore the brilliant savaging of Thatcherite Britain and lament for those traumatised by war in The Final Cut, or fondly recall discovering the group from A Momentary Lapse of Reason, or are hardcore Syd Barrett devotees. There are many paths to Pink Floyd. So here, across 187 recorded tracks and fifteen albums, across 1,160 gigs from New Zealand to Canada, from 1967 to 2022, is the career of rock's most devastatingly emotional and articulate band.

Note on the Selection

For this book I have chosen to only record and critique the canonical songs from official albums, singles and various stray tracks. These comprise:

    the singles: 'Arnold Layne' b/w 'Candy and a Currant Bun' (1967), 'See Emily Play' b/w 'Scarecrow' (1967), 'Apples and Oranges' b/w 'Paint Box' (1967), 'It Would Be So Nice' b/w 'Julia Dream' (1968), 'Point Me at the Sky' b/w 'Careful with that Axe, Eugene' (1968), 'When the Tigers Broke Free' (1982), and 'Hey Hey Rise Up' (2022)

    the official albums: The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (1967), A Saucerful of Secrets (1968), Ummagumma (1969), Atom Heart Mother (1970), Meddle (1971), The Dark Side of the Moon (1973), Wish You Were Here (1975), Animals (1977), The Wall (1979), The Final Cut (1983), A Momentary Lapse of Reason (1987), The Division Bell (1994), and The Endless River (2014)

    the soundtrack albums: More (1969) and Obscured by Clouds (1972)

    stray tracks which appeared on official releases: Zabriskie Point (1970) and Picnic: A Breath of Fresh Air (1970)

This means I have not considered the other official live albums Delicate Sound of Thunder (1988), Pulse (1995), and Is There Anybody Out There? (2000). None of these contain unreleased tracks (with the exception of 'The Last Few Bricks', an instrumental in The Wall tour which filled time allowing roadies to almost complete the construction of the wall) or a substantially different version of previously released songs (beyond extended guitar solos, though the Pulse version of COMFORTABLY NUMB does have dark grungy verses, just as Gilmour always wanted). The four live tracks on Ummagumma, however, do present significantly improved versions over the studio releases, demonstrating the band's rapidly developing mastery of dynamics and structure. The re-recordings in A Collection of Great Dance Songs (1981) I have likewise left alone, for similar reasons. Nor have I described the demos, live sessions and early alternate versions the Immersion Editions of Dark Side, Wish You Were Here and The Wall, or on the Early Years (2016) and Later Years (2019) box sets, though I do refer to them when considering the completed studio tracks. There is a great deal of musical and historical interest there, of course, but these remain fragments, sketches, and ephemeral performances. And finally, I have not included the six new tracks composed for the La Carrera Panamericana documentary on the eponymous 1991 car race in Mexico, in which David Gilmour, Nick Mason and band manager Steve O'Rourke all participated. These tracks have never been officially released and the video has only ever been released on VHS format. This book is an analysis of the official canon, of all tracks formally recorded and released, and examines how the studio output of Pink Floyd developed, peaked,...