Echoes FAQ v4.6

There have been several reported problems with the CD of TFC, all of which deal with where the title track begins. The three versions we've been able to isolate have the following "features":

• "The Final Cut" begins 3/4 the way through "Southampton Dock."
• "The Final Cut" starts before he finishes with "...cut" at the end of "Southampton Dock." (CBS, EMI remaster)
• "The Final Cut" begins during the words "through the fish eyed lens.." (Harvest)

For finally tracking down the solution to this vexing problem, we are forever in the debt of Scott Plumer.

They're all WWII service medals:

• The one on the bottom right, yellow-green background with black and red stripes, is a Defence Medal, for 3 years service.
• The middle one with a gold background and black, red and blue stripes is an Africa Star, for service in the North African campaign.
• The leftmost one, blue with a red stripe, is a 1939/45 Star, for at least 6 months service between 1939 and 1945.
• The one with purple and white diagonal stripes is the Distinguished Flying Cross, "for acts of courage, valour or devotion to duty while flying." For officers.

There are actually two cases of this -- one which seems unintentional, and the other purposeful. The unintentional printed-but-not-sung lyric occurs on "Your Possible Pasts," where there is the following stanza:

By the cold and religious we were taken in hand
Shown how to feel good and told to feel bad.
Tongue tied and terrified we learned how to pray
Now our feelings run deep and cold as the clay.
And strung out behind us the banners and flags
Of our possible pasts lie in tatters and rags.

The two lines with italics were included in the printed lyrics but not sung on the album. There's also a line near the beginning of the song, "The Final Cut":

If you negotiate the minefield in the drive
And beat the dogs and cheat the cold electronic eyes
And if you make it past the shotgun in the hall
Dial the combination
Open the priesthole
And if I'm in I'll tell you what's behind the wall

What often gets mentioned is that an explosion, as from a gunshot, covers up everything after "...I'll tell you..." in the last line. Which makes sense; you (the listener) never "make it past the shotgun in the hall." But if the full line hadn't been included in the written lyrics, you would never know what you're missing...

[With help from Steve South:]
During the First World War, the fields of Flanders were dug over. Not by farmers, but by trench digging, shell and mortar fire, etc. Now it is a curious thing, but the seeds of the red poppies found in Europe can lay in the ground for years without germinating, and then grow after the ground has been disturbed. Consequently, sometime after the battles, the sites of devastation were transformed into a blaze of colour.

The poppy has become a symbol of that time. Every November, when Americans celebrate Veterans Day, the British have Rememberance Day. Poppy wreaths are laid at the memorial to the Unknown Soldier, etc. A national charity collects money for vetarans by selling artificial poppies -- wearing a poppy shows that you remember and that you gave. The same thing happens in the US, for Memorial Day.

It does also have something to do with morphine. Poppies are also a symbol of relief from life's pain, and have been since long before WWI.

[...and more, from Helen Bransfield:]

IN FLANDERS FIELDS
by John McCrae

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place: and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die

WE SHALL NOT SLEEP, THOUGH POPPIES GROW

IN FLANDERS FIELDS.

Pink Floyd's The Final Cut made use of a special encoding process that allows the simulation of "three-dimensional" sound, called "holophonics." This was also adopted by Roger Waters for his Pro's and Cons album; while on Amused to Death, he used a somewhat similar mixing process called QSound, also used on Pulse. Both systems are explained below...

From a posting by David Schuetz:

> By the way, has anybody really noticed the "huge improvement" in sound
> staging produced by Mr Zuccarelli and his labs? If so, explain what's
> so special.

I noticed it. It really does give a certain amout of imaging, around you rather than just between the speakers. When Waters did his Pros & Cons show on the radio in 1985, he did an introduction where he walked to a timpani, struck it with his fingernail, and then said "If I ask you to point where that timpani came from, [here I pointed over my right shoulder] and if you don't point over your right shoulder, then we're in trouble." It was impressive.

As for just what it is, they were very secretive. They had "ringo the holophonic microphone." The process was based on holography, but of an audio form (you can do holography with *any* wave-based phenomena). The theory was that there were high frequencies generated by the ear (and some people have been shown to "generate" some frequencies from time to time), and that sounds interfere with these frequencies, and the interference pattern is what we interpret. So, what holophonics is is a conversion of sounds directly to that interference pattern.

Now, the fact that this sounds like a crock is immaterial, because it does work. So, just what is it? Most (including myself) believe it's just a form of binaural recording. That "ringo" is probably just a dummy head with microphones where the ears are. And when you listen with headphones, your ears are right where those microphones were, and you hear it as if you were actually there. Binaural is *fantastic* fun, and I wish more people would work with it. It's a shame, though, that Floyd/Waters got duped into believing that Zuccareli's process was anything special....

Roger's Amused to Death, the Floyd's Pulse, and a number of albums from other artists use the QSound mixing system. It essentially allows sound to be positioned anywhere within a half-sphere around the listener. Roger himself explains how it works in the following interview (from Rockline, Feb. 8, 1993):

It divides any signal into a left and right component...(so it works with any stereo system), and it introduces minute delays at different frequency levels into left and right components to make your brain think that the sound is coming, not from in front of you -- from the two speakers -- but from in any one of a number of other positions around you. But you have to be sitting right between the two speakers, I mean exactly -- to within like an inch or an inch and a half [on] either side of the central perpendicular axis. And it is an amazing effect...

The single for "Not Now John" (obscured) came with the album version of "The Hero's Return" and what was basically an additional verse to the song, called "The Hero's Return part II." The lyrics go something like:

Jesus Christ, I might as well be dead
If I can't see how dangerous it must feel to be
Training human cogs for the machine
Without some shell-shocked lunatic like me
Bombarding their still soft shores
With sticks and stones that were lying around
In the pile of unspeakable feelings I'd found
When I turned back the stone
Turned over the stone
Of my own disappointment back home

The following is taken mainly from Schaffner's "Saucerful of Secrets" book, with additional pieces and support from other books, interviews, and articles.

Well, it's not on the album, and since RoIO's aren't always all that great, it's hard to be sure exactly what the lyrics were. But here's a pretty close approximation:

Ooh Babe, where ya been?
You bring back the feeling
The flavor of damp teenage skin
And hot afternoons by the river
Spent crushing the clover
I said "Lie down, roll over
I wanna go back there again"
Oh baby, sweet Fassbinder lady
Ooh, where ya been?

Also, during several shows after "Sexual Revolution" they did an additional bit, mainly the line "let's go to the country" repeated several times.

Fixed on the front of her Fassbinder face
Was the kind of a smile
That only a rather dull child could have drawn
While attempting a graveyard in the moonlight

Fassbinder is a German playwright and filmmaker. He's been called "artsy," "grim," and "simplified." The line could refer to the kind of leading lady that he'd use in a movie, or perhaps it means "grim" or "mournful."

Said Roger Waters:

Some of the ideas have come from my own dreams and also there are bits and pieces of other people's dreams. In fact, the third verse of the album's title track talks about standing on the wing of an aeroplane, looking down at the Eastern Seaboard of the United States and Yoko Ono being there, and telling me to jump; that everybody's got to die some time and the manly thing to do is to end it all now.

That dream belongs to Andy Newmark, the drummer. He came in one day and over lunch in the pub he told me about this dream and I thought, "That's a good dream, I'll try and fit that in somewhere." So I did.

There are some differences between the respective lyrics sheets. For one thing, the British version has the characters who say each bit listed, but the CBS version does not. This is from a posting by Dave Cowl:

Type of Difference	British EMI	US/Japan CBS
Extra	Surgeon:"Drill" Man:"Oh God!"	drill Wake up..
Extra	Wife:"What border? Go back to sleep"	Uh, what border
Extra bit after Arabs with knives	Arab:"Don't cut the woman Mohammed, I want the woman"
Extra line	You've got to admit it was wrong what you did.
Difference	oder drinken Mehr Ha	oder drinken bier, ha
Extra from Clerk Keys bit	Room Clerk:"Goodnight Sir"
Extra in Stay with Me! bit	Woman:"No...I'm sleeping"
Lost bit	4 lines of Sexual Revolution Missing
Extra		(Thunder)
Difference	And trailed our..	And we trailed our..
Extra	...gets two presents" (Man pauses to light a joint)
Difference	Jump says Yoko Ono "Oh No !...	Jump says Yoko Ono
Extra	Trucker:"Hey...Turn the fucking Juke Box Down"
Difference	In the company of has beens In bent backs In sleeping Under tube trains in commuter accidents	In the company of has beens and bent backs and sleeping Under tube trains and commuter accidents
Difference	On loading ramps	On unloading ramps
Difference	Then the moment of clarity	And the moment of clarity

I thought this would be of interest. The most amusing part is that in the music book, the listed lyrics are the British ones, but the words against the music are the CBS lyrics. Weird, huh!

The cover is pretty easy to decipher -- it says:

ROGER WATERS RADIO KAOS WHO NEEDS INFORMATION THE POWERS THAT BE HOME THE TIDE IS TURNING RADIO WAVES

The morse code at the beginning and end of the album is harder to decipher. It's worth it, though, because it contains a deleted verse from "The Tide is Turning." There's also other bits of code scattered throughout the album. Here's what people have been able to figure out, from Douglas Whisler, A.G. Spencer and David Truckenmiller:

• "turning Syl"
  (beginning of album)
• "macho bullshit and mediocrity oh tide"
  (end of album)
• "it is they that must fight and die ... Herbert Hoover"
  (end of "Who Needs Information")
• "dock ... oh time(?) is turning ... the party's over but you are not"
  (during the "I don't like fish" speech)

See the next question for a partial explanation...

There was supposed to be another verse to this song, but it was removed because Waters was worried about lawsuits. He did, however, sing part of it (the last two lines) during some live concerts. The lyrics are:

Now the past is over but you are not alone Together we'll fight Sylvester Stallone We will not be dragged down in his South China Sea of macho bullshit and mediocrity

This is also who Waters refers to later in the song when he sings "The tide is turning, Sylvester."

This is taken from Q&A in TAP (#53):

According to "Psycho Pink" Eric Wayne Morrison (Colorado Springs), it's "...back to the beginning" and "That's...".

That's Nick Mason, who recently received a pilot's license. I believe that David Gilmour is his co-pilot. The conversation is an actual conversation between Nick and the tower, during one of his first solo flights.

Roger liked the KAOS concept so much that, during a break in the KAOS tour, he began writing material for a new album about Billy and Jim, to be called "Amused to Death." At one subsequent KAOS show, Roger said he would play some new material from KAOS 2; the only "new" material played was "Fish Report with a Beat" and "Going to Live in LA." So I guess Roger had pegged the latter song, at least, for use on the new project (it had originally been written for the KAOS album).

The album was rumored to be ready for release in early 1989, and included a Gerald Scarfe cover that depicted three familliar musicians drowning in a giant martini glass. But the album was reportedly rejected by the record company, and later on by Waters himself.

What happened next is a matter of speculation. In a Rockline interview at the time of ATD's release, Waters said he had been putting the songs together for the past four or five years (interupted, presumably, by his work on the "Ca Ira" project). Another article notes that most of the album was written and conceived before the Gulf War. So one might assume that at least some of the KAOS 2 material was worked into the new, "TV-concept" Amused to Death. But we don't know for sure...

Problems were probably inevitable at such a large-scale, one-shot performance. The concert started smoothly enough, with the introductory acts (The Hooters, in case you were wondering why they're credited, along with James Galway and The Band, plus a German group) and the Scorpions' performance of "In the Flesh." But the microphones died completely during "The Thin Ice" -- Roger just waved at the crowd and did a little tap dance to keep them entertained. They got the mics working again mid-way through "Another Brick, pt.1," but only at low power; the crowd periodically screamed "louder, louder!" Full power was finally restored for "Empty Spaces," and continued without a hitch for the rest of the show.

The other well-known blooper was on Sinead O'Connor's rendition of "Mother." As I understand it (second hand), as The Band began to sing the chorus, she lost her place in the song and began to sing the next verse! These mistakes were "cleaned up" on the album and video releases by splicing in footage from the previous day's dress rehearsal, and from am emergency re-do of the entire concert the company did, right after the official performance.

The voice in ATD of somebody trying to rescue a comrade are those of Alf Razzell, a WWI veteran. Here's a (small) bit of background to his story (appparently from the same TV special from which Waters took the sound bites):

Alf Razzell had the job of collecting the dead soldier's pocket-books, whatever they are, (some kind of ID thing I expect) and usually the corpse had to be rolled over to get it out of the top pocket. You would then see why the man had died. There were guys with empty brain cavities, faces blown off, limbs blown off and half the time he was walking through intestines of dead men.

The Germans picked up Alf and took him to the trenches where he found Bill. The Germans would not help at all. Bill had a large hole in his back exposing his intestines and it was dirty with oil, chalk and all kind of shit from the trenches. The Germans wanted Alf to take him back and to be quick about it but due to the injuries Bill couldn't stand it and with the Germans getting impatient and abusive, he decided that he would have to leave him behind. Bummer.

Its not all that gory. Alf looks in pretty good condition for a 90 odd year old. He reckons war is completely unnecessary. At the end of any war, everyone sits around a table and comes to some agreement. Why don't they do that before the war instead?

It's really (REALLY) difficult to decipher, so it's impossible to be 100% certain about all the words. But having said that, here's something that at least conveys the basic point, from the ATD Transcript:

Julia, however, In the light and visions of the issues of Stanley, we changed our minds. We have decided to include a backward message, Stanley, for you, and for all the other book partners.	(pause) (pause - 2nd thunder in normal direction) (pause) (pause) (pause - 1st thunder in normal direction) (pause) (pause) (short pause)
[very loud, noisy, screamed sentence]

The story goes like this: Waters had asked Stanley Kubrick if he could use some lines and "breathing effects" from his "2001: A Space Odyssey" film on the album. Specifically, Waters wanted to include the part about HAL's shutdown [from the ATD songbook]:

HAL:

Dave, my mind is going...I can feel it...I can feel it...My mind is going...There is no question about it...I can feel it...I can feel it...I can feel it...I'm afraid...

Mr. Kubrick refused. So Waters dubbed in his own breathing effects, and recorded a nasty message for Kubrick's benefit. Heaven only knows if he's heard it, or more importantly, if he cares.

[Translation courtesy of Fady Alajaji:]

Some of the phrases were really hard to grasp because they were being spoken very quickly in the background of the high tempo beating drums.

Anyway I tried my best and here is the translation (although not very accurate) of what I could grasp:

1) At the end of the song, while Roger is singing the following:

"And in Tripoli, another ordinary wife
[....] in the street below"

a woman is shouting in the background in egyptian arabic. Apparently she is complaining to her husband and blaming him for her sufferings. Her words run as follows:

".... And then what !!!! why don't you ever help me ? you all the time leave me alone at home and go join your fat friends in your endless useless discussions....

I work for you and your family from dawn to dusk, and you don't give a damn !

I badly need to rest, I just wish the devil's angel will soon come and take me with him......"

2) Then the beating drums start, and here everything is very chaotic. There are different voices in the background. I was able to distinguish a TV (or radio) commentator talking (but I can't get what he's saying) and at the same time there is a crowd shouting slogans in arabic. I could not grasp all their words. This what I could get:

"..... is Great;.......is Great; God is great........ Death, Death , Death to the ..... (imperialists ?)..."

I am not sure if the last word is "imperialists". Anyway you get the meaning. I think it's kind of a demonstration of fundamentalist muslims. However I'm not really sure.

3) At the end of the beating drums, right before the missile explosion, the voice of the TV commentator becomes more clear, and he says the following:

".....his days are rarely spent at home....as for her, she stays alone, she stays alone at home..... while all the men are out gathered at the squarre, she's left to loneliness and (oblivion ?)................BBBBBOOOOOOOOUUUUMMMMMMM"

That's it folks. I want to point out that this translation is not completely accurate, and it's not completely word by word. Arabic cannot be translated word by word into English because it won't make any sense. However, overall I think the translation is 90% accurate.

By the way I think Roger got these arabic phrases from an Egyptian movie and mixed them into his song. I am certain the arabic is Egyptian arabic and not Lybian arabic as it was meant to be ; since this song is supposed to be about the bombing of the Lybian capital, Tripoli.

[With much help from Adam Floro:]
In general, he just doesn't like ALW's music, and doesn't mind saying so. But specifically, there's a section of Webber's Phantom of the Opera that bears a marked similarity to a part of "Echoes." The opening notes to the "Overture" of Phantom (Track 2, Disc 1) are C# C B Bb A C#. This matches rather closely a section of "Echoes," approximately 6:06 to 6:16.

While Waters was less than pleased with this similarity, echoesians have pointed out that such a chromatic pattern is fairly common; by no means a Floyd invention. However, the relevent dates make the charge of plaigarism at least possible, if not really likely -- Webber first used the riff in question on the film "Gumshoe," released in December 1971. Meddle was released on 11 November, 1971, with the live debut of "Echoes" having occurred on April 22.

Television. Specifically, a book by Neil Postman, called "Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business."

It's apparently a very well-received book, and worth reading. Publishing information, for anyone interested:

(cloth: New York: Viking, 1985; ISBN: 0670804541)
(paper: New York: Penguin, 1986; ISBN: 0140094385)

It really depends. The MLoR and TDB tours made LOTS of money, as you can see below. The Wall tour, however, lost money in a big way. And, as happens to many mega-successful entertainers, the Floyd have made their share of bad investments. But the following is presented to give some indication of what league they're in: (taken from Forbes magazine, income in millions of $)

In a similar Forbes study for 1994 and 1995 (projected), the Floyd were ranked third (at $62 million), behind Steven Spielberg ($355 million), Oprah Winfrey ($105 million), and [cough] Barney ($84 million). Behind them were both The Eagles (7th, at $56 million) and The Rolling Stones (9th, at $53 million).

For those interested in individual Floyd members, among "Britain's Richest 500" (according to the Sunday Times, May 13th, 1995), Mason ranks as #289; Gilmour as #346. Also, on January 19th, 1995 The Guardian published a list of the top 30 English musicians with regard to highest disclosed annual earnings, averaged over the last three years. Among them were:

9. Roger Waters 3,170 (Units = 1,000 British Pounds)
15. David Gilmour 2,255

Number 1, for anyone interested, was that perennial object of Roger Waters' scorn, Phil Collins, at 14,330.

One of Nick Mason's favorite pastimes is auto racing. He, David Gilmour, and Steve O'Rourke (their manager) participated in a road race in Mexico called "La Carrera Panamericana" in late 1991. They later released a TV-movie of the car race, directed by Gilmour, with a little "new" Pink Floyd music for backing (including "One Slip").

During the race, there was an accident. The movie didn't provide in-depth coverage of the accident, just about the same coverage as other crashes received. Here is a transcription of the voice-over regarding Dave & Steve's crash (courtesy of Martin Pitwood):

"They went into a corner too fast. Either through misreading the pace notes or whatever and, er, basically took off over the edge of a cliff and landed, I think upside-down, on a small road below. The general feeling seems to be that they are incredibly lucky to have got away with it so lightly. Dave is fine, maybe a few cuts and bruises, and Steve -- broken leg." Then shots of the car being towed away.

As stated before, Richard Wright was essentially fired from Pink Floyd just before the Wall tours. He did not appear on TFC. He did, however, appear as a "session" musician on AMLoR, and also participated in the DSoT tour. With The Division Bell he's finally, fully back in the band:

From MTV News:

Wright

On this one I have been involved right from the begining. Writing and singing, and it's a compleatly different situation this time, and I'm not on a wage (big smile). I'm in partnership with them, and very happy about that. We are actually three of us making a Pink Floyd album.

From a post by Chris Solnordal:

[In England and Australia] during parliamentary sessions, if there is a disagreement about a matter then a vote must be taken. At this point, The Division Bell is rung for some time, and during that time every parliamentarian who is eligable to vote must proceed to the house. When the Division Bell stops sounding, the doors are shut and so if you're late you miss out on casting your vote.

The use of this for the title was suggested by Douglas Adams (author of the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" radio show, book series, TV show, and computer game, among other things), which is why he is listed in the album's credits. Adams made the suggestion in exchange for Gilmour donating a certain sum of money (#5,000) to a charity of Adams', the Environmental Investigation Agency. Adams has also said that Gilmour asked him to fool around with the lyrics a bit, but that none of his suggestions were actually used on the album.

Douglas Adams also appeared at the October 28th Earl's Court show, playing acoustic guitar on "Brain Damage" and "Eclipse." This was Gilmour's birthday present to Adams (Adams' 42nd birthday was in March, 1994).

[Thanks to David R. Rorabaugh and Microsoft's Encarta]:

Hawking, Stephen William (1942- ), British theoretical physicist, best known for his attempts to unite general relativity theory with quantum mechanics and for his integrally related contributions to cosmology. Hawking is Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University. Much of his work has dealt with the black hole concept. His research indicates that general relativity, if true, supports the big bang theory of the creation of the universe. He wrote "A Brief History of Time" (1988). Hawking has made his important contributions to science while battling amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, an incurable disease of the nervous system.

It is this disease, commonly known as Lou Gehrig's Disease, which forces him to use a speech-synthesizer to talk, which is what you hear on "Keep Talking." The phrases he speaks are sampled from a British Telecommunications commercial that Gilmour heard after the song was otherwise completed. DG liked it so much (said it almost brought him to tears) that he asked BT if he could sample it.

3. Spanish
5. English
7. Hindi
8. Italian
11. German / Dutch
13. Japanese (romaticized)
15. Swahili
17. Chinese / Japanese
19. French
21. Hebrew
22. Russian (Cyrillic)

* On some CD booklets, you can see "Dix-Neuf" written faintly under the characters.

It has also been suggested that the circles on page 2 are a binary representation of the number 2.

The video (VHS and LaserDisc) version of Pulse comes exclusively from the October 20th, 1994 show at Earls Court; it is a re-edited version of what was a Pay-Per-View performance. In comparison with the original PPV, the Pulse video features some different camera angles and a few cuts on the guitar solos.

The following bits of interest don't really warrant an individual topic, so here they all are, ordered by album.

The album's title comes from the the seventh chapter of Kenneth Grahame's "The Wind in the Willows" (the book was a favorite of Syd's).

On the "Pink Floyd 25th Anniversary" radio show last year, Roger said that the lyrics for "Set The Controls for the Heart of the Sun" came straight out of a book of Chinese poetry from the late Tang period. Except for the title, which he said came from within him, somewhere.

It's notable that "Cymbaline" is a self-referential song:

"...will the final couplet rhyme?"

The final couplet in fact is the only one that doesn't...

On the Capitol pressing of the More LP (SW-11198), the record (not the sleeve) has following titles for "Up The Khyber" and "Quicksilver":

Up The Kyber (Juke Box)
Quicksilver (Water-Pipe)

On the Ummagumma album cover, the last "reflection" in the wall is of the cover to A Saucerful of Secrets.

The "Jude" listed alongside Waters is Judy Trim, Roger's first wife.

Zabriskie Point Song Titles (from NeXT Digital Webster):

Fin-gal's Cave (fin'g'lz)

large cavern on an islet (called Staffa) west of Mull in the Hebrides, W Scotland

Oe|no-ne (e no'ne) [L < Gr Oinone]

Gr. Myth. a nymph deserted by her husband, Paris, for Helen of Troy

In the AHM Suite, there are two voices that can be clearly heard:

17:28 "Here is a loud announcement"
19:08 "Silence in the studio!"

Stanley Kubrick wanted "free rein" to use music from AHM in his "A Clockwork Orange." The band didn't agree...

The title "Meddle" was meant to be a pun--"a play between 'medal' (the thing that you wear for achieving something) and 'interfere'" The picture on the cover depicts a close-up of a human ear.

A portion (the instrumental bits) of "Seamus" was used as the theme song for the movie "Rosencrantz and Gildenstern are Dead."

On "Seamus," you can hear someone say "Here is the real dog" right before one of the dog's solos.

Nick Mason loses a drum stick during 'One Of These Days...', then continues to play furiously with one hand while he gets a new stick from a little container attached to his drum kit. (There's a similar moment on the KQED video, when Roger is striking a gong with such force he bends the mallet!)

The guitar part Gilmour is playing on "Brain Damage/Eclipse" was not used on the album; however, a mix of the songs with the part was made, and is available on some RoIOs.

The fourth best-selling rock album of all time is Dark Side of the Moon:

1 - Thriller
2 - Saturday Night Fever Soundtrack
3 - Rumors
4 - Dark Side of the Moon

It stayed on Billboard's top 200 album chart until April 23, 1988, when it dropped off the charts for good. It had been there for 723 weeks, the longest of any album, ever. The second longest chart stay was somewhere around 9 and 1/2 years, for Johnny Mathis' Greatest Hits.

After this, Billboard changed the format so that once an album dropped off, it could not return. Otherwise, DSotM would still be accumulating weeks.

[From AJTS&Tw/PF, courtesy of Toapher (summary chart by djs):]
"Dark Side of the Moon" on the USA Top 200 Charts: Debuts on 17 March 1973 and stays until 19 October 1974 (84 weeks) but falls off. Appears on the charts again on 12 April 1975 and stays until 6 March 1976 (lost 24 weeks, but stays for 48 weeks more). Back on charts again on 18 December 1976 and stays for a record 11 years until 23 April 1988 (lost 40 weeks but gained 591 weeks). On USA charts for a grand total of 723 weeks:

	17Mar73	19Oct74		12Apr75		6Mar76		18 Dec 76		23 Apr 88
	on chart		off chart		on chart		off chart		on chart
weeks	84		24		48		40		591		723 on, 64 off
months	19		6		11		10		125		155 on, 16 off
years	1.6		0.5		.9		.8		11.3		13.8 on, 1.3 off

	on chart   off chart   on chart  off chart   on chart
   17Mar73 --> 19Oct74   12Apr75 --> 6Mar76   18 Dec 76 --> 23 Apr 88
  weeks:   84          24         48         40         591   723 on, 64 off
 months:   19          6          11         10         125   155 on, 16 off
  years:   1.6         0.5        .9         .8        11.3   13.8 on, 1.3 off

An alternate lyric ("laying supine in the sunshine") was used in "Time" at many DSotM concerts.

What the heck is a VCS3??

The VCS3 is an analog synthesizer. It stands for:

Voltage-
Controlled
Studio, attempt number
3

It's still being sold by its developers, Electronic Music Studios. The cost is roughly US $2,500.

It is mentioned in "Walk Away Rene" that the cover of DSotM was specifically designed by Hipgnosis so that if you fold it out (the LP, that is) and put it end to end with other copies then they all fit together, thus perpetuating the cyclic theme of the album.

The cover to A Nice Pair was comprised of several different cover ideas that Hipgnosis came up with, plus several more new ones (they couldn't make up their minds, so, "why not use them all?") Many of these pictures represent common sayings or phrases:

• Frog in your throat
• Fork in the road
• Kettle of fish
• Laughing all the way to the bank
• A nip in the air
• Flying saucers
• A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush
• going in circles

There's a violin at the end of "Wish You Were Here," but it's nearly impossible to hear (it's at the end, right after all the wind stuff starts). Violinist Stephane Grappelly was recording in a downstairs studio, and Gilmour had suggested that there be a little "country fiddle" at the end of the song, so they talked Grappelly into coming up and recording a bit. They hardly used anything of his (in fact, they felt that giving him an album credit would be insulting), but they enjoyed listening to him play. He did get about 300 Pounds for it, though...

When Pink Floyd was recording "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" (and on the very day of David Gilmour's wedding to his first wife, Ginger), they received a visitor in the studio. He basically kept to himself, occasionally getting up to brush his teeth. From Pink Floyd: The Illustrated Discography:

"During the WYWH sessions a fat, shaven-headed person wearing grey Terylene trousers, a nylon shirt and string vest wandered into the studio. The band ignored the visitor and kept on playing and it was the visiting Andrew King who finally recognised their guest: 'Good God, it's Syd! How did you get like that?' To which Syd replied, 'I've got a very large fridge at home and I've been eating a lot of pork chops.' The whole event was slightly un-nerving since the theme of the album was based on Syd and his subsequent madness."

The coughing sounds on the title track were caused by Gilmour's smoking habits. It has been reported that when DG heard the sounds on the album, he decided then and there to quit.

The lake on the Wish You Were Here inner sleeve is Mono Lake, in California. The strange rock formations are a result of the *extremely* high mineral content of the water there. It's a protected area.

The weird noises and radio sounds between "Have a Cigar" and "Wish You Were Here" were picked randomly from a radio. The music includes a snippet of Tchaikovsky's 4th Symphony, and the interview includes "and you, Derek, this star nonsense, what do you think of it?" In concerts, the band extended the bit by playing live off-air samples from the local town, and then switching into the pre-recorded bit from the album.

[From Barth Richards:]
In the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" radio series, there is a gag in the scene where the five main characters are stepping out of the starship HEART OF GOLD onto the planet Magrathea. The music in the background is the opening of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts 1-5)," which, it turns out, is being provided by Marvin. At one point, Arthur says, "Ford, do you realize that robot can hum like Pink Floyd?" When the radio series was released on cassettes and CDs, this scene was cut for legal reasons.

According to Gilmour, "'Mihalis' is the name of my boat...It's Greek for Michael. That's what it was called when I got it and, in Greece, they say it's bad luck to change it..."

In the movie "The Wall," there are a lot of scenes in the background of a WWII film called "The Dambusters." It's the story about 617 squadron, which attacked 3 Ruhr dams in 1943 flying specially converted Lancasters carrying Barnes Wallis's "bouncing bomb" and it is the film of this event featured in the Wall movie. The raid was lead by Wing Commander Guy Gibson who survived the raid and was awarded the Victoria Cross for his part in it. Guy Gibson died later in the war.

There are a number of uncredited session musicians on The Wall. Freddie Mandell plays Hammond organ on "In the Flesh," Lee Ritenour plays rhythm guitar on "One of My Turns" (Gilmour "couldn't think of a good part to play"), and there's some guy playing Spanish guitar on "Is There Anybody Out There?" because Gilmour couldn't play the part without a pick.

"Where the hell are you? Where the hell are you Tyler?" heard just before the song "Vera" is from the movie "Battle of Britain". The airplane that you hear crashing afterward is Tyler's.

One of the exhibits at the Rock Hall of Fame will be The Wall, a multimedia presentation done by Roger Waters and the design firm of Fisher Park. No, the Floyd are not yet in the Hall of Fame -- they failed to collect the necessary votes on their first nomination, a few years ago. At least part of the reason is probably their general shunning of the media.

Toni Tennille (credited on The Wall LP) is from The Captain and Tennille. Bruce Johnston is from The Beach Boys -- the original plan had been to have *all* the Beach Boys harmonize on "The Show Must Go On" and "Waiting for the Worms," but this was scrapped.

On "Gohill's Boots:"

Gohill's is a shoe store in Camden, North London (UK). The boots referred to in The Wall would have been short ankle boots with an elasticated "gusset" (rather than laces). These were "de rigeur" in London in the late '60s and Gohill's was THE place to get them.

A picture of Syd wearing a pair of yellow Gohills can be found in the Mick Rock Photo Sessions book.

"part of me flies over dresden at angels one five"

Dresden is a German city heavily bombed by the RAF during WWII; "angels one five" means 15,000 feet.

"and maniacs don't blow holes in bandsmen by remote control"

This refers to an event that happened in the summer of 1982. The Royal Green Jackets band was giving a concert in Regent's Park, when a bomb planted under the stage by the Irish Republican Army detonated, killing 6 and injuring 28, most of them bandsmen.

"...nailed ducks to the wall..."

Nailing painted wooden ducks to the wall was a British post-WWII symbol of settling down to the quiet life (hence "Dunroamin"). In "Walk Away Rene" (the book on Hipgnosis), a prototype cover of Animals is shown; a drawing of a real duck bloodily nailed above a mantle.

Nadav Appel noticed that the track "Arabs with Knives and West German Skies," according to the lyrics, starts at "there were Arabs with knives," while on the disc's indexing, it starts only at "sleep, sleep"

"There's a blood red dragon on a field of green"

This is a description of the Welsh flag. It can be seen on, among other places, the Radio KAOS video EP.

The voices that can be heard in "Yet Another Movie" are Humphry Bogart, in a famous scene from "Casablanca."

The DSoT album cover is meant (according to its designer) to capture what was so special about a Pink Floyd concert--sight and sound. "So you have Mr. Light in a showdown with Mr. Sound. The whole thing was shot in Spain."

One concession made by Pink Floyd to Roger Waters as a result of the great Floyd Lawyer Wars was the concept of the "Pig." Waters had sued to stop the Floyd from using many of their now-standard concert features, like the huge screen, weird animated movies, and in particular, the floating pig. So when Pink Floyd went on the road, they not only credited Waters with the concept (seen in the DSoT Video closing credits - "Original Pig Concept: R. Waters"), they also changed the pig's gender.

"And we all like the bit when you take The jeans from the refridgerator and Then the bad guy gets hit"

...this is based on a UK television advertisement.

Semtex (one of the many things God wants) was an inexpensive Czechoslovakian plastic explosive, popular with terrorists.

"Each man has his price Bob, and yours was pretty low"

Waters explains this line: "When we recorded the album I would sometimes rehearse vocal takes by impersonating Bob Dylan. That line originally read 'Each man has his price my friends...' so make of that what you will. As a joke I sung 'Bob' instead and Pat insisted that we left it in. So although it was unintentional I'm happy that it's there for Bob Ezrin. I hope he appreciates it." (Bob Ezrin had originally agreed to produce Roger's Radio KAOS, but backed out of the deal to produce MLoR.)

On the box set, in the print around the weird logo (with all the overlapping album titles) is the working title for Shine On, "The Big Bong Theory." This was suggested by Mason, but wasn't approved.

The sounds at the beginning of "Cluster One" are the crackling noises beneath the earth's crust. They were recorded by California seismology buff G. William Forgey, who offered them to the band. [From the Toronto Star]

Picture Locations:

• The building on the cover of the CD is Ely Cathedral, in Cambridgeshire, England.
• The buildings on page 2 and 3 of the TDB CD booklet are those of the Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatory, in Chile.
• The beach scene in CBtL was shot in the UK: Durdle Door, Dorset, on the South English coast.

Right after the 3:00 mark in "Take it Back," you can hear the following: [From Charles Panati's 'Extraordiary Origins of Everyday things', thanks to Demetri S. Mouratis]

Ring-a-ring o' roses

Refers to circular rosy rash, an early symptom of the Great Plague.

A pocket full of posies

Herbs carried in pockets, people thought they would protect them

A-tishoo! A-tishoo

Literally, the plague's final sneeze which preceded physical collapse.

We all fall down.

i.e. dead.

There are a number of sounds in TDB that are a bit familiar:

• Bells from "Fat Old Sun"
• Drums from "Bring the Boys Back Home"
• Fly from "Grantchester Meadows"
• Truck stopping and leaving from "Dunroamin'"

Polly Samson, listed in the "Thanks" section and co-writer of many songs, is Gilmour's wife (as of summer 1994--he and Ginger seperated during the MLoR tour). Don't know much about her except that she's a journalist and writer.

At 8:18 of "High Hopes" there is the following phone conversation:

O'Rourke:	Hello?
Charlie:	Yeah...
SO'R:	Is that Charlie?
C:	Yes.
SO'R:	Hello Charlie.
C:	(mumbles something and hangs up)
S'OR:	Great! (hangs up)

(Steve O'Rourke is the band's manager, and Charlie is Polly's son.)

The LP of TDB is several minutes shorter than the other versions. It lacks the above conversation, and the song ends are trimmed down a bit. "Wearing the Inside..." also has some small structural changes. There was a rumor before its release that TDB would be a double LP, to fit everything on, but apparently the band decided against this.

[From Gerhard:]
I recently found an old Dutch telephonecard (you know, one of those things with which you can telephone without using cash), and on it was a stylized picture of 2 faces, facing each other seen from the side, and in between the faces were some sinal waves...

On Primus' Pork Soda album, there is a lyric on song #12 ("The Air is Getting Slippery") that goes, "If you studied your Floyd properly, you'd know that pigs could fly." Primus has also covered "Have a Cigar" on their Miscellaneous Debris EP.

In the video for the Beastie Boys' song "Gratitude," they play in a "Pompeii-style" arena and have their rotating (Leslie) amps marked "PINK FLOYD -- LONDON", just like in Pompeii.

The ambient group The Orb has used the Battersea Power Station on album covers, features bassist Guy Pratt, and has some obviously Floyd-inspired tunes (eg "Plateau").

The multimedia software company 7th Level features some interesting connections to Pink Floyd. Scott Page is the Executive Vice President, while Bob Ezrin is Co-Chairman of the Board and Executive Vice President of Production. Gilmour is credited for the "guitar effects" on the company's "Tuneland" CD-ROM.

According to Autoweek, some of the cars that Nick Mason owns (and races) are:

• Ferrari 250 GTO
• Ferrari F40
• Ferrari 246 GTS Dino
• Bugatti 35B
• Alfa 2300
• Maserati 250F

Specialized Bicycle Components makes a series of tires with a greyish, ultra-grippy, ultra-soft rubber compound they call UmmaGumma. It is used for the company's "extreme application" tires.

Here we present some questions that have been asked that nobody's really come up with an answer for yet:

• "What's the Morse code at the beginning of 'Astronomy Domine'?"

  No clue ;) I tried to decode it, but my skill at Morse code is all but nil. Someone had a go at one of the live versions, and reported it was just random. But maybe someone could try the Piper version?

These items deal with events far enough in the future as to make them at least somewhat uncertain:

[Info from the "Saucerful of Secrets" and "Crazy Diamond" books:]
Roger Barrett currently resides in suburban Cambridge. He lives a fairly isolated existence, his affairs looked after by his sister, and spends his time painting, reading, tending his garden and coin collection, and working on a pet-project of his, "The History of Art." The money from his Pink Floyd and solo albums is more than enough to subsidize his low-key lifestyle.

Though there are occasional "Syd sightings," Mr. Barrett finds it difficult to relate to and communicate with other people, and anyone attempting to track him down is likely to meet with a closed door.

This comes up all the time, especially when new people join and want to voice their opinions. The problem with this question is that everyone has their own thoughts on the matter, and that these thoughts are entirely subjective. Without going into any details, any pros and/or cons of either Syd's, Waters' or Gilmour's writing, singing, or playing styles, and without delving into the personalities of different members of the band or the concepts they provided or the concerts they performed, I'm just going to say that everyone likes or dislikes any particular version of Floyd or the solo artists for strictly personal reasons, and trying to convince anyone to change these likes is going to be a futile effort.

Posting on this subject is highly frowned upon, both on the newsgroup and especially on echoes. In other words, don't do it.