On Wednesday we celebrated the brand new, 50th issue of Prog magazine, which has Pink Floyd on the cover, with Pink Floyd Day on TeamRock Radio.
We asked you, the readers to vote for your favourite Pink Floyd tracks and then we played the Top 10 throughout the day on TeamRock Radio. For those that missed all or even part of it, here’s the Top 10 again, with some rather fitting YouTube links…
No. 10 - The Great Gig In The Sky
Talen from 1973’s The Dark Side Of The Moon, the song is about death, and begins with the now legendary spoken word piece “I’m not frightened of dying. Anytime will do” which was spoken by Abbey Road janitor Gerry O’Driscoll. The song began life as a piano piece from keyboard player Rick Wright originally titled ‘The Mortality Sequence’. Vocalist Claire Torry was brought in to add the now familiar vocal sections by engineer Alan Parsons.
No. 9 - High Hopes
From 1994’s The Divison Bell, this is the final song on the album, David Gilmour has said the lyrics are largely autobiographical, dealing with his leaving Cambridge as a young man. The lyrics gave the album it’s title when band friend and Hitch Hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy author Douglas Adams took the phrase ‘The Division Bell’ from the end of the first verse. The final line of the song, ‘The Endless River’ gives the title to the band’s brand new album.
No 8 - One Of These Days
Taken from 1971’s Meddle album, the song features the first vocal performance by drummer Nick Mason who utters the threatening line “I’m going to cut you into little pieces.” The line itself was written about the Radio One/Two DJ Jimmy Young, who was particularly loathed by the band for his incessant babbling on air.
No 7 - Sheep
From the 1977 album Animals, the idea behind the album was that different animals represented different classes of society (it was based on Orwell’s Animal Farm). The Sheep were “mindless and unquestioning”. The song was originally known as Raving And Drooling.
No 6 - Wish You Were Here
The title track from the band’s 1975 album, the song, like the rest of the album, deals with alienation, connected with the band’s original leader Syd Barrett. The song was the first Pink Floyd song on Spotify. When fans had streamed it one million times the rest of the Pink Floyd catalogue would be added. It took just four days.
No 5 - Time
Taken from The Dark Side Of The Moon, the clocks used at the beginning of the song were recorded by engineer Alan Parsons as a quadraphonic test, not specifically for the album. It is the only song on The Dark Side Of The Moon credited to all four band members.
No 4 - Dogs
From 1977’s Animals album, the song was originally titled You’ve Got To Be Crazy. Fitting in with the Orwellian concept of the Animals album, Dogs refers to the aggressive, ruthless and competitive world of business.
No 3 - Comfortably Numb
From 1979’s The Wall album, the song contrasts the young central character of The Wall who felt ill as a child with fever, with the adult who now feels nothing at all.When performed live, David Gilmour would perform his part stood on top of The Wall, that would be built across the stage. His two guitar solos in the song are regarded as two of the finest ever
No 2 - Shine On Your Crazy Diamond
The epic track from 1975’s Wish You Were Here, The two-part song book ends the album and is about the band’s original lead singer Syd Barrett. Barrett, by then a recluse living in Cambridge, actually turned up at Abbey Road studios while the band were recording. Overweight and with a shaved head, the band did not recognise him at first, and were reduced to tears when they did.
No 1 - Echoes
From 1971’s Meddle album, Echoes is the third longest song in Pink Floyd’s body of work, after Atom Heart Mother and Shine On You Crazy Diamond. When the band began recording Meddle they had no new material to work with. They created the music on the album by coming up with a series of unique sonic experiments.
