1968 - A Saucerful of Secrets

A Saucerful of Secrets
Pink Floyd, 1968



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Release date: June 29th, 1968

Recorded at: EMI Studios, Abbey Road, London (August and October 1967, January–April 1968)

Produced by: Norman Smith

The success of Pink Floyd's two first singles and Piper proved to be too much for Syd. The other members of the group decided to bring in another guitarist to cover for him. With the addition of Gilmour shortly after New Year's 1968, and in light of Syd's declining mental state, it was decided that the band could carry on without him - so, one night, they simply didn't pick him up on the way to a show. On March 2, the management partnership of Blackhill Enterprises dissolved and Syd was thus formally and officially out of the group. The press wasn't informed until April 6th. Incorrectly sensing the end, managers Peter Jenner and Andrew King jumped off the ship. Pink Floyd went on to be fantastically successful.

Peter Jenner: "It was really stressful waiting for Syd to come up with the songs for the second album. Everybody was looking at him, and he couldn't do it. "Jugband Blues" is a really sad song, the portrait of a nervous breakdown. The last Floyd song Syd wrote, "Vegetable Man," was done for those sessions, though it never came out. He wrote it round at my house; it's just a description of what he was wearing. It's very disturbing. Roger took it off the album because it was too dark, and it is. It's like psychological flashing."

Rick Wright: "I did the title track, and I remember Norman saying 'You just can't do this, it's too long. You have to write three-minute songs.' We were pretty cocky by now and told him, 'If you don't wanna produce it, just go away.' A good attitude I think. The same reason why we'd never play See Emily Play in concert."

David Gilmour: "I remember Nick and Roger drawing out "A Saucerful Of Secrets" as an architectural diagram, in dynamic forms rather than in any sort of musical form, with peaks and troughs. That's what it was about. It wasn't music for beauty's sake, or for emotion's sake. It never had a story line, though for years afterwards we used to get letters from people saying what they thought it meant. Scripts for movies sometimes, too."

Syd plays on some tracks on the album, including "Remember a Day" and "Jugband Blues". He's also on a tiny bit of "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun". Also, some people say that he played on "Corporal Clegg" and "See Saw".

In many ways, A Saucerful Of Secrets is the Floyd's strangest album. Something of a transitional work, it features recordings made during the Piper sessions the previous year alongside tracks from May 1968, after Syd Barrett had left the group. It is, in the words of the late Pink Floyd biographer Nick Schaffner, "a hodgepodge of possible Floyds".

It was the first Pink Floyd album to feature cover art by Hipgnosis. The cover art uses Dr. Strange (of Marvel Comics fame), astrology and infrared photography symbolizing altered states of consciousness. The band is shown on the cover as well.

The lyrics to "Let There Be More Light" are influenced by various Science Fiction books and historic persons, including:

• Mildenhall: a United Kingdom air force base
• Hereward the Wake: An Anglo-Saxon rebel leader, known as "the last Englishman". Fought against the Norman oppressors, and hid on Ely island (where Ely cathedral, from the cover of The Division Bell is now located.
• Carter's father: Edgar Rice Burroughs (creator of Tarzan) wrote a series of novels about John Carter of mars.
• The Rhull: A.E.Van Voght wrote a book called "The War against the Rull." The Rull should not be confused with the "Krull" from the silver age Fantastic Four (a Marvel comic book series) stories.

Roger Waters based the lyrics for "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun" on a book of Chinese poetry. Some of the poetry came from Li Ho (his poem "Don't go out of the door" contains the line "witness the man who raved at the wall as he wrote his question to heaven") and Li Shang-Yin, whose poetry contained the lines "watch little by little the night turn around", "countless the twigs which tremble in dawn" and "one inch of love is an inch of ashes". The title of the song is taken from a Michael Moorcock novel "Fireclown", which was also released as "The Winds Of Limbo".

Roger Waters explained the song "A Saucerful of Secrets" as being about war or a battle (where "Something Else" and "Syncopated Pandemonium" are the actual battle, "Storm Signals" is the aftermath and "Celestial Voices" the mourning of the dead).

Tracks:

• Let There Be More Light (Waters)
  
  [05:29] Vocals by Waters and Wright ("far, far, far away"), Gilmour sings lead on the refrains ("then at last").
• Remember a Day (Wright)
  
  [04:23] Vocals by Wright.
• Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun (Waters)
  
  [05:18] Vocals by Waters.
• Corporal Clegg (Waters)
  
  [04:06] Vocals by Gilmour and Waters ("he won it in the war"); Mason mumbles at the end.
• A Saucerful of Secrets (Waters, Wright, Mason, Gilmour)
  
  a. Something Else [00:00]
  
  b. Syncopated Pandemonium [03:57]
  
  c. Storm Signal [07:16]
  
  d. Celestial Voices [10:14]
  
  [11:50] Vocals on Celestial Voices by Gilmour.
• See-Saw (Wright)
  
  [04:28] Vocals by Wright.
• Jugband Blues (Barrett)
  
  [03:00] Vocals by Barrett.

Total Playing Time: 37'54

Musicians Featured:

• Syd Barrett: Guitars, Vocals
• David Gilmour: Guitars, Vocals
• Nick Mason: Drums, Vocals
• Roger Waters: Bass Guitar, Vocals
• Rick Wright: Keyboard, Vocals
• Norman Smith: Vocals, Drums (on "Remember A Day")

A Saucerful of Secrets Catalog Numbers:

• LP Mono: Columbia SX 6258
• LP Stereo: Columbia SCX 6258
• New LP: EMI 8 29751 2
• CD: EMI CDP 7 46383 2

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