So, you've been sitting there listening to your Pink Floyd albums,
and you're amazed at how the music causes images to pop into your mind.
You're getting ready to produce a film, and it occurs to you that there are
few rock bands who could create the same imagery
musically that you're striving for on celluloid. So you ask them to
do the soundtrack. Well I've got news for you, Bunky. It's hard
to be Pink and fit into a movie's structured outline. On the other
hand, there are few groups whose musical interludes are so naturally suited
to creating a movie soundtrack. Besides, Roger has been wondering how
the terms "concept album" and "film story"
are potentially related. This will be a great opportunity for him to
test out some theories.{CPFS} (Step
1 toward THE WALL.)
Admittedly, it is extremely difficult to gauge the results
if you have never seen the movie (as I haven't). Most movie soundtracks
are pretty weird when you hear a one-minute piece that was created solely
to back up a scene that you can't fully imagine (Party Sequence?
Come on!) That being said, this is still not one of the group's best
efforts.
Not that it matters, but the movie's basic outline seems
to be: naive boy meets devious girl, boy falls in love, girl loves drugs,
boys falls in love with drugs, several tragedies ensue, boy dies miserably.
(I wonder why this one's not on the AFI Top 100 Films?) The music,
presumably, would reflect the path of the story, but I can only assume that
the pieces are arranged in the order in which they occur in the film, and
I don't think that's a safe assumption (especially since the Main Theme
comes in the middle.) Cirrus Minor gets included
on several collections of Pink Floyd's best, so somebody must like it.
It begins with many of the tropical bird sounds that are familiar ambients in Floyd music {CPFS},
then slips into a pleasant acousticballad that only has a verse line, no chorus.
Some church organ chords (sounding suspiciously like Requiem from
Saucerful of Secrets) carry the theme while the birds mix with instrumental
background noises to the conclusion. The Nile Song is another cult
fave, and almost gets classified as punk rock
(maybe the Floyd were sending a message to some of their critics). Crashing
guitar chords and screamed lyrics make this one of the hardest rock songs
in the Pink Floyd discography. Like the preceding song, it presages
the fate that is coming for the male lead in the movie. (He should
have listened!) With Crying Song, the group
returns to more familiar sounds. A quiet ballad, it relies more on
Roger's voice to carry the sound, and he uses words that would likely seem
rather instrumental behind a movie scene. The use of vibes in the background helps keep the mood
right, and Dave's guitar solo would have sounded great if theatres in those
days had had Dolby sound. Up the Khyber without a paddle
we go, as Nick bangs and Rick bangs and the atonal music lovers get all excited
again. Mostly just noise, it leads us back to the quiet ballad Green is the Colour. A little bit of Irish
flute keeps it playful, but the vocal is really too high for Roger to carry
off effectively. The lyrics reflect (I assume) a love scene, but once
again warn of impending doom (how else can you explain "Envy is the bond
between the hopeful and the damned"?{CPFS})
Cymbaline keeps the slow,
mellow mood of most of the music, but uses bongos to add a little new feeling.
It's the most melodic of the songs on
the album, and the one with the most traditional construction (ABABABCBD). It's really not a bad
song at all, and probably could have been released as a single with fairly
good results. (No clue why it wasn't, the Floyd could have used the
mainstream exposure.) Party Sequence (ah, that elucidating
title) is a pretty cool bongo instrumental with some Irish flute for effect,
and gone quickly, but that brings us to Main Theme
(also a helpful title). Probably the "Pinkest" thing on the album,
it gives us rolling gongs, hollow drums, wah-wah organs, and boogie bass.
If it wasn't for the staccato melody line, you'd probably think this came
off one of the later albums. It has that sort of "Casbah" feeling that
you get from some Middle Eastern Pop music. A pretty cool piece. Ibiza Bar returns to the harder
rock sound, and proves again that the Floyd can rock when they want
to. It seems as though Roger is actually the character in the movie
now, and able to look at his life as though being a literary creation were
real. He is basically asking for a better part in life than the one
he's living. It's pretty cool too. More Blues is exactly what
it says, and a nice little piece of blues it is, but not nearly long enough.
The group moves on to Quicksilver, which
goes on far too long. Imagine taking all the sound effects of any non-Action
film and stringing them all together. Aimless, though there are lots
of nice sounds here.{CPFS}A
Spanish Piece does have a Castilian flavor, and some lines by a really
weird senor.
The album concludes with Dramatic
Theme, which utilizes some of the archetypal Floyd slide-guitar riffs {CPFS},
but isn't really very dramatic (maybe in a sci-fi movie). It doesn't
really have a theme either, so it's pretty
misnamed.
All in all, the album serves its purpose, provides the
band with the experience they were looking for, and demonstrates a level
of artistic growth for them. It must have been a fairly good experience,
because they'd try it again for OBSCURED BY CLOUDS.
Then again, maybe they only did it because Roger was already beginning to
envision THE WALL. If you're a Floyd freak, you'll
collect this album regardless of what I say, but you're not likely to find
a Floyd here with which you are familiar.
