Welcome to the Machine

"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.

1 Theme
2 Recording
3 Music video
4 Credits
5 Live performances
6 Trivia
7 Quotes
8 References
9 External links

[edit] Theme

The song explores the band's negativity towards the music industry and the whole of industrialized society. The song centres around an aspiring musician who is getting signed by a seedy executive to the music industry, "The Machine". The voice predicts all the boy's seemingly rebellious ideas ("You bought a guitar to punish your ma, you didn't like school, and you know you're nobody's fool") The boy's illusions of personal identity are further crushed with lines such as..."What did you dream, it's alright we told you what to dream". The lyrics also allude to the band's disillusionment with the music industry as a money-making machine rather than a forum of artistic expression. 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.

[edit] Recording

The track was built upon a basic throbbing sound made by an EMS VCS 3 followed by a one-repeat echo. David Gilmour admitted that he had trouble singing one line of the song; saying, "It was a line I just couldn't reach so we dropped the tape down half a semitone."^[1] He sang the part, then the pitch of the vocals were raised to meet the rest of the song.

[edit] Music video

Gerald Scarfe created a music video, initially 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 scene, 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 - EMS VCS 3, bass guitar, backing vocals
David Gilmour - six and 12-string acoustic guitars, lead and backing vocals
Richard Wright - EMS VCS 3, ARP String Ensemble synthesizer, 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 the 1977 live performances, David Gilmour played his acoustic guitar parts on his Fender Stratocaster while Waters played an Ovation acoustic guitar and Snowy White played bass guitar. Floyd would play the track again on its 1987/88/89 A Momentary Lapse of Reason/Another Lapse tours when Tim Renwick played lead guitar, while Gilmour played a 12-string acoustic guitar. It was performed by Roger Waters on the 1987 Radio KAOS tour and the 1999-2002 "In the Flesh" tour.

[edit] Trivia

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The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

This is the only song in which David Gilmour can be seen using headphones live.

The song has been covered by metal band Shadows Fall on their album The Art of Balance.

The song has been covered by Progressive metal band Queensrÿche on their album Take Cover.

The penultimate level of the video game Ecco the Dolphin is named after this song. It is set inside a gigantic alien device.

The Floyd tribute band The Machine are named after this song.

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.

The combination of words "Welcome to the machine" was used in the last part of the episode 11 in a Machinima show "The Leet World" ( http://www.theleetworld.com/episodes/ )

[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

“	It's very much a made-up-in-the-studio thing which was all built up from a basic throbbing made on a VCS 3, with a one repeat echo used so that each 'boom' is followed by an echo repeat to give the throb. With a number like that, you don't start off with a regular concept of group structure or anything, and there's no backing track either. Really it is just a studio proposition where we're using tape for its own ends -- a form of collage using sound.	”
—David Gilmour, 1975, WYWH Songbook