Have a Cigar

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"Have a Cigar"

Single by Pink Floyd
from the album Wish You Were Here
B-side(s)	Welcome to the Machine (US single) Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts I - V) (Italian and French singles)
Released	1975
Format	7"
Recorded	January - July 1975 Abbey Road Studios, London
Genre	Progressive rock
Length	5:08
Label	Harvest, EMI (UK) Columbia, Capitol (US)
Writer(s)	Waters
Producer(s)	Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd singles chronology
Us and Them/Time (1973)	Have a Cigar/Welcome to the Machine (1975)	Another Brick in the Wall (Part II) (1979)
Wish You Were Here track listing
"Welcome to the Machine" (2)	"Have a Cigar" (3)	"Wish You Were Here" (4)

"Have a Cigar" is the third track on Pink Floyd's 1975 album Wish You Were Here. It opened side two of the original LP; on the CD version it follows "Welcome to the Machine".

1 Composition
2 Personnel
3 Quotes
4 Trivia
5 Notes
6 References

[edit] Composition

Like "Welcome to the Machine", the song's music and lyrics were written by Roger Waters in critique of hypocrisy and greed within the music business. The music itself is more straightforwardly rock-orientated than the rest of the album, beginning with a churning riff played on electric guitar and bass. The track is filled out with additional guitar, electric piano and synthesizer parts to create a funk rock texture.

"Have a Cigar" climaxes with its blistering guitar solo, which is interrupted by a synthesizer filter-sweep sound effect as the music reduces in volume to tinny, AM radio-like levels. Some have speculated that this represents the music's transformation into a worthless, mass-marketed product — which would be almost prophetic, since the track received heavy radio play as a single. Finally, the song ends with the sound of a radio being dialed off-station; this effect is used as a transition to the following song, the album's title track, "Wish You Were Here".

The lyric "Oh, by the way, which one's Pink?" is rumored to have actually been asked of the band in their formative years of the mid-to-late 1960s by a record label executive, who met them in the recording studio. Rumour has it that the executive shook hands with all the band members, complimented them highly, and then proceeded to ask the question. Later, the name Pink was used for the main character in The Wall.

The song first premiered when the band played it on their 1975 North American tour in between the two halves of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" with Waters and Gilmour sharing the vocals.

The song was played on the 1975 and 1977 Pink Floyd tours. The 1975 performances had Roger Waters on lead vocals with David Gilmour singing backing vocals and the guitar solos in the 1977 performances of "Have a Cigar" were played by Snowy White.

On the original recording, the song's lead vocals were performed not by any member of Pink Floyd, but by an acquaintance of the band: British singer-songwriter Roy Harper. Roger Waters intended to perform the part himself, as he did during most stage performances, but had strained his voice while recording "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", and David Gilmour would not sing the harsh lyrics. Harper was recording his album HQ in Studio 2 of Abbey Road at the same time as Pink Floyd were working in Studio 3; learning of the band's dilemma Harper offered to sing the lead.

Waters later stated that he (perhaps unconsciously) hoped the other band members would refuse this suggestion, and insist on keeping the song strictly within the confines of Pink Floyd. He was therefore surprised when they immediately accepted the idea, and Harper claims that he requested a lifetime ticket to (the nearby) Lord's Cricket Ground as payment for his services. Harper has described feeling insulted when he was sent a one-time cheque instead (which he says was never cashed).^[1]

[edit] Personnel

Roger Waters - Bass, Music and Lyrics
David Gilmour - Guitars, additional keyboards
Richard Wright - Fender Rhodes, ARP String Synthesizers, Mini-Moog Synthesizers
Nick Mason - drums
Roy Harper - vocal

[edit] Quotes

“	A lot of people think I can't sing, including me a bit. I'm very unclear about what singing is. I know I find it hard to pitch, and I know the sound of my voice isn't very good in purely aesthetic terms, and Roy Harper was recording his own album in another EMI studio at the time, he's a mate, and we thought he could probably do a job on it.	”
—Roger Waters, October 1975, WYWH Songbook

“	"Have a Cigar" was a whole track on which I used the guitar and keyboards at once. There are some extra guitars which I dubbed on later, but I did the basic guitar tracks at one time	”
—David Gilmour, October 1975, WYWH Songbook

“	We did have people who would say to us "Which one's Pink" and stuff like that. There were an awful lot of people who thought Pink Floyd was the name of the lead singer and that was Pink himself and the band. That's how it all came about, it was quite genuine.	”
—David Gilmour, December 1992, In the Studio with Redbeard for "Making of Shine On" (parts 1 and 2 aired in December of 1992) and "Making of Wish You Were Here" (first aired in September of 1995)