| "Have a Cigar" | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Cover for French and Italian editions |
||||||||||
| Single by Pink Floyd featuring Roy Harper | ||||||||||
| from the album Wish You Were Here | ||||||||||
| B-side | "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, 4:24 (edit) | |||||||||
| Label | Harvest, EMI (UK) Columbia, Capitol (US) | |||||||||
| Writer(s) | Roger Waters | |||||||||
| Producer | Pink Floyd | |||||||||
| Pink Floyd singles chronology | ||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
"Have a Cigar" is the third track on Pink Floyd's 1975 album Wish You Were Here.[1][2] It follows "Welcome to the Machine" and on the original LP opened side two. In some markets it was issued as a single.
English folk singer Roy Harper provided lead vocals on "Have a Cigar, being one of only two Pink Floyd recordings to feature guest lead vocals.
Contents |
The song's music and lyrics were written by Roger Waters in critique of hypocrisy and greed within the music business. It is sung, presumably, in the voice of a stereotypical music executive, shown to be quite incompetent and unaware (the executive doesn't understand where the name 'Pink Floyd' comes from, assuming it's the name of one of the band members). The music itself is more straightforwardly rock-oriented 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 rock texture.
"Have a Cigar" concludes with a guitar solo, which is interrupted by a synthesizer filter-sweep sound effect as the music reduces in volume to tinny, AM radio-like levels. Finally, the song ends with the sound of a radio being dialed off-station; this effect is used as a transition to the title track, "Wish You Were Here".
On the original recording, the song's lead vocals are performed by an acquaintance of the band, Roy Harper. Both Roger Waters and David Gilmour sang the song on separate takes, as well as a duet version but they were unhappy with the results (the duet version has been released as part of the Wish You Were Here Immersion set). Harper was recording his album HQ in Studio 2 of Abbey Road at the same time as Pink Floyd were working in Studio 3; Gilmour invited Harper to sing the part. The song is one of only two songs by the band which is not sung by one of their permanent members, the other being "The Great Gig in the Sky".
Harper performed the song with the band on one occasion, the group's 1975 Knebworth Festival appearance, which occurred during the period Wish You Were Here was being recorded.
The song was performed on the band's 1975 North American tours sandwiched in between the multi-part "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" with Gilmour and Waters singing lead. It was last performed by the band on the 1977 In the Flesh/Animals Tour, as part of the Wish You Were Here set with Waters on lead vocals, Gilmour on backing vocals and rhythm guitar and Snowy White playing the guitar solos.
Roger Waters continued to play the song on his solo tours (apart from the 1999/2000/2002 Roger Waters In the Flesh Tour).
Music and lyrics by Roger Waters.
| “ | 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, Interviewed by Nick Sedgewick in the Wish You Were Here songbook[3] |
||
| “ | "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, Interviewed by Gary Cooper in the Wish You Were Here songbook[3] |
||
| “ | 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" and "Making of Wish You Were Here" |
||
|
||||||||