Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun

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"Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun"

Song by Pink Floyd
from the album A Saucerful of Secrets
Released	June 29, 1968 (UK) July 27, 1968 (US)
Recorded	August 7-8 1967 January, March, May 1968 Abbey Road Studios, London
Genre	Psychedelic rock
Length	5:27
Writer(s)	Roger Waters
A Saucerful of Secrets track listing
Remember a Day (2)	"Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun" (3)	Corporal Clegg (4)

"Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun" is a song by rock band Pink Floyd, and is featured on their second album, A Saucerful of Secrets (1968). It was written by Roger Waters, and features a drum part by Nick Mason. The song was regularly performed between 1967 and 1973, and can be heard on the live disc of the 1969 album Ummagumma and seen in the movie Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii.

The song was started in August of 1967, with overdubs recorded in October of that year and in January and April of 1968, when David Gilmour was present. According to an interview with Guitar World magazine in 1993, Gilmour said that former frontman Syd Barrett played on "a tiny bit" of the song ^[1].

In the book Pink Floyd - through the eyes of... by Bruno McDonald, Roger Waters admitted to "borrowing" the lyrics from a book of Chinese poetry from the Tang Dynasty period (which was later identified as the book Poems of the late T'ang, translated by A.C. Graham).^{[citation needed]}

Some of the "borrowed" lines were written by Li He, whose poem Don't go out the door contains the line "witness the man who raged at the wall as he wrote his question to heaven", and Li Shangyin, 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."

Additionally, the main riff resembles a phrase played by Jimmy Garrison in his introductory solo prior to "My Favorite Things" on the John Coltrane album Live At The Village Vanguard Again!, although this is most likely coincidental.^{[citation needed]}. The main riff is played by David Gilmour on the guitar by using extreme low registers almost sounding as a bass. The riff E E F E D E... is in the phrygian mode. Its "indian" character was very fashionable for pop music at that time.

This song as well as others by Pink Floyd influenced author Douglas Adams in the creation of the fictional band "Disaster Area" in his book "Restaurant at the End of the Universe." Disaster Area is known to be the loudest band in the universe. Similar to Pink Floyd their set is one with many visual effects and ends by crashing a spaceship into the nearest sun.

"Set the Controls" also appears on the compilation album Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd which was released in 2001.

The song has featured in the set list for Waters' 2006 tour, and previously his In the Flesh tour, featuring stills from the videos of Arnold Layne and Scarecrow, respectively, projected on large screens. In June 2002, audiences enjoyed a surprise when the two nights at London's Wembley Arena saw the appearance, as guest drummer for the performance of the track, of Waters' former Pink Floyd bandmate Nick Mason, the first indication of a reconciliation following the acrimonious split of the mid-1980s.

1 Alternative and Live versions
2 Cover bersions and allusions
3 Personnel
4 References

[edit] Alternative and Live versions

On both the live Ummagumma disk and the Live at Pompeii: Directors Cut , the song is significantly extented with a wide range of dynamics. For instance the drums stops in the quiet middle section. Without the usual rock'n'roll rhythm section guitar and echoed Farfisa organ drift into abstract electronic soundscapes.
A version of the song features on the In the Flesh: Live DVD, containing a saxophone solo.

[edit] Cover bersions and allusions

A cover version was also done by prog metal supergroup OSI and is on the bonus disc of their debut album OSI.
Another version of the song was done by Israeli doom/death band Salem.
LCD Soundsystem references the song in "All My Friends," a song on their 2007 album, Sound of Silver. One of the song's is: "You switch the engine on/We set controls for the heart of the sun/one of the ways we show our age"