Hey! Teacher! (Unmissable Pink Floyd Songs)

Hey! Teacher! (Unmissable Pink Floyd Songs)

Friday January 19th 2024

Last week I had a good catchup with fellow musician and neighbour, Trevor Hood. About fourteen months back, Trevor landed himself the bassist role in local tribute band “Wish We Were Pink Floyd” (no prizes for guessing the subject matter….) a role he worked hard to get up to speed on, and which he feels privileged to fulfil. 

Although having played in many bands over the years, it’s the first one he’s done to play larger stages and theatres, an experience he admits he wasn’t prepared for, but finds incredibly exciting. I’ve done plenty of theatres, but I can well imagine having seen the Aussie Floyd a few times, actually playing a gig like this with all the lights, lasers and everything that makes a Floyd show so special, makes it a level above the norm.

Recently, all the members of REMbrandt have been sharing their top 5 unmissable R.E.M. tracks via our facebook page, so this seemed like a great opportunity to get Trevor’s take on his top 5 unmissable Pink Floyd tracks. So, inflate that giant pig and let’s go to the dark side of the moon…..

5. Money

From “The Dark Side Of The Moon” 1973

This Roger Waters lyric criticises the power of money and the capitalist

system. Check out the unusual 7/4 time signature!

4. Learning To Fly

From “A Momentary Lapse In Reason” 1987

Recorded after Roger Waters departure from the band, this David Gilmour track

arguably relates to a band trying to function after losing one of

it’s founding members.

3. Sheep

From “Animals” 1977

Originally titled “Raving and Drooling”, “Sheep” formed an integral part to

the album, conceived as a homage to George Orwell’s “Animal Farm”.

2. Time

From “The Dark Side Of The Moon” 1973

Trevor describes this track as one he had to master, he makes the ticking clock

sounds by alternately picking two muted strings on the bass, just like Roger Waters

did on the original recording.

1. Us And Them

From “The Dark Side Of The Moon” 1973

With a vaguely jazz inspired chord progression, consumerism, materialism,

and the senseless nature of war all come under scrutiny in this hypnotising and

ethereal ballad, taken from one of the critically acclaimed albums of all time.

Get out and see some live music!

‘Wish We Were Pink Floyd’ are a six piece professional tribute band, delivering an amazing evening of iconic music from every era of Pink Floyd’s amazing back catalogue, coupled with the stunning light show we’ve all come to know and expect. You can catch them this year at The Chichester Assembly Rooms on April 27th, and you can follow their facebook page at facebook.com/pompeyfloyd.

Obviously - huge thanks to Trevor for his song choices and for helping to put this blog together! Agree with his choices? Disagree? Let me know!

Songwriting Update (January 2024)

Songwriting Update (January 2024)

Saturday January 13th 2024

Ok so, part of the blogging goal was to try and keep track of the songs I’ve been working on. I did a couple of songwriting blogs in early December, you can find them by following these links or just scrolling back if you fancy it……

No-One's There......

bloggerrhythm5.blogspot.com/2023/12/no-ones-there-my-first-blog-about_2.html

Did I Actually Write This....?

bloggerrhythm5.blogspot.com/2023/12/did-i-actually-write-this-originality.html

I am now consulting my big black writing book, which is my first stop when I’m sitting on the floor with my back to the radiator, to see if anything worthy of consideration is going to pop out. Writing is nearly always a “morning thing”. I find the warmth and the quiet gurgling from the heating pipes quite soothing, and I generally haven’t been encumbered or distracted by anything else.

The tally since early December though is down a bit. Six ideas with enough form to be actually called songs (i.e. lyrics, melody and chords), but one of those is a Christmas song that arrived eleven days too late to be of any immediate use, and one is the union of two ideas I had months ago that I’ve suddenly pieced together. As a tally that’s about one a week, BUT I have been trying to have some time off over Christmas, so perhaps it’s not too bad. A lot of other stuff has been going on too, but I think I’d try and choose to write at least a little every day where I can. Like learning an instrument or reading a book, some tasks aren’t best done in one sitting, no matter how warm and comforting the radiator is.

So for my own interest alone maybe, the five songs “showing promise” (but perhaps not Don Felder / Hotel California level promise) are “Lowest Of The Low”, “Hold Onto The Sides”, “No Reminders”, “In Those Trees” and “Fox In The Hen House”. It’ll be interesting to see if any of those make it as far as an open mic performance in the next few months.

If you’ve written anything this month you want to share, please send me a link! Otherwise if you’re interested in songwriting and like podcasts - I’d recommend sodajerker.com - the site has over 250 interviews with some of the greatest songwriters of our time!

Guitar Spotters : the guitar in the picture is a Japanese Kimbara 8/Y dreadnought. I paid about £5.00 for it in a job lot of guitar gear many years ago. They were made to look like a Martin….they don’t sound like it ;-) but it is weirdly a good guitar for writing on!

Did I Actually Write This? Originality, Plagiarism & Influence

Did I Actually Write This? Originality, Plagiarism & Influence

Thursday December 7th 2023

Even before I began to write music, I realised there was going to be a problem. We’re all individuals, the sum of our experiences, whatever….so at what point does any artistic work become yours, and not a rip off of something you’ve seen or heard before?

It’s a rabbit hole. Red pill / blue pill. In May this year, Ed Sheeran defended a copyright claim that “Thinking Out Loud” was not a musical derivation of Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On”, but rather a piece of work that shared “the letters of the alphabet of music”. Just a few years previously, beneficiaries also sued Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams over similarities between their song “Blurred Lines”, and the Marvin Gaye track, “Got To Give It Up”. Spoiler alert if you hadn’t heard, Ed won, Robin and Pharrell didn’t, but many industry insiders argue both decisions were actually wrong.

I could encourage you to listen to all the songs in question and draw your own conclusions, but for the sake of keeping the ship on course, I suggest you watch this comparison video by music producer and youtuber, Rick Beato.

There are two, additional related videos on his channel. In the first he offers an opinion that potentially, a portion of the royalties might be due as the tempo, instrumentation and execution are obviously influenced by Gaye’s track, but the lyrics, melody, and chorus are completely different. In the last he explains some of the music theory behind the analysis.

His “take home” overall was that songwriters need to be honest, and should always attempt to be original. If you hear somebody else’s voice in your work too clearly, turn away, or at least from an educational perspective, try to build upon it. After all, every song you write that misses the mark in some way is just fuel for the machine that eventually churns out the better stuff. No artist has a body of equally successful work.

My interest in covering this as a blog topic was sparked by a song I’m working on, with the working title of “Good Heart”, which to me is in part clearly inspired by “Tighten Up” by The Black Keys. Clearly this is only a practical problem if I’d sold 150 million records like Ed Sheeran and had plans to release it. Neither of these are true.

Although I was initially happy at the time to accept the similarity, I now feel I ought to push a bit harder to make it my own, if I can, which is maybe what Ed should have done, but there you go……

Record Time

No record time this time around, although like I said, feel free to check out the records mentioned within. I would recommend Rick Beato’s content on all manner of musical subjects. You might not agree, but he does have an informed and professional opinion.

No-One's There : My First Blog About Songwriting

No-One’s There

Thursday November 30th 2023

That’s a pretty bleak title, isn’t it? Nether-the-less it’s the working title of a song I wrote this morning. I’m not generally a writer of happy songs. It’s not that I’m an unhappy person, it’s just the way it is. 

Lots of songs, even if they sound happy, have at the very least, unhappy beginnings. I tried to explain that to a reporter from The Independent, who was questioning me about the R.E.M. song “Shiny Happy People” for an online article a few years ago. The song is happiness itself, (I believe Michael Stipe used the word “bubblegum”), but the title is taken from Chinese propaganda posters that appeared following the 1989 Tianamen Square Protests. I digress.

Blog writing for me has a few purposes. Some parts, some people might find useful (great), some parts people might find interesting (also great), and some parts people might find pointless (I’ll refund your subscription fee)....but I’d also like to use it to try and record my progress with songwriting. I will write about what I’ve found out about songwriting in the three years since I started trying to take it a bit more seriously, but today I’m going to talk about today, and today I wrote this….

No-One’s There

Verse

So much, for so little, but it just won’t die

The emptiness, loneliness, behind those little lies

That you wove, with your own hands, defend you from all sides

And the heat, from the fire, that’s burns behind your eyes

Pre-Chorus

You hope that hope is coming, but it comes as no surprise,

No-one’s there

Verse

You tire, of the pulling, all those tiny strings

That connect, a reflection, of all this life can bring

And you grip, at the table, til the splinters start to sting

And they stab, at the heart of, the man who would be king.

Pre-Chorus

You hope that hope is coming, but it’s really not your thing

Chorus

No-one’s there, to protect you, and keep the wolves at bay,

No-one’s there, to respect you, or hear the words you say,

No-one’s there, to remind you, how you even got this way,

If it hurts, remember not to care

Cause no-one’s there

Half-Verse

Never have I ever, is not a game you’ve played

Or surveyed, the wreckage, to see how far you’ve strayed

Pre-Chorus

You hope that hope is coming, but you feel you’ve been betrayed

Chorus

No-one’s there, to protect you, and keep the wolves at bay,

No-one’s there, to respect you, or hear the words you say,

No-one’s there, to remind you, how you even got this way,

If it hurts, remember not to care

Bridge

You made yourself an island, exuberance and flair

All alone too castaway to care

No-one’s there

No-one’s there

No-one’s there

No-one’s there

Outro Verse

So much, for so little, but it just won’t die

The emptiness, loneliness, comes as no surprise

No-one’s there

Hhhmmmm. Needs work. Or maybe it doesn’t. I tend to write quickly, without thinking too much about what I’m writing about. I scribble into a book, and then usually, hopefully….when I actually type it up after a few days, a meaning becomes clearer  and I can start to refine the idea. I don’t consciously set out to write about specific things, and definitely not specific people. Superficially, this song appears to be about someone who seems to be in control but secretly wants help, despite pushing people away. Sometimes the mist doesn’t clear and stray chord progressions and ideas get recycled, but this as an overall piece has more promise than others.

There are certain things about this song which kind of tick my boxes. I understand that musically, you’re going to have to take my word for that today, but lyrically it’s got a pretty classic structure. It’s not overly verbose, it doesn’t contain a selection of stock, throwaway song phrases and the song title is pretty clear. It can go in the “definitely maybe” pile.

Record Time

Based on all this, today’s musical share should probably be “Shiny Happy People”, but I’m going to expand that to the R.E.M. album it appeared on, 1991’s “Out Of Time”. I think, even more than its more popular successor “Automatic For The People”, it’s a rich, diverse selection of songs that show a band finally unhindered by the expectation of any particular kind of record. The title apparently was only agreed upon at the eleventh hour when the band was forced to make a decision upon it ….”Huh, I guess we’re out of time…..” but it’s also a beautiful analogy for a record that was unlike any other released that year. Perfection.