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Post by The Lunatic on Oct 25, 2016 17:28:41 GMT
Crikey! Pink Floyd do love to reference themselves, don't they? The more one listens to their work (mostly later work), the more connections one can spot. My aim is to eventually get a comprehensive list in here, but that'll take time.
I'll start with the obvious: -'Shine On You Crazy Diamond part IX': the ending phrase is a snippet of verse melody from 'See Emily Play', and probably my favourite part of the entire freakin' album. -In the same song, Syd is referred to as a 'piper' (presumably at the gates of dawn). -The Endless River's title comes from the penultimate line in 'High Hopes', the last song on the previous album. -Which is in itself probably a direct descendant of 'See Emily Play's last verse: 'Float on a river, forever and ever'. -The phrase 'Hey you' appears in 'Poles Apart' on The Division Bell, opening a verse that is probably directed at Roger Waters. -'High Hopes': 'Looking beyond the embers of bridges glowing behind us' recalls (deliberately or otherwise) 'Burning Bridges'. -Not to mention the repeated mentions of 'stone' (a metaphor for something, possibly ego) in Animals and The Wall. -After some web-trawling, I find there is even more stone than meets the ear: 'Help me roll away the stone' from 'Crying Song', as early as More (I've not listened much to it) and 'Mile after mile, stone after stone' in 'Wots... Uh The Deal?' Which changes our metaphor slightly from ego to hardships. Perhaps it's something of both. - There's also 'Sysyphus', who, with a different spelling (Sisyphus; Rick apparently carn't spel), was that Greek guy who had to roll the boulder up the hill whilst it kept rolling down on him, forever and ever, Sisyphuuuuus.
Bonus: This one isn't a Floyd reference, but in 'Lost For Words' there's a line 'Stuck in a world of isolation / While the ivy grows over the door', which sounds a lot like The Secret Garden to my ears. The Floyd have a lot of literary references, too...
That's all I can think of at the moment, but I'm sure I'll have more soon. Keep your ears open!
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Post by The Lunatic on Nov 13, 2016 16:01:45 GMT
Listening to 'High Hopes'last night, I noticed that there's a buzzing insect sound at the beginning that sounds exactly like the one in 'Grantchester Meadows'. Also the riff thingy in the instrumental break after 'At a higher altitude, and with flat unfurled / We reached the dizzying heights of that dreamed-of world' sounds just like the one in 'Welcome To The Machine'.
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Post by seamusthesheepdog on Nov 15, 2016 23:12:07 GMT
This is probably unintentional, but the ending chord sequence of 'Eclipse' is very similar to the one in 'Flaming'.
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Post by The Lunatic on Jan 7, 2017 13:45:36 GMT
This is probably unintentional, but the ending chord sequence of 'Eclipse' is very similar to the one in 'Flaming'. I NEVER NOTICED THAT UNTIL YOU SAID IT, BUT YOU'RE RIGHT, IT'S BASICALLY THE SAME CHORD SEQUENCE I bet Rick was behind them both I heard another one the other day, but I can't remember it now. :-( I will note that each of their three sidelong suites contain a 'Funky Dung' bit.
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Post by The Lunatic on Jan 25, 2017 22:01:59 GMT
'If': 'If I were a good man, I'd talk to you more often than I do' 'The Trial': 'You should have talked to me more often' The entirety of 'Keep Talking'.
And:
'Brain Damage': 'You lock the door, and throw away the key' 'The Trial' again: 'I hope they throw away the key'
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Post by The Lunatic on Feb 14, 2017 13:19:21 GMT
Overarching themes that I've noticed: From their earliest days of playing psychedelic underground rubbish, they always used that song construction where they'd take a sensible song, play a couple verses, and proceed to go off into the weeds for the next half hour or so before (as soon as they realise the audience has nodded off) dragging the song back on track and concluding it. They developed this over the years, of course, but those weedy wanderings are still the most intimidating aspect of the Floyd's music for most people. (I love them. ) They were really good at finding 10 new ways to approach a song in 20 minutes, and construct it so that the transitions flow so beautifully, you don't notice how far off from the original theme they've gone until they return to it. It sounds effortless, but of course it wasn't. Anyway, the point is, they used it a LOT -- even on relatively short songs such as 'A Pillow Of Winds', which is usually passed off as a 'normal' instrumental break. The most notable examples are 'Interstellar Overdrive' (which I see as the prototype), 'Echoes', the three long pieces on Animals, and the entire Wish You Were Here album. Wait, what? So if you will, you can think of 'Shine On You Crazy Diamond' as the main thematic piece -- the riff and verses, so to speak. The intro is considerably longer than most of their long and winding epics because, really, the scale of the piece is the whole forty-five minutes of the LP. Then, predictably, the song goes off into the weeds (just hear that crazy sax being sucked into the machine!) The fact that these 'weeds' happen to comprise three complete songs is a point which makes the album that much more interesting. So it goes like this: intro, verse (a shout-out to an absent friend), off into weeds (exploring further themes of absence, which may have contributed to the crazy diamond problem, and expressing general loneliness and longing for someone, even though they're estranged), and then gradually returns to the theme (concluding that in this nasty old world, with all these dogs and stones an all the rest of it, perhaps the only solution is to become absent). And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why Wish You Were Here is the BEST PINK FLOYD ALBUM. ...In my humble opinion, etc., etc. Oh dear, I just did it again: I spent their thirty minutes ranting philosophically about Pink Floyd's greatness when I could have been eating food or talking to humans or any number of valuable uses of my time, all for a forum where hardly anyone ever posts anything half as involved. I don't even know if anyone cares, or if they just see my supermassive rants and run for cover... But hey! How else would I live up to my title?
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Post by TheVelvetBride on Feb 14, 2017 16:41:05 GMT
^ The latter. On topic, I guess they refer to eiderdowns a lot...
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Post by The Lunatic on Feb 14, 2017 20:54:56 GMT
Three times, actually. Once in 'Flaming', once in 'Julia Dream', and finally in 'A Pillow Of Winds'.
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Post by TheVelvetBride on Feb 14, 2017 21:07:34 GMT
I know where they're from, thank you very much.
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Post by syd gilmour on Feb 15, 2017 1:09:17 GMT
Eiderdowns are more of a repeated word, as Pink Floyd didn't invent them so referring to them isn't a Pink Floyd reference. With that being said, I came to this thread planning to say the exact same thing as Lunatic and Velvet Bride previously mentioned.
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Post by The Lunatic on Feb 16, 2017 1:40:57 GMT
I know where they're from, thank you very much. You're welcome very much.
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Post by syd gilmour on Mar 7, 2017 17:20:42 GMT
I couldn't help but notice the repeated regerences to breezes, including the sound effects before Shine On You Crazy Diamond pt. VI and A Pillow Of Winds, and the lyrical references to the steel breeze and a cool breeze.
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Post by The Lunatic on Mar 8, 2017 13:15:24 GMT
May not be deliberate, but I noticed there is a part (starts at about 5:15) in 'Pigs (Three Different Ones)' where Nick uses the exact same drum pattern as in 'Have A Cigar' during the riff. It's a basic kick-snare deal except he does this great little offbeat hi-hat hit after the snare.
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Post by The Lunatic on Jun 14, 2017 16:03:43 GMT
Listening to The Wall just now and had a great epiphany. He uses the exact same device in 'Nobody Home' as Syd used in 'Bike'.
*Is interrupted by the entrance of 'Comfortably Numb'*
*Seven minutes later*
Basically he's telling you about himself by showing off his stuff, but where in 'Bike' it's in a childlike and naive manner, 'Nobody Home' is sardonic, world-weary, and generally he's a miserable sod.
Just another example of how much Pink Floyd owed to Syd's legacy.
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Post by Mad Bugger on Jun 18, 2017 0:33:48 GMT
^^^ I'm surprised I've never noticed that before. Good ear, Loony.
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Post by thinyoungmoon on Nov 25, 2017 22:40:18 GMT
What a great thread that is, I had some cool insights from all the references mentioned. Especially the one about Wish You Were Here being constructed like one big song was an epiphany, thanks for that. Most of the ones I know have been already mentioned, but here's a new one: In 'Is there anybody out there' there is this high, shrieking sound in the middle of the song which sounds exactly like the seagull screams in 'Echoes'.
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Post by The Lunatic on Nov 26, 2017 3:34:52 GMT
^ I forgot I wrote that until now, thanks for reminding me!
Yes, that's another cool one. And the 'Echoes' ping in 'Hey You'.
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Post by The Lunatic on Mar 27, 2018 20:16:37 GMT
'Louder Than Words' -- see 'And silence that speaks so much louder than words/Of promises broken' from 'Sorrow'.
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