Welcome to the Machine
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| "Welcome to the Machine" | ||
|---|---|---|
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| Song by Pink Floyd | ||
| from the album Wish You Were Here | ||
| Released | 15 September 1975 | |
| Recorded | January - July 1975 | |
| Genre | Rock, Progressive Rock | |
| Length | 7:31 | |
| Label | Harvest, EMI (UK) Columbia, Capitol (US) | |
| Writer(s) | Waters | |
| Producer(s) | Pink Floyd | |
| Wish You Were Here track listing | ||
| Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts I - V) (1) |
"Welcome to the Machine" (2) |
Have a Cigar (3) |
"Welcome to the Machine" is the second song on Pink Floyd's 1975 album Wish You Were Here. It is 7 minutes and 31 seconds long. It is notable for its use of heavily processed synthesizers and guitars, as well as a wide and varied range of tape effects. The song explores the band's negativity towards the music industry. They thought their introduction to the industry was soulless and unfeeling, like that of a machine. On the original LP, the song segued from the first 5 parts of the suite "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" and closed the first side. On the CD pressings, especially the 1997 and 2000 remastered issues, it segues (although very faintly) to "Have a Cigar" even though the segueing was a few seconds longer on the US version than the UK version.
Contents |
[edit] Music video
Gerald Scarfe created a powerful and disturbing music video (it initially was a backdrop film for when the band played the track on its 1977 In the Flesh tour), which displays a giant mechanical beast somewhere between triceratops and armadillo (possibly a reference to the sleeve of Emerson, Lake & Palmer's Tarkus, the cover of which also features an armadillo/machine hybrid, though it also resembles a Texas Horned Lizard somewhat) lumbering across an apocalyptic cityscape. Emaciated rats leap around corpse-laden steel girders, gleaming industrial smokestacks crack and ooze blood, and a tower grows out of this desert, transforms into a screaming monster and decapitates an unsuspecting man. His head then very slowly decays to a damaged skull. Finally, an ocean of blood washes away this desolate wasteland, and the waves turn into thousands of hands waving in rhythm to the music (much like people at a rock concert). Despite being pulled at by the bloody masses, one building survives and, synchronised with the sound effects at the end of the track, flies up and away, high above the clouds to where it fits snugly into a hole inside a gargantuan floating ovoid structure.
[edit] Credits
Music and lyrics by Roger Waters
- Roger Waters - Synthi-A VCS 3, backing vocals
- David Gilmour - six and 12-string acoustic guitars, lead and backing vocals
- Richard Wright - Synthi-A VCS 3, ARP String Synthesizers, Mini-Moog Synthesizers
- Nick Mason - tympani, cymbals
Recorded January to July 1975 at Abbey Road Studios, London.
[edit] Live performances
In live performances of the song on Pink Floyd's 1977 "In the Flesh" tour, Gilmour and Waters shared lead vocals, although in initial performances, Gilmour sang on his own with some backing vocals by Waters. Also for live performances, David Gilmour played his acoustic guitar parts on his Fender Stratocaster.
[edit] Trivia
- The "Welcome my son, welcome to the machine" line of the song is usually played before several rides start to run at many U.S.A. amusement parks.
- The song has been covered by metal band Shadows Fall.
- The track's style and use of guitar and synthesisers influenced ABBA's hit song "Knowing Me, Knowing You".[citation needed]
- The penultimate level of the video game Ecco the Dolphin is named after this song. It is set inside a gigantic alien device.
- Roger Waters performed this song on his 1999-2002 In The Flesh Tour. It was also featured on the In The Flesh concert DVD/CD.
- Tim Footman used the title for his book, Welcome to the Machine: OK Computer and the Death of the Classic Album (2007, ISBN 1-84240-388-5). The Radiohead album (1997) shares many musical and thematic elements with Pink Floyd's mid-70's oeuvre, although members of Radiohead have resisted the comparison.
[edit] Quotes
"The only time we've ever used tape speed to help us with vocals was on one line of the Machine song. It was a line I just couldn't reach so we dropped the tape down half a semitone and then dropped the line in on the track."
- – David Gilmour, 1975, WYWH Songbook
