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1. Arnold Layne (Available on: Relics, 1967) The band’s first single is famously based around a true-life tale of a local Cambridge cross-dressing clothes thief and encapsulates Barrett-era Floyd’s very British, LSD-and-tea take on psychedelia. |
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2. Astronomy Domine (Available on: The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, 1967) With Neil Armstrong’s “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” still two years away, Floyd transport the audience to the outer limits via a crackling space-speech effect, moon-morse guitar patterns and a lyrical view of intergalactic travel that suggests a steady diet of vacuum-packed brown acid. Stars, as Syd points out, can indeed frighten. |
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3. Matilda Mother (Available on: The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, 1967) “There was a king who ruled the land / His majesty was in command,” begins Syd on this enchanted tale that appears to deal with the Brit-psych quest for a mythic, bygone, gentler version of Albion. It’s a search underlined by the track’s melodic flow and ebb that contrasts with early Floyd’s more violent interludes, as typified by… |
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4. Interstellar Overdrive (Available on: The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, 1967) The descending bass-and-guitar riff drags you into the vortex of that primal Pink Floyd sound on this nine-minute-plus epic. An inspiration to everyone from fellow sonic travellers Hawkwind and on to the likes of Loop, Piper’s instrumental track remains a mind-shredder close to 40 years on. |
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5. Bike (Available on: The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, 1967) Balancing Bike against The Hobbit-esque charms of The Gnome provided your compiler with a real dilemma. Having watched the extras on the Syd Barrett Story DVD recently that included Graham Coxon performing this, it became impossible not to include the original – the ultimate expression of Syd’s naïf psych at its most bewildering. |
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6. Careful With That Axe, Eugene (Available on: Relics, 1968) The title alone implies the threat of the track itself, matching Rick Wright’s mellifluous keyboard work with a disconcerting space whisper that reaches its climax as a harrowing scream. The B-side to the ill-fated Point Me At The Sky single, Eugene oscillates between the soothing and the downright psychotic. The live version (on Ummagumma) is even scarier. |
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7. Let There Be More Light (Available on: A Saucerful Of Secrets, 1968) In the post-rave ‘90s there were those willing to proclaim any old trippy house act as being “the new Floyd”. In truth, the supposed Pink pretenders were largely DJs who’d got stoned to Dark Side once too often. Then again, check out the intro to Saucerful (then fall into the hypnotic state induced by the track thereafter) and you find yourself wondering whether The Chemical Brothers heard this before laying down Block Rockin’ Beats… |
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8. Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun (Available on: A Saucerful Of Secrets, 1968) Is this tense, bass-driven exercise in repetition the beginning of Ambient Floyd? Perhaps. Certainly those well-known refusenik millionaires The KLF have described this Saucerful track as “the centrepiece for the whole of Floyd’s career”. Certainly, it remains a key Roger Waters composition that points the way forward for much of Floyd’s future adventures. |
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9. Cirrus Minor (Available on: More, 1969) If Set The Controls… hints at Floyd’s future, so too does More’s often overlooked Cirrus Minor, a track whose birdsong intro is an indicator of the band’s evolution away from psychedelia into even more pastoral territory. And yet there are echoes, in places, of Astronomy Domine, both in terms of subject matter and in the melody that precedes Rick Wright’s blissed-out organ trip. |
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10. The Nile Song (Available on: More, 1969) The descending bass-and-guitar riff drags you into the vortex of that primal Pink Floyd sound on this nine-minute-plus epic. An inspiration to everyone from fellow sonic travellers Hawkwind and on to the likes of Loop, Piper’s instrumental track remains a mind-shredder close to 40 years on. |
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11. The Narrow Way (Part I-III) (Available on: Ummagumma, 1969) Testament to Gilmour’s mastery of texture, and a prescient glimpse of the Floyd’s ‘70s sound. While Gilmour himself is quick to laugh if off today, your compiler would add this to any Ambient Floyd playlist – despite the heavier second part. And it squeezes in here because the other option from Ummagumma’s studio meanderings is the Goon-like vibe of Several Species Of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together In A Cave And Grooving With A Pict – Floyd’s most preposterous track. |
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12. Fat Old Sun (Available on: Atom Heart Mother, 1970) If Roger Waters is Floyd’s melodramatic malcontent, David Gilmour is the welcome stabilising influence. Hence, while it would have been easy to include one of Atom Heart Mother’s more esoteric moments on this playlist, we’re drawn to the mellower charms of this Kinks-like cut, reflecting Gilmour’s natural penchant for the melodic and idyllic. |
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13. Fearless (Available on: Meddle, 1971) In Meddle’s opening guitar cycle Floyd appear to doff their cap in the direction of Led Zeppelin. Of course, while Zep were already the most successful post-Beatles band on the planet, Floyd would soon join them in the top commercial echelon, and the pair would chart the way forward for rock music throughout the ‘70s. An aside: Fearless’s ending appears to boast The Kop choir in full effect. Could this be Arsenal fan Waters having a pop at Liverpool FC, recently beaten by The Gunners in the FA Cup Final as Arsenal clinched the Double? |
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14. Echoes (Available on: Meddle, 1971) It starts with the now trademarked sonar ‘ping’ and charts the course for Floyd’s further exploration of ambient excess. A glorious and bold piece, Echoes – originally titled Nothing and occupying an entire side of vinyl – is the sound of a band reinventing themselves and sowing the seeds for Dark Side... |
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15. Free Four (Available on: Obscured By Clouds, 1972) If Meddle marked the development of a lusher Floyd sound, then Obscured By Clouds continued that progression. Had Floyd not been so darn British, Clouds would also be renowned for the band’s appropriation of California-pop harmonies. Certainly Free Four – despite its subject matter, which dealt with the death of Waters’ father in World War II, a theme he would of course return to - found itself welcomed Stateside, where it picked up a ton of West Coast airplay, setting up what was to follow… |
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16. Speak To Me/Breathe (Available on: The Dark Side Of The Moon, 1973) The snatches of speech debating madness set against an increasingly mechanised soundscape culminate in a Eugene-like scream (see entry 6 above) before the track tumbles into a beautiful piece of Gilmour playing that brings to mind the likes of Crosby, Still, Nash And Young and segues into Breathe’s lyricism. A lush, yet claustrophobic opener to the band’s defining Dark Side… statement. |
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17. Time (Available on: The Dark Side Of The Moon, 1973) Of course The Dark Side Of The Moon needs to be listened to in its entirety, and indeed you could argue that the entire album should be included on any list of this type. Here, however, we’re choosing Time over The Great Gig In The Sky, Eclipse, Us And Them or Money (the latter somewhat tainted by its appearance on President Bush’s iPod). It’s a more glaring signpost on the Floyd’s musical journey, drawing together previous musical threads while highlighting the band’s new, stadium-sized focus. |
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18. Brain Damage (Available on: The Dark Side Of The Moon, 1967) “The lunatic is on the grass” begins the lyric as Floyd deliver another Dark Side track that nods to where they’ve been, while stirring in an unignorable melody and, of course, the phrase that gave their most famous album its title. |
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19. Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Part I-VII) (Available on: Wish You Were Here, 1975) Perhaps the single greatest of Floyd’s musical statements, Shine On… is both elegiac and epic in its tribute to the band’s former leader Syd Barrett. The first eight minutes belong to David Gilmour whose guitar playing is beautifully vocal. Then comes Floyd’s other voice as Roger Waters evokes his young and carefree comrade (“Remember when you were young…”) before chronicling Syd’s tragic decline. |
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20. Have A Cigar (Available on: Wish You Were Here, 1975) Unable to sing his own song, Roger Waters allowed labelmate Roy Harper to assume lead vocals on this outpouring of anti-music industry vitriol. Recorded in the days when conversations about cash among artists were déclassé, Harper asked for a lifetime’s season ticket to Lords by way of payment. To date he has yet to receive this recompense, despite the track being released as a single and remaining one of Floyd’s best loved tunes. |
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21. Wish You Were Here (Available on: Wish You Were Here, 1975) The apex of the Waters/Gilmour relationship, Wish You Were Here is the sound of the pair united in their celebration of Syd. Assimilating classical undertones and guilt-ridden lyricism, it is another perfect example of Floyd’s scholarly framing of even the most turbulent of emotions. |
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22. Dogs (Available on: Animals, 1977) Originally designed by David Gilmour for inclusion on Wish You Were Here, this Waters co-write is a symbol of the pair’s contrasting outlooks. While Gilmour’s vocals are typically understated, Waters’ reach a point of near hysteria. The upshot is an ominous, fusion-filled, 17-minute exposition - sporting more fine Gilmour guitar-wringing - presaging the beginning of the end of Floyd as a cohesive unit. Paranoia, power struggles and production credits in alphabetical order were just around the corner… |
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23. Sheep (Available on: Animals, 1977) In terms of sheer despair and misery, the 10-minute lyrical thuggery of Sheep out-punks-the-punks as it brings Animals’ Orwellian escapade to a climax. “Harmlessly passing your time in the grassland away / Only dimly aware of a certain unease in the air / You better watch out…” begins Waters, before indulging in an outpouring of bellowed angst. He could be castigating himself, his band, the world, or all three. |
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24. In The Flesh? (Available on: The Wall, 1979) If Animals marked the dissolution of Pink Floyd as a democratic working ensemble, then The Wall confirmed Roger Waters as having assumed the Big Brother role he’d described on Animals. In The Flesh?, the portentous introduction to Waters’ charred, conceptual tour de force, remains a chilling Pavlovian trigger for anyone who grew up enthralled by dark emotional war zone The Wall traversed. |
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25. Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2) (Available on: The Wall, 1979) The oppressive brilliance of The Wall is exemplified by the most unlikely Christmas Number 1 of all time, as producer Bob Ezrin’s coup de theâtre – the Islington Green School choir – delivers hard-faced youth stripped of childish hope but not defiance. Gilmour’s repetitive faux-funk riff adds to the mounting tension and the guitar solo is stupendously hair-raising. |
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26. Mother (Available on: The Wall, 1979) Six tracks into The Wall and Waters shows not the slightest sign of optimism, seeking comfort from his mum but finding none. Instead, Pink, his protagonist, see his fears magnified by maternal jealousy and resentment. The result is the aural equivalent of Psycho, with the shower scene replaced by a mental skewering and overall sense of suffocation. |
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27. Goodbye Blue Sky (Available on: The Wall, 1979) “Look, mummy, there’s an aeroplane up in the sky,” says Roger Waters’ son Harry introducing one of the most reflective tracks on The Wall. But where the child’s voice should offer solace, the listener feels only dread at the prospect of what may befall him – a point underlined when it soundtracked Gerald’s Scarfe’s Wall movie scene in which a white dove was brutally ripped to shreds by a Nazi eagle. |
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28. Hey You (Available on: The Wall, 1979) Gilmour used a Charvel fretless bass to introduce a track that recalls former Floyd glories (the central section noticeably features the Echoes ‘ping’). But for all its relative musical calm, Hey You completes the isolation of The Wall’s central character and remains, essentially, a plea for help. |
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29. Comfortably Numb (Available on: The Wall, 1979) In deference to this month’s MOJO mag cover, I’ve picked six tracks from The Wall, and even in this truncated form it’s a pummelling experience, leaving the listener in a state not dissimilar to that described in this musically lush/emotionally savage Gilmour and Waters’ co-write: “The child is grown, the dream is gone / I have become comfortably numb.” The only salvation on offer is Gilmour’s redemptive guitar solo, which emerges as a necessary release valve four minutes and 32 seconds into the track. |
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30. When The Tigers Broke Free (Available on: The Final Cut, 1983) If The Wall is Roger Waters’ dictatorial statement, then The Final Cut is an even bleaker affirmation of his autocratic reign. Indeed When The Tigers Broke free is taken from The Wall film’s soundtrack album and was added to Waters’ overwrought “Requiem For A Post War Dream” (as it was subtitled) on later CD editions. Michael Kamen’s lush orchestration does little to alleviate the cloying sense of guilt, despair and fear that permeates the album and much of Waters’ later work. NOW COMPILE YOURS! Disagree with Phil Alexander’s subjective selection? Then compile your own Pink Floyd Playlist and leave your results HERE for other Floydian scholars to study. The rules are simple: there are no rules! So if you fancy an Ambient Floyd playlist or a Syd-era list or even Roger Waters’ Most Miserable Moments, then go ahead. Remember, however, other Floyd freaks are waiting… |
