"Our LP really does satisfy both worlds. It appeases those who wish to hear us at our experimental height and pleases those who like our pop songs." - Richard Wright
Chapter Two
1968
Pink Floyd spent the first two months of the year locked in EMI Studios, furiously working on their second album, titled
Questions to Heaven. Questions to Heaven comprised of seven songs, most recorded between the period of November, 1967 and February, 1968. Speaking at the press conference at the release of the album on April 19th, 1968, band manager Peter Jenner said: "
Questions to Heaven is a solid group effort. Every songwriting member of the Floyd has a song on there, and Nicky [Mason] has provided the tea!" Joking aside, their second album was a far more collaborative effort than
The Piper at the Gates of Dawn was. Examining the tracklist, one can see far more diverse writing credits. than on their debut album.
1) Let There Be More Light (Barrett, Waters)
2) Remember a Day (Wright)
3) Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun (Waters)
4) One in a Million (Waters)
5) Sudden Anomalies (Barrett, Waters, Wright, Mason)
6) Scream Thy Last Scream (Barrett)
7) Julia Dream (Waters)
In fact, by comparison of the solo writing credits, Roger Waters had written a good portion of the songs on the album. Barrett's singular solo writing credit was the contribution of late 1967 concert staple Scream Thy Last Scream. Let There Be More Light was a collaborative piece between Barrett and Waters, describing the science fiction cliche of first contact with aliens. Remember a Day, released as a single during the early stages of the album's recording, featured as the second track. Another concert staple, Set the Controls, was featured, at the insistence of Waters. "Rog seem awfully preoccupied by that song. I quite like the tune myself so we all decided to record it and throw it on the LP." Barrett explained. Another Waters tune, One in a Million, closed side one. "Those two songs [One in a Million and Set the Controls...] is what really convinced me that I could write songs. I wasn't pleased with my song on our first LP. I wrote One in a Million sometime in October but I didn't produce it until...January I think. Syd thought it was interesting and we turned it into a nice number." Roger Waters told an interviewer in 1985, when asked of his first songs. The song describes the feeling of being singled out and being 'one in a million.' The effects-laden guitar and haunting organ drive the song into a gritty atmosphere. Opening the second side of the LP was a piece debuted at the Christmas concert at Hyde Park, Sudden Anomalies. A 9-minute experimental piece, it featured Barrett's slide guitar, Wright's Echorec organ, and even Waters on a gong, which was requisitioned from EMI's vast supply of instruments. "Sudden Anomalies came a long way from Hyde Park. I think Roger decided to haul a gong into the studio and bang around on it a few times when we went to record it." Nick Mason remembers. The album closed with another Waters song, Julia Dream. A peaceful, dreamlike ballad featuring Barrett on lead vocals and Wright harmonizing.
Questions to Heaven reached No. 6 on the UK charts, and went to No. 25 in the US. A resounding success on both sides of the Atlantic. In response to successful reception on the charts, album singles were put out to gain radio play. Let There Be More Light, with a B-side of an acoustic love song featuring Syd Barrett titled 'Terrapin' was promoted and was played heavily on radio stations in both the UK and the US, but also Continental Europe. With commercial success of their album, the band and their managers began to draw up plans for a world tour, to bring the psychedelic madness of the Floyd to the rest of the world.
"Planning a world tour is hard business, and in 1968 it was even harder." Peter Jenner recalls. "We had to make sure the schedule was tight and there couldn't be any slipups. There simply wasn't room for it. It was expensive business too but we managed. Album sales proved that there was a market for the Floyd and tickets sold like hot cakes." Pink Floyd would commence their world tour in June, 1968, with an opening gig at the Roundhouse, received with splendid reviews. "The Pink Floyd have outdone themselves. If this opening gig is any indication, this tour will be like no other. The multi-faceted performance of light, film, and music wowed every audience member, including myself." A Rolling Stones reviewer spoke of the Roundhouse gig. A two-hour setlist was drawn up featuring songs from both LPs and a few side compositions as well. Each gig was slightly different and many songs were switched out gig-by-gig. Songs performed on the tour, at some point or another, were:
Astronomy Domine
Matilda Mother
Flaming
Interstellar Overdrive
See Emily Play
Let There Be More Light
Remember a Day
Apples and Oranges
One in a Million
Sudden Anomalies
Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun
Pow. R Toc. H (Typically the encore)
Here I Go (Performed once as a second encore at the Electric Factory, in Philadelphia)
Terrapin (Performed once as a second encore at the closing gig of the tour at the Marquee Club)
The tour consisted of four legs, the first leg in Europe, the second on the East Coast of North America, the third on the West Coast, and the concluding leg going back to Europe. At two gigs in San Francisco, the Grateful Dead opened for Pink Floyd, and at the final of the two, the encore consisted of the two bands jamming together. "It was insanity!" Jerry Garcia, when asked of what he thought of jamming with the Floyd years later, recalled. "It took a bit but we managed to get the groove. The Floyds are bluesmen before anything else. I remember backstage Syd came up to Bob and asked where he could get some of the grass we were smoking. Said it was the finest he had ever had. Guess dope really does bring everyone together!"
The Floyd, like all groups of their day, had a taste for poison. Speaking candidly on the topic, Nick Mason spoke: "Syd was very much into acid. I don't think it ever caused too many problems, although there were a few gigs where he was inclined to space out a little. The rest of us had indulged a little in it, but it was Syd's drug of choice, I suppose. But we all smoked grass. Everyone did. That just was the culture. Roger used to roll his cigarettes with a little dope in them. Said it helped his anxiety, whatever that meant." However, they certainly weren't the partiers, like their contemporaries in The Who or The Rolling Stones. "Parties? What are those?" Roger Waters remarked in an interview later in life. "Our idea of a party was to sit around and get stoned. Remember we were architectural students."
On the run of concerts in Britain, a small time blues band called Jokers Wild opened for them. The band, fronted by a guitarist named David Gilmour, played a few original blues-based numbers and some covers. "David and I go way back to Cambridge, so when we needed a band to open for us for our concerts at home, I decided to give David a ring and he said his band was game." Syd Barrett told interviewers during the tour. The band got good reviews and the almost unknown frontman earned the attention of the Floyd.
The world tour brought publicity to Pink Floyd on the Continent. Those who had not attended the string of gigs in Copenhagen, Stockholm, and Hamburg had only the LPs, singles, and the few bootlegs that had filtered from Britain and America to go off of. The Floyd hit Continental Europe with force, the first gig being at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. The gig, recorded at the soundboard by Jenner at the orders of Mason for what he described as 'historical posterity,' featured an astounding performance from the band. With a polite, and rapt, audience, the Floyd pushed the boundaries of psychedelic experimentation, featuring a 15-minute version of Sudden Anomalies and a 20-minute Interstellar Overdrive, a reminder of the days when Floyd ruled UFO and the Underground. The soundboard recording was sent back to EMI to be mixed and cleaned up, and was released as a double LP at the conclusion of the World Tour, titled
Sounds of Light. It peaked at No.20 in the UK and went to 50 on the US Charts. However, in Germany and France, it peaked at No.2 for both, and remained on the Top 10 for three weeks and two months respectively.
Pictured: The cover of Sounds of Light.
It is a still of one of Mike Leonard's psychedelic light shows that accompanied Pink Floyd's performances. The gatefold featured a photograph of the band dressed in full psychedelic regalia. On the reverse of the cover was the tracklist, imposed to the top left of the back cover which featured a photograph of the band at the Concertgebouw.
The band, after concluding the tour with a final gig at the Marquee Club, which was closed with Syd Barrett performing his love song Terrapin on stage by himself, with a simple acoustic guitar, had become commercial superstars. With two commercially success albums released by the middle of the year, the Floyd went into hibernation, resting itself from a rigorous World Tour, as Roger Waters explained to an interviewer on Radio London at the time. "We've found ourselves quite exhausted from that tour across the Atlantic and back. You try going all across Europe, then hurtle across the ocean and then go up and around North America, and then come back and retrace your steps through Europe." His voice one of weariness and fatigue. "Don't get me wrong, it was quite fun, but even the fun things can be tiring." During this period, the band produced a single to satisfy EMI and Capitol, who were both expecting the Floyd to follow up their success with a hit single. This culminated into Paintbox, a Wright composition written during the
Questions to Heaven sessions but rejected from recording. The song was recorded in late June, and the B-side, a Barrett tune titled Clowns and Jugglers, was recorded a week later in July. After some mixing and producing, the single was released in late July.
It barely grazed the Top 50 in the UK and in the US peaked at 70. In Continental Europe it failed to chart except in Germany, where a considerable Floyd cult following had developed. With little radio play and poor reception, the single had been the Floyd's first flop. When asked about what he thought of the single's performance, Syd Barrett responded in an interview stating: "I couldn't care less. We've begun to really find ourselves sonically and I feel that pop singles are not an accurate measurement of our ability as musicians." Richard Wright commented similarly: "If people don't like our pop songs, then perhaps that's a sign that we should move away from that. I find that our live output is far more consistent with what we put on an LP."
The Floyd retreated to their various social circles in the next few months in mid-1968. Not feeling any real urgency to produce another album, the four were allowed some time to themselves. Many anecdotes and stories persist to this day from this period, some things stuff of legends. One story speaks of Barrett and Wright throwing a party from their shared flat in London, which by the time the party was in full swing was packed to the brim with people, most of which knew neither Barrett or Wright. "Ah, yes, I remember some of that night!" Wright reminisced fondly. "I think we had about one fourth of all of London's grass in that flat! Syd probably ate half of its acid too."
Mason began to take an active interest in producing music, and took lessons from Norman Smith, who was the group's producer and who had also taught them basic producing skills. Waters, on the other hand, took a more domestic angle. He married his long time girlfriend Judy Trim in a private affair in Cambridge. Only the band themselves, Peter Jenner, Andrew King, Norman Smith, and a handful of childhood friends as well as family were invited. The four met up occasionally afterward, but for the most part remained separate, with the exception of Barrett and Wright. Mason was busy producing minor singles by third-rate bands and Waters was busy propping up tenements for the poor with his Floyd money at the insistence from his wife. All four, however, were also writing songs to feature on the next, whenever it would be recorded, Floyd album.
The band reconvened back at EMI Studios in October at the insistence of Waters, who, according to himself "...rang up the other three and said, 'Listen, we need to get back into the studio to get the creative juices flowing. If we don't, we're liable to break up.'" Humoring Waters, the three other Floyds wandered into EMI Studios, all with their own portfolios of songs written in their period of hiatus. "I wrote a couple basic numbers. Nothing too complex. I'm a drummer so I don't write music." Nick Mason recalls his songs. "A few blues-based songs that would've fit right in when we were just a student band." Waters remembers the sessions as well: "There was very little in the way of creative thinking. We had become stagnant and the commercial and critical failure of Paintbox really shook us to the fact that maybe psychedelic flower-power pop wasn't going to sell anymore."
After much deliberation, it was decided that to continue as a band, they needed a fresh pair of eyes. "I believe it was Syd who first brought up the idea of bringing someone new into the studio. He realized, I suppose, that the pop songs weren't going to cut it anymore and the band had hit a wall creatively." Andrew King spoke. "The band decided they wanted someone who was familiar with at least the two creative minds, being Roger and Syd. The only man they could think of was David [Gilmour]." The Jokers' Wild guitarist was recently out of a job, owing to the breakup of his band following the theft of their gear. Armed only with his white Telecaster, David Gilmour entered into EMI Studios according to official records on October 28th, 1968.
"The first thing that really hit me was the frustration that was in the air [in EMI Studios]. I believe they were trying to write material for a new album or a new single or some such, and had found that for some reason their typical formula no longer worked." David Gilmour spoke about his first experience in the Floyd's studio. "Syd came to me and basically said, "Righto, well, can you play our material?" and I gave it a go and I managed to belt out the chords to See Emily Play and I think the main riff of Interstellar Overdrive. Impressed, they all kind of welcomed me aboard."
To test the waters, the Floyd booked a string of concerts in theaters and other small venues to introduce their audience to the fifth Floyd, and to see if he was up to it. "I think they were trying to test me, to see if I'd pack it in and go home." Gilmour confided. The setlist of these concerts was relatively the same, consisting of their hits:
See Emily Play
Arnold Layne (This string of concerts would be the last time this song would be performed live)
Interstellar Overdrive
Let There Be More Light
Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun
Sudden Anomalies
The audience, at first flabbergasted by the addition to the four, found themselves intrigued by Gilmour, who's guitar style as far more structured than Barrett's free-form experimental style. However, all in the band could agree that Gilmour's presence rejuvenated the band after their long pause. By the end of the year, the Floyd were back on track, booked into EMI Studios to begin work on their third album.
Still, good to see this sort of stuff.
