Classical Composer Reacts to the rest of Wish You Were Here (Pink Floyd) | The Daily Doug (Ep. 289)

it's the daily dog hey y'all welcome back to the daily doug i am thankful that you're with me today because we have made it to the end of yet another fantastic week here at the daily doug and as a reward for getting to the end of the week in such good shape we are going to be diving into a masterpiece friday episode today by returning to the band pink floyd and we're going to be finishing what we started by listening to the rest of their landmark 1975 album called wish you were here it was a week ago today my friends that we listened to shine on you crazy diamond it was episode 284 and we listen to all nine parts of that suite which starts and ends this album and of course i have heard wish you were here the song but the other two songs on the album that are there's kind of stuck in the middle uh is welcome to the machine and have a cigar and i have not yet heard these so while we're kind of on a pink floyd kick i thought let's kind of close the loop and see what the entire album sounds like so we've got sort of half of it last week and half of it this week so i am glad that you are here uh with us this album was released in 1975 pink floyd's ninth album it was recorded at abby rhodes studios in london and overall we're we're focusing on a criticism of the music business in general as well as uh the band paying tribute to their founding band member sid barrett who had left the ban several years earlier due to deteriorating mental health issues and like i said y'all i i so much enjoyed last week's listen to shine on you crazy diamond that i really did want to jump back into pink floyd this week especially before the end of this calendar year and see how the rest of the album fits in with uh shine on you crazy diamond and we haven't done this in quite a while where we've done an entire album sort of in two spots or in two different videos i think the last time we did that was um uh with jethro tull right and thick as a brick so um i just want to get right into it y'all uh it's going to be quite fun we've got david gilmore on vocals guitars and effects roger waters on vocals and bass and tape effects nick mason on drums and percussion and richard wright playing about as many keyboards as he can possibly get his hands on and that's always a good idea if you ask me uh we have forgone our friday cocktail but i do have a little uh herbal supplements ready uh if if the feeling hits me so uh everybody let us begin with welcome to the machine uh lyrics and music on this one are by roger waters and uh let's get going here we go i remember hearing that fade out from shine on you crazy diamond and actually saying it sounds like a machine um so this continues after that fade out the mechanism has engaged there can be no escape that's cool those ease in the base are going back and forth in the stereo mix boy their soundscapes [Music] [Music] where have you been [Music] foreign [Music] the melody's relatively static right there's not a lot of undulation so far in the vocal melody [Music] goes to that flat six back to one and it's a flat six with a major seventh in it that's got uh like that e minor chord the e g and b up here sounds so cool they're gonna do it again and they go to the c and they add the c underneath it but the top three notes of that chord are still an e g and a b [Music] the stream sounds are really cool [Music] before they give us space don't they space to think [Music] it's getting gradually a little more intense a little louder sounds [Music] with that repetitive base in the inner loop it almost felt like with the pattern it was like it was like a six but this is in fourth [Music] you dreamed of a big spot a star [Music] roger's lyrics are always so witty it's like he's barely letting you in it's like to what he's thinking about but he's giving you enough that you know discover the rest for yourself but this is this is where he's coming from surprised how [Music] little to no work the drums have in this i wonder if carl's uh sorry if nick is doing something different [Music] [Applause] cool [Music] i find this to be a lot more of a soundscape and almost um i don't even know what the word is there's cutting edge and experimental to me than i expected there he goes in his jaguar maybe not [Music] [Music] is that society like laughing at you what does that mean y'all you all have lived with this song for a lot longer than i have uh for sure that's interesting uh i have this in a playlist so that each song is going to play and then stop so that we can talk about it in between tracks so that one is done that was welcome to the machine darn so what is the machine uh the machine i think most blatantly could be the musical machine it's they're criticizing the uh you know the record companies and how they seek to control uh musicians uh control meaning you know uh from the musician's point of view i guess but i think it could be applied to any industry uh or any specialized industry or any like interconnected system to be successful in a machine in a complicated you know gear driven mechanism uh sometimes we have to um dial back our own autonomy and individual freedom at least in some areas so that we can help meet the collective goals of all who are involved i learned that in working in higher education we're teachers and we're professionals and experts in our fields but we also have to work within this this larger organized system if it's going to work and sometimes it involves sacrifices that you don't really want to make so when they talk about you know what did you dream it's all right we told you what to dream you dreamed of being a big st no not there where was it um welcome to the machine what did you dream you know uh your your uh you're caught in this uh bit of this mechanism and uh it sucks but that's kind of what it is i'm reminded of a minor line in an older not older uh but uh i guess older now movie uh one of the john grisham novels called the rainmaker they made a movie that starred matt damon as a young person and he was a lawyer and so this is in the law field right there in court this young lawyer going up against this big time law firm and john voight was playing the lawyer and at the beginning of it he vouches for the young guy to like sign him in or get him you're officially registered with the court and then when he's done he says welcome to the war and that reminds me of this welcome to the machine it's like you wanted to be here all right let's do it you know uh here's how it works uh that ends side one two so let's go on to have a cigar y'all uh this one uh this one seems more pointed specifically uh about the greed and cynicism prevalent and the rock business uh and this one i think was also written by roger who has implied that this is a follow-up of sorts to uh money so let's see what this one has to offer here is have a cigar on the second side of the original lp here we go straight into this one no long intro please don't fade in police [Music] same key as the other one e minor [Music] that's six [Music] i also read that uh they have a guest uh vocalist on this track roy harper sang lead on this track curious as to why [Music] and roy sounds a little bit like david gilbert [Music] oh by the way which one is [Music] witty as usual roger [Music] did we tell you the name of the game boy we call it riding the uh the gravy train [Music] and it resolves to g major the relative nature of the key back to the minor e minor [Music] i just really love the space that the band gives to everybody else in the band when it's time to hear the vocal you can always hear the vocal when it's time to hear the keyboard you can hear it and when it's time to hear the guitar you hear it it's time for the profession everybody contributes and it just makes the overall uh sound greater than the sum of its parts it's part of their legacy [Music] on gravy [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] c4 [Music] [Applause] similar progression even to the previous song we're in e minor a lot of time and one of the main chords they're going back to is the c and that's what they were doing in the last song too even though it's a completely different feel of the piece [Music] [Applause] so i think roger's implying here [Music] i'll tell you in a minute now it's only in this year mono it sounds like it's going through an old transistor radio [Music] and it's then that one stops i think it's going to segue into the into the next one i don't remember that segway and wish you were here though that's interesting we'll get to it in a second um uh what i what was i going to say about roger he uh he's letting us in on this sort of back of the house business you know come in here dear boy have a cigar you're gonna go far you're gonna fly you never you're never gonna die or you're gonna make it if you try it's it's like uh this he's making the uh the executive or the record uh representative the record company representative seem completely disinterested in the art and from roger's perspective in the band's perspective that's probably what they thought and still think uh it's the machine right it's it's it's a business the the song itself or the recording itself becomes a commodity whereas from the band members they also think of it as their artistic output and there is conflict in that and so both of these people are are meeting each other with from different uh you know starting points with differing expectations and they're trying to get along and that's a lot i think the basic underpinning of why uh record company executives and musicians tend to not like each other uh because they're in the same business for i think largely different reasons uh the funny part is i mean in that line uh where oh and by the way which one's pink it lets on that th that the raid the the executive doesn't even know the band doesn't really even know the people that are in the band uh and it's a really interesting turn of phrase uh to uh to make that point really interested interesting so my friends let's finish it out shall we this is wish you were here this one i've heard but it's been a while the title track and it goes like this here we go starting with that radio playing it it remains massively yesterday no it is i've never noticed that before that if i had to play um like name that tune i think that was from tchaikovsky's fourth symphony i think it's the finale from tchaikovsky's fourth symphony because it has a very characteristic opening um i might be wrong now i don't even remember if it was a writer anyway let's keep going with this sally and it's still like on the transistor like mono in one ear [Music] it's like an acoustic guitar playing along with an am radio [Music] same key by the way all three spawns are in e so far and there's a major four chord so so you think you could tell [Music] do you think you can tell did they get you to train [Music] so this is part of the ongoing tribute to sid barry but i think we can all find a bit of ourselves i think it's quite universal did you exchange [Music] and that riff it's like pentatonic notes in in the e minor scale it's got great staying power [Music] obviously there's that major a chord [Music] how i wish you were here we're just two lost souls swimming in a fishbowl year after year [Music] [Music] it's a sad song about missed opportunities [Music] just remembering longing for something better for something different [Music] i keep switching back between using my roman numerals based on e or g apologies i can't figure out if they're really in the minor key or in the major kingdom because they go literally back and forth between the two [Music] [Applause] and that might be a metaphor musically for the dichotomy or the separation from their expectations [Music] give us the wind that we heard as we started up uh sean you crazy diamond the last a bit of it last week i dig this band y'all i like their point of view [Music] the uh i don't think it's progressive i would call it i don't know what i would call it it's more in the rock and bluesy genre for me but experimental and sort of psychedelic at the same time uh they give you time they give you time to live with the sounds that you're hearing and they're not bombarding you with a ton of notes at any one given time in this last song wish you were here the fishbowl line just guts me y'all all those years of experiences and and learning um and now asking all these questions and you know nothing much has gained the same old fears where is it uh yeah the same running over the same old ground what have we found the same old fears and uh and his and their friend isn't around to share their experiences and to move forward and and learn uh and become better you know with them and it makes them sad it would make me sad uh for sure uh the entire album is kind of melancholy but it's it i think i said this last week it's it's done in a way that allows us to sort of uh encompass that as we listen and experience it without overwhelming us it can remind us of some of our own shortcomings our own pain our own past uh our hopes for the future i mean it's almost new years there's resolutions to be made y'all and it but it does it in a way that's not traumatizing itself to us it it's not beating us over the head with it it's giving us time to uh just think as we listen to it i really really enjoy the experience of listening to um of these pieces and particularly for long periods longer periods of time i can see where an entire side or an entire album listen really is a different experience emotionally than just listening to one of the songs on the radio or or what have you and i think i prefer in this particular band's uh uh repertoire i think i prefer the long listens i they make uh that's the more profound experience of listening to it that i get but uh any time i've heard pink floyd i've been uh just taken for a ride and uh pleased by the experience so uh thank you all for hanging out with me this week it's been a big week it's been a lot of fun and i think we have some fun stuff for you coming up next week but uh until then just hang out and wait for it but we will see you next week with more episodes on more editions of the daily doug

Channel: Doug Helvering

Views: 220,729

Keywords: The Daily Doug, Daily Doug, R. Douglas Helvering, Doug Helvering, Doug, Doug Reaction, reaction, reaction vid, music analysis, analysis, Pink Floyd reaction, Pink Floyd, Reacting to Pink Floyd, Wish You Were Here, Welcome to the Machine, Have a Cigar, Wish You Were Here reaction, Welcome to the Machine reaction, Have a Cigar reaction, classical composer reacts, Pink Floyd Wish You Were Here, Pink Floyd Wish You Were Here reaction

Id: NrY0-rG1G5k

Length: 29min 30sec (1770 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 17 2021