Overlooked Songs

Volume 25, Track 10

“The Scarecrow” by Pink Floyd (1967) The penultimate track on The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, “The Scarecrow” employs some percussion by Nick Mason that can make one think of King Arthur’s coconut-handling assistant in The Holy Grail, and a guitar by Syd Barrett that makes me think that maybe Kurt Cobain or Stephen [...]

Volume 25, Track 9

“The Gnome” by Pink Floyd (1967) “I want to tell you a story/About a little man if I can/A gnome named Grimble Gromble/And little gnomes stay in their homes/Eating, sleeping, drinking their wine”—so begins “The Gnome,” the mellow track that is born out of the spaced out and frenzied audio channel-switching “Interstellar Overdrive.” Three things [...]

Volume 25, Track 8

“Astronomy Domine” by Pink Floyd (1967) Clocking in at a hair past four minutes and ten seconds, “Astronomy Domine,” the opening track on Pink Floyd’s debut album The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, sets up the atmosphere perfectly on this seminal psychedelic masterpiece. Filled with a myriad of textures like blips and bleeps and [...]

Volume 14, Track 4

“Pow R. Toc H.” by Pink Floyd (1967) I alluded to the strangeness of “Pow R. Toc H.” a few posts ago because I knew that I was going to revisit it here on this volume.[1] The inherent weirdness of “Pow R. Toc H.” is manifold: What does the spelling of the song’s title mean? [...]

Volume 13, Track 14

“Bike” by Pink Floyd (1967) When I knew that I was going to do a Pink Floyd-themed volume on this site, there was no doubt in my mind that it had to end with “Bike.” This song acts as a perfect demarcation point between big Pink Floyd fans and casual Pink Floyd fans, big classic [...]

Volume 13, Track 13

“Seamus” by Pink Floyd (1971) Two things that seem entirely unrelated but actually are related for the purposes of this review. 1) The name Pink Floyd originated from the combination of the names of two blues musicians, Pink Anderson and Floyd Council. 2) One of the more universal clichés about country-blues music is the one [...]

Volume 13, Track 12

“Remember A Day” by Pink Floyd (1968) “Remember A Day” is one of the few songs in Pink Floyd’s catalog that was both written and sung by Richard Wright[1]. The second song from the band’s second album A Saucerful Of Secrets, “Remember A Day” also essentially marks the end for Syd Barrett, as his work [...]

Volume 13, Track 11

“Careful With That Axe, Eugene” by Pink Floyd (1969) In one scene in the first act of Almost Famous[1] William’s sister bequeaths some of her records to him before she leaves with her boyfriend to find herself. As he is flipping through them he finds Tommy and a note attached to it that says he [...]

Volume 13, Track 10

“See Emily Play” by Pink Floyd (1967) As the artwork on the single above suggests—as well as the first few seconds of the song’s music—”See Emily Play” is at its heart a very childlike and playful song, albeit built upon many of the pillars of the psychedelic genre[1]. Alongside “Arnold Layne,” this track represents the [...]

Volume 13, Track 9

“The Nile Song” by Pink Floyd (1969) For all of the experimentation that Pink Floyd was willing to explore throughout their prime years, a heavy rock sound was never really on their radar but with “The Nile Song” Pink Floyd showed that they could actually be loud and raucous. And, it showed us all that [...]

Volume 13, Track 8

“One Of These Days” by Pink Floyd (1971) “One Of These Days” is the opening track of Meddle and the beginning of the song directly mirrors how “Speak To Me” on Dark Side Of The Moon begins—the heartbeats, the clocks ticking, the cash registers[1]. The difference ends there. Where “Speak To Me” grows into a [...]

Volume 13, Track 7

“Summer ’68″ by Pink Floyd (1970) Atom Heart Mother is to Pink Floyd what the harlequin phase of the “Rose Period” was to Pablo Picasso: an odd choice of detour on the road of their ultimate destinations. To be sure, yes, a couple of Picasso’s harlequin pieces shows flashes of brilliance but as a whole [...]

Volume 13, Track 6

“Fearless” by Pink Floyd (1971) Should you ever happen to meet someone who says that one of their favorite—if not their outright favorite—Pink Floyd albums is Meddle, the song “Fearless” will no doubt play a very large role in arriving at that opinion. “Fearless” is such a great song that it boggles the mind as [...]

Volume 13, Track 5

“Arnold Layne” by Pink Floyd (1967) “Arnold Layne” is the first single that Pink Floyd recorded. It is about a cross-dresser who steals women’s clothes from washing lines at night, which is a bit of an odd subject matter for a first single—even for a psychedelic single. Furthermore, it is a bit strange that a [...]

Volume 13, Track 4

“Free Four” by Pink Floyd (1972) “And who is the master of fox hounds? And who says the hunt has begun?” Straight-out pop rock was never really in Pink Floyd’s arsenal but “Free Four” finds the band almost rubbing shoulders with it. The “one, two, free, four” countdown in unison at the very beginning; the [...]

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