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     /_|___|___|___|___|___|__\      Frequently Asked Question (FAQ)
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   /___|___|___|___|___|___|___|\       Version 4.0  (July 1999)
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Originally compiled by David Schuetz
adopted by Matt Denault
Currently maintained by:
Gerhard den Hollander - editor
Mike McInnis, Rick Karhu
Patrick Keller and Dave Ward
(gdenhollander@jasongeo.com)
(echoes-faq@fawnya.meddle.org)
-=-
With help from all over the world!

The latest version of this document can always be found on
http://www.meddle.org/

Section 6 (of 10) : The Roger Waters era

  1. : Did Pink Floyd ever do any advertisements ?
  2. : Dark Side Of The Moon
  3. : The Dark Side Of The Moon Tour
  4. : What were the household objects
  5. : Raving and Touring
  6. : Wish You Were Here
  7. : Animals
  8. : The In The Flesh Tour
  9. : The Wall
  10. : The Wall tours
  11. : When and Why did Rick Wroght Leave the Band ?
  12. : The Final Cut

01 : Did Pink Floyd ever do any advertisements ?

Did Pink Floyd do any advertisements?  "Gini"

Yes. In 1974, Pink Floyd were approached by a French soft- drink company that produced a bitter lemon drink called "Gini." The idea was that the Floyd would appear in some magazine ads for the company, and the company would in turn help the band with the tour, resulting in cheaper tickets for the fans, and more money for the band. What could be better?

However, this was ten years before such corporate sponsorship would become commonplace, and fans reacted badly to the advertisements, as did the band. Waters wrote a song about selling his soul in the desert (called "Bitter Love," or "How Do You Feel?"), and the band donated the money Gini paid them to charity.

 "Nurofen"

Rick Wright also sanctioned the use of a rerecording of "The Great Gig in the Sky" in an advertisement for a headache pain- relief pill, Nurofen. The Floyd were not involved in the rerecording, but Clare Torry again did the vocal.

 "Samaritans"

[taken from the Pink Floyd Encyclopedia, enhanced by GDH] In 1986, a Samaritans cinema advertisement used a remixed version of the song *Is There Anybody Out There* (with additional screams by Roger Waters). The ad ended with the reassuring word YES, and was directed by Saatchi and Saatchi.

 "Volkswagen"

Most recently, in late 1993 they entered into two promotional agreements to support The Division Bell tour. The first involved a Labatt's ICE beer commercial, which showed the "Division Belle" airship, and promoted the Canadian leg of the tour. The other was with Volkswagen, in support of the European portion of the tour. In return for financial support, Pink Floyd agreed to lend its name to a specially modified VW Golf III (or Golf-based Cabriolet). In shades of "bitter love," though, Gilmour says he came to feel uncomfortable with the agreement -- done basically for money -- and that he wouldn't do such a sponsorship agreement again. And, as with the band's Gini experience, all the money in the VW deal went to charity.

02 : Dark Side Of The Moon

Dark Side Of The Moon  "What is the *song* at the end of Dark Side Of The Moon?"

One of two things. It could be an accidental tape anomaly that the Floyd never noticed when they recorded the song. Or maybe they did notice, but it was so faint that they didn't care anymore. Or perhaps master just was damaged long after the recording was finished. In any event, if you listen very closely to the end of the song, you can hear the last low note sort of "burp" a bit.

 "Where did the speaking voices on *Dark Side of the Moon* come from?"

People. Lots of people. Just like you and me -- sort of. What the band did was this: they prepared a bunch of questions, questions like "When was the last time you thumped someone?" "Why are you frightened of dying?" and "Were you in the right?" Then they took people off the streets, out of other recording sessions, and from within the Abbey Road staff, sat them down in front of a microphone, and handed them a random card, instructing them to say whatever comes to mind. Answers like "I've been mad for fucking years, absolutely years" and "I don't know [if I was in the right], I was really drunk at the time" made it on to the album.

 "Where did the idea for the cover came from?"

[From the Shine On book:]

"The idea of the prism came from a series of conversations with the band, especially with Roger and Rick. Roger spoke about the pressures of touring, the madness of ambition... and the triangle is a symbol of ambition. Rick wanted something more graphic, less pictorial, something, as he put it, more stylish than before. Floyd's lighting show was regarded as very powerful and the prism seemed a good way to refer to that, and be more graphic at the same time."

And, regarding the pyramids: "A larger physical representation of the triangle was the pyramid...perhaps it could be seen as a testament to madness, more 'vaulting ambition.'"

 "Breathe"

There's a small error in the lyrics for Breathe on the vinyl versions -- at least the 1973 issue, a later reissue and the 20th anniversary CD issue -- as well as in the Shine On book.

All list the lyrics for Breathe as "don't sit down it's time to *start* another one".

Thanks to Terence McShery for pointing this out.

 "The Great Gig in the Sky"

At about 3:32 into the song, there is a background voice. It's of a woman, and the what she says is "I never said I was frightened of dying." Presumably, the question she'd been asked was "Why are you frightened of dying?" and this holds for the other voices on that song, as well. A common misinterpretation of this phrase is "If you can hear this whisper, you're dying." But that's not what it says. Period.

If you listen very closely to the end of the song, you can hear the last low note sort of "burp" a bit.

This could be an accidental tape anomaly that the Floyd never noticed when they recorded the song, or they did, but it was so faint that they didn't care anymore, or perhaps it happened long after the tape was finished and the master just got damaged.

Others have argued that Pink Floyd are too much of a "purist" in terms of their work and would never have allowed a glitch like that to be distributed without having some reason. What that reason is, however, is anybody's guess.

 "Brain Damage/Eclipse"

The version on 'Works' sounds different from the original. That's because they ARE different! The versions on that album are not from the regular DSotM mix, but rather from the quadraphonic mix. This makes sense when you consider that 'Works' was an American release, from Capitol, and that Capitol's first DSotM CD was taken directly from the quadraphonic LP master. Anyway, the only real difference is in the voices of "Roger the Hat," the roadie who supplied a lot of voices to the album. In the regular mix, he talks a bit in the background of the song, in the quad mix, he just laughs (and laughs and laughs...).

Also, some people have said that the version of "Set The Controls for the Heart of the Sun" sounds much clearer on _Works_ than on ASOS.

 Why Are The Japanese Black Label CDs so expensive ?

[Taken in part from an article in Record Collector magazine:]
In the early 1980s, when the compact disc first appeared, the CDs themselves were imported from Japan, which was at that time the only country with the facilities to manufacture the new format. Initial British issues of _Dark Side_, _Wish You Were Here_, _Meddle_ and _The Wall_ had "Made in Japan" on the discs themselves, while the inserts stated the country of origin as the U.K.

These early discs -- which are said to be superior to standard UK/US issues (excepting _The Wall_, which had several problems) -- can easily be distinguished because they have an all-black label side with silver lettering. These Japanese- manufactured CDs are now highly prized by hardcore collectors, both for their vastly superior sound quality and for their rarity. Expect to pay around #20 [20 UK pounds] or so for copies.

 "What are all these different 'Dark Side' releases?"

Recent releases of Dark Side of the Moon -- from the Shine On set, the XX anniversary CD, the "normal" EMI remaster, and the live rendition on Pulse -- have provoked a few new questions.

 "Song Credits and Tracking Differences"

Several changes in the Dark Side song crediting have occurred in some recent releases of the song cycle (Shine On and the audio versions of Pulse). These are:

It's interesting that these changes occur on Shine On and the Pulse audio releases, but not the videos of DSoT or Pulse, nor the EMI remaster or the XX Anniversary DSotM CD. I can't imagine that Storm and company aren't aware of these discrepancies, though I suppose it's possible. But assuming there *is* a reason for them...what is it?

The best I (Matt) can come up with -- and I freely admit this is quite a stretch -- is that, for the audio recordings, it's a part of the agreement between the current Floyd and Roger Waters. The reasoning involved would be that Waters was understandably reluctant to have songs he felt strongly involved with used to promote something which he felt was illegitimate. So when DSotM or its component songs are used in conjunction with -- and thus used as a sales incentive for -- post-Waters Floyd material, the current Floyd agreed to give Waters credit for several songs that he did a marginal but still significant amount of work on.

The Wright credit would then be a kind of "if you get credit for your role on this, Rick should get credit for his role on that" thing. And when the albums are sold on their own, as the XX Anniversary CD or normal remaster, the original crediting holds. Finally, the video recordings fall under a separate copyright, so this doesn't apply to them, and they use the original credits as well.

This theory would also give an explanation for the differences in the tracking of "Speak to Me" and "Breathe" on the various releases. On _Shine On_ and _Pulse_ they're tracked separately; on the XX CD, they're together. Let me stress again, though, that this is all just speculation on my part -- it has no basis other than the fact that it matches the circumstances, and I can't think of anything else that does...

 "The New Cross-Fade"

The EMI remastered versions of DSotM have an added "bridge" between "The Great Gig in the Sky" and "Money" that all other releases lack. Being first released on vinyl, there was always a gap between the two songs caused by the album break; this gap was perpetuated on the cassette and original CD versions. When James Guthrie, Doug Sax and Alan Parsons went to remaster the album, they also added in a new cross-fade to make the transition flow more smoothly.

Some people claim not to hear the cross-fade, but if you listen carefully, you should notice that the final note of "Great Gig" doesn't *quite* fade out completely before the first coin sound effect of "Money" is heard. The cross-fade is subtle, but it **is** there.

(It's worth noting here the obvious but sometimes overlooked fact that all the older albums were created and recorded for vinyl. "Money" wasn't just in the middle of DSotM, for example -- it was the start of the second side of the LP.)

03 : The Dark Side Of The Moon Tour

The Dark Side of the Moon tours (1972-1973)  "When was Dark Side Of The Moon performed for the first time?"

The very first time they played it was on 20 January 1972, at The Dome, Brighton. They had to stop at the opening sound effects of "Money" due to technical problems. They played all but "Eclipse" the next night -- "Eclipse" had yet to be written. In its place, they played a instrumental jazzy song. Roger didn't feel this was a dramatic enough finale, however, and wrote "Eclipse" for the Bristol show in early February (the 5th, according to Miles). The Bristol show was then the first time the whole "album" was performed.

("Album" in quotes because early performances were substantially different from DSotM as it was eventually recorded and released. Early renditions of _Dark Side_ had a jam version of "On the Run" instead of the synthesizer piece, a slower version of "Time," and a vocal-less, organ-based "Great Gig in the Sky" with a tape of preachers running in the background.)

 "Set lists"

Almost all 1972 shows had the following set list: Set 1: Dark Side of the Moon Set 2: One of these Days, Careful, Echoes Encore: A Saucerful of Secrets or Set The Controls, and sometimes a blues jam as an extra encore.

Song order occasionally varied (echoes as an encore, DSOTM as second set)

The 1973 shows were roughly using the following set list: Set 1: OBC/When You're In; StCftHotS; CWTA,E; Echoes Set 2: DSOTM Encore: OOTD

The first few shows of march had Childhoods End instead of Set The Controls, Set list for the first few shows also varied a little (Echoes as opener, no StCftHotS).

On 4nov73 Pink Floyd performed 2 concerts for the Robert Wyatt benefit at the Rainbow Theatre in London (supported by The Soft Machine) and played DSOTM OBC/WYI.

 "Roland Petit Ballet"

The Floyd performed a handful of concerts accompanying the Roland Petit Ballet (22-26nov72, 13,14jan and 3,4feb73 and 15jan - 28jan73 (audio playback only).

The Ballet was performed in 3 sections, the first 2 were based on classical music, the 3rd section was The Pink Floyd ballet. A ballet in 4 movements:

04 : What were the household objects

"What were those Household Objects songs?"
Following the success of Dark Side of the Moon, the Floyd were in something of a quandary as to what to do next. One idea they had was to try to create an entire album using only sounds produced by common household objects. The Floyd used a number of recording sessions in the latter months of 1973 to experiment with such unconventional instruments as wine bottles, aerosol spray cans, rubber bands, tape, and others.

The Pink Floyd encyclopedia lists 1-4, 8-10 and 22-31 October; 12-14,19-21 and 26-28 November; 3-5 December 1973 as the recording dates.

In the end, they managed to get three songs recorded before giving up on the project as "a bit daft." However, some bits and pieces (the wine glass sounds) were used in the beginning of SOYCD.

05 : Raving and Touring

Raving and Touring
 Shine On and have A Cigar

There is some confusion about the live versions of Shine On and Have A Cigar in 1975. While those songs are seperate entities on the _WYWH_ album, Roger announced the song sequence Shine On (part I)/Have A Cigar/ Shine On (part II) often as if it were a single song. The 3 parts are also played continously, whitout a break between parts.

 Setlist

Setlists for the 1975 tours was :

06 : Wish You Were Here Wish You Were Here  "Shine On You Crazy Diamond"

"Shine On" was originally supposed to be a side-long composition, but it grew to more than a side (it's about 30 min. long), and the band decided that it'd work better with the three other songs in the middle. In any event, the song is divided into nine parts, but naturally it's rather difficult to tell where they start and end. Here is something, pulled from Guitar magazine by Chris Walsh, that should help figure them out:

There is also an alternate scheme, given by the WYWH piano song book. In this arrangement, the first five parts are as follows:

Part I - Rick's opening synth solo Part II - Dave's first solo (the soft one) Part III - "Syd's Theme" Part IV - Rick's synth horn solo, followed by a Dave solo Part V - Roger's vocals, and sax solo

This seems a little odd to me, and music books aren't noted for their accuracy. On the other hand, neither is Gilmour's memory ;) At any rate, going by Dave's indexing, the ACoGDS version consists of parts I, II, IV and VII. The DSoT version, by either scheme, consists of parts I-V.

Below are excerpts from the interview with David Gilmour:

The 4 note theme (Syd's them) is taken from the signature tune of BBC radio program Take It From There.

 "Have A Cigar"

Roy Harper is a "street singer" from England, popular in the 1970's. Waters didn't like the way he was singing "Have a Cigar," and Harper was in another studio at the time making an album. So, they brought Harper in, and had him sing it. Though Waters said that Harper did "very well," he also now feels it would have been better to keep the song within the band.

Harper performed with the band at their 1975 Knebworth concert (which was the last performance of _Dark Side of the Moon_ with Roger Waters). Upon discovering that his stage costume had been stolen, he threw a tantrum, ripping upholstery and breaking the windows of one of the tour vans. During this he cut his band badly -- an incident which inspired the hotel- ravaging scene in "The Wall."

A bit more information, courtesy of Scott Lindsey:

Harper is much more a song-writer than a musician, in the same way Bob Dylan is. He's been recording since the late 60's and has released about 18 or so albums, including the duo effort with Page, "What Ever Happened to Jugula?" which also featured Gilmour. Like Dylan, he doesn't have the greatest voice, but it is somewhat unique, albeit not as recognizable as Dylan's. Much of his released material is simply vocal with acoustic guitar. He's very British and at times very political -- very much the cynic. His music isn't for just anyone and for some is an acquired taste. What some find "pointed" others find "grating."

Harper also helped out David Gilmour on his first solo album, helping to write and sing "Short and Sweet" (and Gilmour has worked extensively on Harper's albums). He appears on Gilmour's live tour video. He is also the subject of a Led Zeppelin song, "Hats Off to Roy Harper," from their third album.

There's a Roy Harper mailing list, called "Stormcock." You can subscribe by sending a message containing the line "subscribe Stormcock" to the address "majordomo@bilpin.co.uk"

There's also WWW page;
http://www.helsinki.fi/~akoskine/royharper.html

07 : Animals

Animals  "Didn't the pig fly away once?"

Yep; when they were photographing the cover for _Animals_. They did the photography on two different days. The first day was kind of dark and dismal, and the pig simply wouldn't float (not enough helium or something like that). So they all "took some photographs, had some champagne, and went home." The next day was a beautiful day with nary a cloud in the sky, and the pig floated up fine. In fact, it floated too well -- it broke away from its mooring and reached a height of nearly 10,000 feet before heading back down to Earth, scaring quite a few pilots in the process.

The cover of _Animals_ is a combination of the two photographs -- the dismal power station from the previous day, and the floating pig from the day it flew away. The film for "Pigs (3 Different Ones)" used on the tour was taken that second day.

 "Snowy White"

They were setting the album up to be released on the US 8- track tape (remember those?) and needed a bit of music to bridge the two versions of "Pigs on the Wing." He was "available" at the time, and recorded a short guitar solo.

8-tracks had (as you might guess) 8 tracks; or 4 stereo tracks. This meant that albums had to be divided up into four roughly equal parts. The arrangement was as follows, according to owner Donald Scheidt:

Anyway, regardless of how the Animals 8-track was arranged, we have it on good authority that this is the only Floyd album on which Snowy White appeared. He has also appeared with the Floyd on the 1977 Animals tour and the 1980 Wall tours. And he has played with Roger Waters in Berlin ,at the Guitar Legends Concert and the Walden Woods Benefit.

This version is (remastered) available on Snowy White's Gold Top album.

 "There is an error in the lyric sheet "

Yep. On the lyrics sheet (and also the on-line files, I believe), one of the last few lines of the song reads something like:

But the line that is sung is: Why is it different? Who knows. Maybe it was changed by Waters at the last minute, and they never bothered to change the lyrics sheet. At any rate, it's corrected in the lyric book for the _Shine On_ set.

 "What were the original lyrics for 'Dogs' and 'Sheep.'"

Pink Floyd toured in 1974 with the following new songs: "Shine On You Crazy Diamond," "You Gotta Be Crazy," and "Raving and Drooling" -- on the early '75 tour, they added "Have a Cigar" and split "Shine On" into two sections, although the suite (Shine On I -> Have A Cigar -> Shine On II) was announced by Roger as "a new song, partially about Syd Barrett and partially about the music industry."

These last two were later recorded and released in late 1975 on WYWH, but the other two were shelved until they reappeared in 1977, modified, on Animals.

Here are the lyrics as they sounded in 1975, taken from a tour program: [thanks to Tom Hood and Bruce Hammerle]

Note that a bit of the lyrics to Raving and Drooling actually ended up in Pigs On The Wing.

NOTE: The lyrics to both songs underwent constant changes as they were performed. Thus the versions on your RoIO of choice may be somewhat different; lyrics for the versions of the songs on the popular RoIO "Total Eclipse" can be found at http://ultra.gawth.com/~rjones/floyd/lyrics Note also that early versions of "Shine On" went through numerous small changes before reaching their recorded form.

 "Pigs (3 Different Ones"

In "Pigs (3 Different Ones)," there's a line:

This isn't referring to the White House in Washington, but instead refers to Mary Whitehouse, a British "moral majority" type person. At one point she was head of the National Viewers and Listeners Association, which campaigns for broad national moral standards in radio and TV.

08 : The In The Flesh Tour

In The Flesh  Set list

The set list for the 1977 tour was:

The American leg of this tour was called 'Pink Floyd: In The Flesh.'

 The Number Game

During Pigs Roger shouted a number in the microphone. The exact reason why he did shout this, nor what the number meant, but it looks almost like Roger shouted the number of shows they had done.

 So Who Played What?

Ed Sander posted this on Echoes:

Who played what on which song for this tour? Obviously Rick and Nick have their instruments, but I'm curious as to Dave, Roger and Snowy, specifically on Pigs and Pigs on the Wing. Snowy has his solo in part two of PotW, and I always assumed that Rog played acoustic on this, leaving Dave to play bass. Right? Or not? And then what happened when they moved into Pigs (3DO)?

I'm not sure about the others but here's what Snowy said he played:

This is a question I've always wanted to ask. Do you know which instruments Snowy plays on which songs during Pink Floyd's In The Flesh tour?

[note 1] He was the first one to step on stage to play the bass on Sheep. According to Snowy he also played bass on Dogs and Welcome to the Machine.

[Note 2] see the next question.

 The Spitting Incident

Roger Waters had this to say about the 6 July 1977 Montreal Show:

What exactly happened is asked often enough to warrant inclusion of a transcript of this show.  "So what happened during that blues number"

David Gilmour stated in interviews that he felt their playing that night wasn't good enough to warrant a third (after Money and Us & Them) encore, so he went off to the mixing desk to see the 3rd encore from there. Apparently a section of the crowd had already gone home after the first encore, and more left after the second. Apparently there was more than half an hour between us and them and the blues tune.

The blues jam lasted for about fifteen minutes, and during the jam, roadies started dismantling the bands setup, in the end Nick Mason was left with only a single drum.

09 : The Wall

The Wall
 "There is an error in the lyric sheet"

This is one of several cases when a lyric was written for the album, printed on the lyric sheets of the initial LPs, but then not used on the album. Why did it happen here? I don't know -- maybe for space reasons. But they used the verse in concert, and here it is: Do I have to stand up Wild eyed in the spotlight What a nightmare Why! Don't I turn and run And then the "there must be some mistake..." line begins.

 Why is 'Hey You' not in the movie ?

'Hey You' was originally going to be in the Wall film, and pictures from the shot footage can even be found in the picture book of the film along with the lyrics, but it was left out. The following is taken from the "Behind The Wall" interview with Roger Waters and Ray White. It was recorded (7/19/90), the week before Roger's Berlin Wall concert.

The forthcoming DVD version of 'The Wall' film (scheduled for September 1999) will include the deleted scene, which was actually stored for 17 years, not thrown away.

 "What is *When The Tigers Broke Free*"

"Tigers" is a song written for the Wall film about the British invasion of Anzio, Italy during WWII. The Allies established a bridgehead, but were unable to expand it. There were several German counterattacks, one of them, on Feb. 16th, 1944, against the area where the Royal Fuseliers Company C was stationed (a "Tiger," incidentally, is a type of German tank).

Roger Waters' father, Eric Fletcher Waters (to whom _The Final Cut_ was dedicated) died in that invasion, so it is partially (if not wholly) autobiographical. The song was split into two parts in the movie, and released as a single. The single came in a special picture gatefold sleeve, had the movie version of "Bring The Boys Back Home" as a B-side, and featured the note "Taken from the album 'The Final Cut'" -- which, of course, never featured the song.

As for digital availability, the song was on a special DJ sampler CD issued to highlight the more recent achievements of Waters' career as a marketing thing for the Berlin concert. It's also on the Westwood One's radio disc, "A CD Full of Secrets." These are the only places that it is officially available on CD. It is, of course, available in digital sound on the Wall laser disc, but it's broken up into two parts. There is also a decent non-Floyd version of it on the _Orchestral Maneuvers_ disc.

 "What is said before 'Empty Spaces?'"

The soft gibberish you can hear in the background here is a backwards message. When you play it backwards, you hear:

and, in the background, after that, even softer:

 "Background voices"

[NOTE: The Pink Floyd Encyclopedia lists all this in even more detail]

The following interpretations are culled from the album, movie, concert RoIOs, special shows (including the Berlin '90 show and the Walden Woods benefit that Roger was part of), and various interviews.

Note the word choice: interpretations. The interpretations presented here are those that seem to be the most popular whenever we engage in Lyric War 47, and are the ones that seem to have the best evidence in their favor. This does not mean that your interpretation is wrong simply because it differs from what is suggested here. What it does mean, however, is that I and a great many other people would appreciate it if you would refrain from starting the next Lyric War just so you can have your say. It won't resolve anything and it's just not worth it...

 What is *What Shall We Do Now ?*

Originally, The Wall was supposed to include the song "What Shall We Do Now?" but this was cut because of time limitations. The change was made so late in the game that the album sleeves had already been printed, including the lyrics and the original order.

"What Shall We Do Now?" was to come right after "Goodbye Blue Sky," followed with "Empty Spaces" showing up later (before ABitW 3) as a sort of reprise. Also, on side 3 of the album, they had planned to place "Hey You" after "Comfortably Numb," but that too was changed at the last minute.

 "The Little Boy That Santa Claus Forgot"

This song appears at the beginning of the film "The Wall" (while slowly tracking down along the floor of the hotel corridor), and was sung by Vera Lynn, who was a popular singer during World War II.

The crucial last verse, not included in the film, explains why Roger Waters used this song. The lyrics were transcribed by Dave Ward <pink-floyd@writeme.com>: Roger must have felt some identification with the little boy described in the song, who was troubled by the loss of his father as Waters was by the loss of his own.

A RoIO ('The Film') of the movie also includes at the end of side three another song sung by Vera Lynn, "We'll Meet Again." This is the song that Waters was alluding to in "Vera," and goes something like this:

The song also appeared at the very end of the movie "Dr. Strangelove," when the world was being destroyed by the "Doomsday Machine."

 "What does Pink sing in the bathroom stall?"

When Pink is sitting in the bathroom stall, he sings, of course, "Stop." However, before he sings that, he sings scraps of other songs he has been working on, reading them from his song book. These later became parts of "Your Possible Pasts" from The Final Cut and "The Moment of Clarity" from Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking.

Here is what he's singing:

 "Was The Wall soundtrack ever officially released?"

Nope. It's never been released, in spite of the fact that the movie includes the note "Soundtrack available on Columbia records and tapes" near the end of the credits. There have been a couple RoIOs of the soundtrack, (some very professional looking) but your best bet would be to buy the Hi-Fi videotape of the film (or get the laser disc or DVD version).

 "Mother"

The line sung on the album as:

in the movie is sung: Interestingly, the written lyrics in some early Wall LPs (and Harvest CDs) have this change as well. In other words, the original lyric was apparently "am I really dying," which was changed at the last minute to "Is it just a waste of time" for the album, and then changed back to "dying" for the movie. In between, at some live shows, it was sung "what a crazy time" (see, for example, 'Brick by Brick').

10 : The Wall tours

Wall Tour
*This section was written by Richard Mahon (RichM66@compuserve.com)*

 "How to identify Wall shows"

The key factor is what is said before "Run Like Hell" -- it was different at every show. There was an article on this in Brain Damage 28, that Karl Magnacca has typed in. It's too long to include here, but it's available by sending mail to "echoserv@fawnya.meddle.org" with the following in the body of the message:

    send wall.id.info echoes
    quit

make sure the text is lowercase and left-justified. This will mail the file.

 "How large was the wall on stage?"

The Wall was made up of approximately 450 cardboard bricks that were 5 feet long, 2 1/2 feet high and 1 1/2 feet deep. The wall itself stood approximately 30 feet in height and 150 feet wide across the front of the stage.

 "Who were the DJ's who introduced the band?"

 "What is the strange introduction read by the DJ's?"

This is believed to be a script written by Roger Waters for the introduction of the Surrogate Band. Three examples include:

Nassau Coliseum, Long Island, New York, February 28, 1980

Earls Court, London, August 6, 1980 Earls Court, London, June 17, 1981  "Who made up The Surrogate Band?"

The Surrogate Band consisted of Andy Bown on bass, Snowy White on guitar, Willie Wilson on drums and Pete Woods on keyboards. Andy Roberts replaced Snowy White on guitar in 1981.

The first appearance of The Surrogate Band, for the show opener "In The Flesh?," featured Roger Waters on bass and vocals. When The Surrogate Band joined Pink Floyd to play in front of the wall in the second half of the show Andy Bown played bass behind Waters.

 "Some concerts have a jam at the end of 'Another Brick in the Wall part III.'"

In live performances, "Another Brick in the Wall part III" was extended more than any other song in the show. The instrumental recap of the first set included musical parts from "The Happiest Days Of Our Lives", "Young Lust" and "Empty Spaces." If more time was needed, as was often the case in the initial shows, the band would go into a jam that was similar to "Any Colour You Like." This was used to buy time for the "wall-building" roadies to complete their task.

 "Wasn't there a fire opening night?"

On opening night at the Sports Arena, Los Angeles, California, February 7, 1980 curtains at the top of the stage caught fire when pyrotechnics were set at the start of "In The Flesh?" Sound engineer James Guthrie heard a crackling sound in his headphones and attempted to isolate where the sound was coming from. The sounds Guthrie heard were roadies who were attempting to extinguish the fire as Waters and Gilmour were dodging small chunks of flaming curtain falling from the top of the stage. When the fire became too much to handle Waters stopped the show at the start of "What Shall We Do Now?"

Many in the crowd thought the flames were a part of the show. Considering Pink Floyd's reputation for theatricality the idea didn't seem that far-fetched.

 "The Show Within The Show"

Enough evidence exists to conclude that portions of a "Pink" the character concert took place within The Wall Performed Live by Pink Floyd.

The parts that make up the "Pink" the character performance begin with The Surrogate Band introduction. The songs performed by "Pink" the character are - "In The Flesh?", "Young Lust", "In The Flesh", "Run Like Hell" and "Waiting For The Worms."

Waters described each in his 1979 interview with Tommy Vance.

  1. "In The Flesh?"

      TV: This actually sets up what the character has become.

      RW: Yes.

      TV: At the end.

      RW: Couldn't have put it better myself!

  2. "Young Lust"

      TV: And then comes "One of My Turns."

      RW: Yes, so then the idea is that we've leapt somehow a lot of years, from "Goodbye Blue Sky" through "What Shall We Do Now" which doesn't exist on the record anymore, and "Empty Spaces" into "Young Lust" that's like a show; we've leapt into a rock and roll show, somewhere on into our hero's career.

  3. "In The Flesh"

      RW: This is him having a go at the audience, all the minorities in the audience.

  4. "Run Like Hell"

      TV: And then seemingly in the track "Run like Hell" this is him telling the audience...?

      RW: No...

      TV: Is this him telling himself?

      RW: No, "Run Like Hell," is meant to be *him* just doing another tune in the show. So that's like just a song, part of the performance, yeah...still in his drug-crazed state.

  5. "Waiting For The Worms"

      RW: "Waiting for the Worms" in theatrical terms is an expression of what happens in the show, when the drugs start wearing off and what real feelings he's got left start taking over again.

      Comments to the audience always seemed to preface "Pink" the character's songs within The Wall - the two Surrogate Band introductions, Gilmour's introduction of "Young Lust", Waters' improvised comments about the pig before "Run Like Hell" and even the counting of the tempo in German for "Waiting For The Worms".

 "Video and audio"

A question has always surrounded the existence of live footage of the concerts. After overseeing the videotaping of the 5 shows at Nassau Coliseum Mark Brickman directed live footage from August 1980 at Earls Court and spent 6 months editing the footage at his home. This video is in circulation among collectors and is labeled "Pink Floyd-Earls Court August 1980"

The final five shows at Earl's Court in June of 1981 were directed by Michael Seresin and produced by Alan Parker. This footage was felt to be too dark and was never used in The Wall film. Parker referred to the shows as five blown opportunities.

Marc Brickman also directed a "behind the scenes" documentary during the 1981 shows at Earls Court that included interviews with the band and key members of the production crew. Pink Floyd manager Steve O'Rourke was the executive producer. It was put together with the intention of airing it on television but it never saw the light of day.

As for live audio recordings, The Wall shows at Earls Court were recorded at 15 ips on 48 tracks, using two-inch analogue tape and Dolby A. The band had four 24-track machines overlapping to ensure the entire show was recorded without a gap. Unfortunately, these live recordings of The Wall were never even mixed.

Reportedly, Waters has considered releasing a video for archive purposes in 20 years from the time The Wall was performed.

11 : When and Why did Rick Wroght Leave the Band ?

"When did Rick Wright Leave The Band?"
During the sessions for The Wall, Richard Wright was basically forced out of Pink Floyd.

One story holds that Waters had even gone so far as to threaten to destroy all the working tapes if Wright didn't leave. Another quotes David Gilmour as saying that Wright wasn't contributing much of anything, and hadn't been for a couple years, partially due to something of "a bad cocaine habit."

Wright himself has stated that he "left" the band, but that's almost definitely him putting his own spin on the situation. Then again, just about everybody seems to put their own spin on Wright's departure.

Wright did play with the band on The Wall tour, but not as a full member of the band. Being paid on a wage, he was the only "member" of Pink Floyd to actually make money on that tour.

Yes, the Floyd "lost their shirts" on The Wall concerts. Each show was so phenomenally expensive to put on, and they did so few of those shows, that they couldn't recoup their investment. The rest of the band were "investors," as it were, but Wright's role was the same as that of the roadies -- fixed dollar amount per night or somesuch.

12 : The Final Cut

The Final Cut  "What are those medals on the cover of The Final Cut?"

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:

"There are errors in the lyrics sheet of TFC"

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:

The two lines with ">" on them 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": 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...

 "What is the relevance of the poppies?"

[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 color.

The poppy has become a symbol of that time. Every November, when Americans celebrate Veterans Day, the British have Remembrance Day. Poppy wreaths are laid at the memorial to the Unknown Soldier, etc. A national charity collects money for veterans 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:]

 "What are 'Holophonics?'"

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:]

I noticed [*the "huge improvement" in sound quality*]. It really does give a certain amount of imaging, around you rather than just between the speakers. When Waters did his Pros & Cons show on the radio in 1985 [that was the 28mar85 radio city music hall concert (gdh)], 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....

 "What was *The Hero's return part II*?"

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: 

 ____________________________________________________________________________
|       |       |       |       |       |       |       |       |       |    
|       |       |       |       |       |       |       |       |       |    
|_______|_______|_______|_______|_______|_______|_______|_______|_______|____
    |       |       |       |       |  /    |       |       |       |       |
    |       |       |       |       |goodbye|       |       |       |       |
 ___|_______|_______|_______|_______|/______|_______|_______|_______|_______|
|       |       |       |       |       |       |       |       |       |    
|       |       |       |       |       |       |       |       |       |    
|_______|_______|_______|_______|_______|_______|_______|_______|_______|____
End of echoes Digest / FAQ section 6 of 10