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FBG'S TOP 100 PINK FLOYD SONGS - #01 - Comfortably Numb from The Wall (1979) (1 Viewer)

#91-T - Corporal Clegg from A Saucerful Of Secrets (1968)

Appeared On: 1 ballot (out of 32 . . . 3.1%)
Total Points: 3 points (out of 800 possible points . . . 0.38%)
Top Ranker: @Mookie Gizzy
Highest Ranking: 23

Live Performances:
PF
: 3 (Brussels - 1968-02-19 (Lip synced)
DG's PF: None
DG: None
RW: None
NM: None

Covers: Samarin, Morgan & Hull LLP, Brain Candies, Zуммеры

If nothing else, Sixties Floyd was always different. Corporate Clegg is a Waters composition and is the only PF song to feature vocals by Gilmour, Wright, and Mason (without Waters). The title was chosen as a reference to Thaddeus Von Clegg, the inventor of the kazoo, hence the section where kazoos are played (by DG). It also has a brass ensemble called The Stanley Myers Orchestra.

The song is about a soldier who lost his leg in World War II, and his apparently alcoholic wife. It is the first mention of war in a Pink Floyd song, something that would become a common theme in Roger Waters' lyrics, Roger having lost his father in 1944. This can be seen as rather lighter in tone than Pink Floyd's later approach to war as a theme / topic. Among the scrambled voices towards the end we hear an officer telling his one-legged man: "Clegg! Been meaning to speak to you. About that leg of yours! You're excused parade from now on!"

Drummer Nick Mason sang the lines, "He won it in the war... in orange red and blue... he's never been the same... and from her majesty the queen." It was Mason's only vocal contribution until Pink Floyd's sixth album, Meddle, in 1971. The band made a video for the song. The song was "performed" live three times, but the band essentially lip synced on TV while the studio track played.

Roger Waters told Mojo magazine over 40 years after the song was released that the song is autobiographical. He explained: "Corporal Clegg is about my father and his sacrifice in World War II. It's somewhat sarcastic - the idea of the wooden leg being something you won in the war, like a trophy."

To give people a sense of the timeline, Nick Mason asked David Gilmour to join the band right before Christmas in 1967. They made their debut as a five-piece with Syd Barrett and David Gilmour at the University of Aston in Birmingham on 1968-01-12. It is believed that line-up performed together only 4 times. Pink Floyd played their first gig without Syd Barrett at Southampton University on 1968-01-26. T-Rex with Marc Bolan opened the show. The new version of Floyd entered Abbey Road studios to begin recording A Saucerful Of Secrets on 1968-02-01. (That first week of recording, The Beatles were there recording Lady Madonna, Across The Universe, The Inner Light, and Hey Bulldog.) The band started touring on 1968-02-17 (and played Careful With That Axe, Eugene for the first time). Gilmour went from joining the band, to recording an album, to touring and performing new material in 8 weeks.

Vulture Ranking (out of 165 songs): 104
Ultimate Classic Rock Ranking (out of 167 songs): 111
Louder Ranking (out of 50 songs): NR
WMGK Ranking (out of 40 songs): NR
Ranker Ranking (out of 132 songs): 85
Billboard Ranking (out of 50 songs): NR

Vulture Ranking (104 out of 165 songs): This is a downright comical example of how bad Pink Floyd was immediately post-Barrett. Waters’s junk heap of dumb musical ideas marries wan Beatle-isms to wacky rhythms, a circusy break, and sideways lurches into psychedelia, all recorded poorly and overlaid with a dreadful set of lyrics. These might have been meant as a jaunty McCartney-esque picaresque, but they come off as cruel; Waters’s own experience with the war (which took his father when he was a tot) surely argues against reading this as a mocking take on a war amputee, but it’s not entirely clear why or how.

UCR Ranking (111 out of 167 songs): Another recording that dates from Floyd’s uneasy transition from a band under Barrett’s leadership, the Waters-penned song features a rare lead vocal from Nick Mason, a kazoo played by David Gilmour and bouts of laughter in the backing vocals. It’s kind of fun, which is disturbing for a tune about an unstable veteran (the first hint of Waters’ World War II obsession).

Up next, another war themed song from a decade later.
 
Last edited:
#91-T - Corporal Clegg from A Saucerful Of Secrets (1968)

Appeared On: 1 ballot (out of 32 . . . 3.1%)
Total Points: 3 points (out of 800 possible points . . . 0.25%)
Top Ranker: @Mookie Gizzy
Highest Ranking: 23

Live Performances:
PF
: 3 (Brussels - 1968-02-19 (Lip synced)
DG's PF: None
DG: None
RW: None
NM: None

Covers: Samarin, Morgan & Hull LLP

If nothing else, Sixties Floyd was always different. Corporate Clegg is a Rogers composition and is the only PF song to feature vocals by Gilmour, Wright, and Mason (without Waters). The title was chosen as a reference to Thaddeus Von Clegg, the inventor of the kazoo, hence the section where kazoos are played (by DG). It also has a brass ensemble called The Stanley Myers Orchestra.

The song is about a soldier who lost his leg in World War II, and his apparently alcoholic wife. It is the first mention of war in a Pink Floyd song, something that would become a common theme in Roger Waters' lyrics, Roger having lost his father in 1944. This can be seen as rather lighter in tone than Pink Floyd's later approach to war as a theme / topic. Among the scrambled voices towards the end we hear an officer telling his one-legged man: "Clegg! Been meaning to speak to you. About that leg of yours! You're excused parade from now on!"

Drummer Nick Mason sang the lines, "He won it in the war... in orange red and blue... he's never been the same... and from her majesty the queen." It was Mason's only vocal contribution until Pink Floyd's sixth album, Meddle, in 1971. The band made a video for the song. The song was "performed" live three times, but the band essentially lip synced on TV while the studio track played.

Roger Waters told Mojo magazine over 40 years after the song was released that the song is autobiographical. He explained: "Corporal Clegg is about my father and his sacrifice in World War II. It's somewhat sarcastic - the idea of the wooden leg being something you won in the war, like a trophy."

To give people a sense of the timeline, Nick Mason asked David Gilmour to join the band right before Christmas in 1967. They made their debut as a five-piece with Syd Barrett and David Gilmour at the University of Aston in Birmingham on 1968-01-12. It is believed that line-up performed together only 4 times. Pink Floyd played their first gig without Syd Barrett at Southampton University on 1968-01-26. T-Rex with Marc Bolan opened the show. The new version of Floyd entered Abbey Road studios to begin recording A Saucerful Of Secrets on 1968-02-01. (That first week of recording, The Beatles were there recording Lady Madonna, Across The Universe, The Inner Light, and Hey Bulldog.) The band started touring on 1968-02-17 (and played Careful With That Axe, Eugene for the first time). Gilmour went from joining the band, to recording an album, to touring and performing new material in 8 weeks.

Vulture Ranking (out of 165 songs): 104
Ultimate Classic Rock Ranking (out of 167 songs): 111
Louder Ranking (out of 50 songs): NR
WMGK Ranking (out of 40 songs): NR
Ranker Ranking (out of 132 songs): 85
Billboard Ranking (out of 50 songs): NR

Vulture Ranking (104 out of 165 songs): This is a downright comical example of how bad Pink Floyd was immediately post-Barrett. Waters’s junk heap of dumb musical ideas marries wan Beatle-isms to wacky rhythms, a circusy break, and sideways lurches into psychedelia, all recorded poorly and overlaid with a dreadful set of lyrics. These might have been meant as a jaunty McCartney-esque picaresque, but they come off as cruel; Waters’s own experience with the war (which took his father when he was a tot) surely argues against reading this as a mocking take on a war amputee, but it’s not entirely clear why or how.

UCR Ranking (111 out of 167 songs): Another recording that dates from Floyd’s uneasy transition from a band under Barrett’s leadership, the Waters-penned song features a rare lead vocal from Nick Mason, a kazoo played by David Gilmour and bouts of laughter in the backing vocals. It’s kind of fun, which is disturbing for a tune about an unstable veteran (the first hint of Waters’ World War II obsession).

Up next, another war themed song from a decade later.
Vulture Ranking (104 out of 165 songs): This is a downright comical example of how bad Pink Floyd was immediately post-Barrett. Waters’s junk heap of dumb musical ideas marries wan Beatle-isms to wacky rhythms, a circusy break, and sideways lurches into psychedelia, all recorded poorly and overlaid with a dreadful set of lyrics. These might have been meant as a jaunty McCartney-esque picaresque, but they come off as cruel; Waters’s own experience with the war (which took his father when he was a tot) surely argues against reading this as a mocking take on a war amputee, but it’s not entirely clear why or how.

I would agree here. Sounds like a Beatles tune that was tossed in the trash or a masculine version of Lucy in the Sky.. I do find the different sounds of PF interesting even I don't care for them. Very much enjoying David's work here.
 
Vulture Ranking (104 out of 165 songs): This is a downright comical example of how bad Pink Floyd was immediately post-Barrett. Waters’s junk heap of dumb musical ideas marries wan Beatle-isms to wacky rhythms, a circusy break, and sideways lurches into psychedelia, all recorded poorly and overlaid with a dreadful set of lyrics. These might have been meant as a jaunty McCartney-esque picaresque, but they come off as cruel; Waters’s own experience with the war (which took his father when he was a tot) surely argues against reading this as a mocking take on a war amputee, but it’s not entirely clear why or how.

I would agree here. Sounds like a Beatles tune that was tossed in the trash or a masculine version of Lucy in the Sky.. I do find the different sounds of PF interesting even I don't care for them. Very much enjoying David's work here.

meh, harsh ...
 
Vulture Ranking (104 out of 165 songs): This is a downright comical example of how bad Pink Floyd was immediately post-Barrett. Waters’s junk heap of dumb musical ideas marries wan Beatle-isms to wacky rhythms, a circusy break, and sideways lurches into psychedelia, all recorded poorly and overlaid with a dreadful set of lyrics. These might have been meant as a jaunty McCartney-esque picaresque, but they come off as cruel; Waters’s own experience with the war (which took his father when he was a tot) surely argues against reading this as a mocking take on a war amputee, but it’s not entirely clear why or how.

I would agree here. Sounds like a Beatles tune that was tossed in the trash or a masculine version of Lucy in the Sky.. I do find the different sounds of PF interesting even I don't care for them. Very much enjoying David's work here.

meh, harsh ...
Curious who else who isn't a diehard PK fan would hear that song and think Floyd.
 
#93-T - A Great Day For Freedom from The Division Bell (1994)

Appeared On: 1 ballot (out of 32 . . . 3.1%)
Total Points: 2 points (out of 800 possible points . . . 0.25%)
Top Ranker: @Mt. Man
Highest Ranking: 24

Live Performances:
PF
: None
DG's PF: 34 (Rehearsal - 1994)
DG: (London - 2002, Gdansk - 2006-08-26
RW: None

Covers: Sweet Little Band, The Rockal, Igor Igkovic

The song, originally titled In Shades of Grey, addresses the great hopes following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the disappointment that followed.David Gilmour stated: "There was a wonderful moment of optimism when the Wall came down – the release of Eastern Europe from the non-democratic side of the socialist system. But what they have now doesn't seem to be much better. Again, I'm fairly pessimistic about it all. I sort of wish and live in hope, but I tend to think that history moves at a much slower pace than we think it does. I feel that real change takes a long, long time."

The was written by him and his wife Polly. In 2008, Gilmour further explained: "That song is really about the aftermath (of the fall of the totalitarian state). First, it was a joy and a release for the people with the freedom of democracy but then it became horribly marred by the ethnic cleansing and genocide, particularly in Yugoslavia. This song juxtaposes world events of the previous 5 years (the collapse of Communism and subsequent chaos and war in several countries) with a personal loss that turns out to have been just a bad dream.

According to one of the session musicians that worked on AMLOR, the song was developed for that album and not used, and then later reworked after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Gilmout insists that there is no link to the intent of the song to imply that he was talking about Pink Floyd, Roger Waters, and gaining his freedom back after Waters left the band. In 2022, the song was

In 2022, the song was reworked by Gilmour based on the original tapes, adding some new vocals, instruments and backing vocals by Sam Brown, Durga McBroom and Claudia Fontaine taken from the Pulse rehearsals. It was released as A Great Day For Freedom 2022 as the B-side of the Hey, Hey, Rise Up! single.

On a separate note, in 2003, DG was asked what his favorite albums were. He picked:

Waterloo Sunset - The Kinks
Ballad In Plain D - Bob Dylan
I'm Still Here - Tom Waits
Dancing In The Street - Martha and the Vandellas
Anthem - Leonard Cohen
A Man Needs A Maid- Neil Young
For Free - Joni Mitchell
Rudi With A Flashlight - The Lemonheads.

When asked what three items (record, book, and luxury item) he would take on a desert island, he selected Dancing In The Street by Martha and the Vandellas as his record, an English translation of the Koran as his book, and an acoustic Martin D35 guitar as his luxury.

Vulture Ranking (out of 165 songs): 82
Ultimate Classic Rock Ranking (out of 167 songs): 128
Louder Ranking (out of 50 songs): NR
WMGK Ranking (out of 40 songs): NR
Ranker Ranking (out of 132 songs): 106
Billboard Ranking (out of 50 songs): NR

Vulture Ranking (82 out of 165 songs): This was one of two grand statements on The Division Bell. Supposedly about the fall of the Berlin Wall. The lyrics, provided by Gilmour squeeze Samson, contain convoluted constructions like “change, that even with regret, cannot be undone,” whatever that means. Odd that during the recording process no one suggested they be improved.

UCR Ranking (128 out of 167 songs): Not to be outdone by Waters’ cynicism about world politics, Gilmour (with help from future wife Polly Samson) takes a pessimistic glance at post-Soviet Europe. The critiques are fair, but the song’s a gray-colored drag that can’t even be saved when Gilmour trades microphone for guitar.

Up next, Anarchy doing Anarchy things, pulling a bonus track off of a reissued movie soundtrack that came out 27 years after the movie did (with the likelihood that anyone has heard it before being close to zero).
This song is nice but not exciting. I barely missed the cut though because there is something that I really like about it though. It’s interesting in a very relaxing kind of way. The guitar solo is fabulous. The tone is always spot on.
 
#91-T - Corporal Clegg from A Saucerful Of Secrets (1968)

Appeared On: 1 ballot (out of 32 . . . 3.1%)
Total Points: 3 points (out of 800 possible points . . . 0.25%)
Top Ranker: @Mookie Gizzy
Highest Ranking: 23

Live Performances:
PF
: 3 (Brussels - 1968-02-19 (Lip synced)
DG's PF: None
DG: None
RW: None
NM: None

Covers: Samarin, Morgan & Hull LLP

If nothing else, Sixties Floyd was always different. Corporate Clegg is a Rogers composition and is the only PF song to feature vocals by Gilmour, Wright, and Mason (without Waters). The title was chosen as a reference to Thaddeus Von Clegg, the inventor of the kazoo, hence the section where kazoos are played (by DG). It also has a brass ensemble called The Stanley Myers Orchestra.

The song is about a soldier who lost his leg in World War II, and his apparently alcoholic wife. It is the first mention of war in a Pink Floyd song, something that would become a common theme in Roger Waters' lyrics, Roger having lost his father in 1944. This can be seen as rather lighter in tone than Pink Floyd's later approach to war as a theme / topic. Among the scrambled voices towards the end we hear an officer telling his one-legged man: "Clegg! Been meaning to speak to you. About that leg of yours! You're excused parade from now on!"

Drummer Nick Mason sang the lines, "He won it in the war... in orange red and blue... he's never been the same... and from her majesty the queen." It was Mason's only vocal contribution until Pink Floyd's sixth album, Meddle, in 1971. The band made a video for the song. The song was "performed" live three times, but the band essentially lip synced on TV while the studio track played.

Roger Waters told Mojo magazine over 40 years after the song was released that the song is autobiographical. He explained: "Corporal Clegg is about my father and his sacrifice in World War II. It's somewhat sarcastic - the idea of the wooden leg being something you won in the war, like a trophy."

To give people a sense of the timeline, Nick Mason asked David Gilmour to join the band right before Christmas in 1967. They made their debut as a five-piece with Syd Barrett and David Gilmour at the University of Aston in Birmingham on 1968-01-12. It is believed that line-up performed together only 4 times. Pink Floyd played their first gig without Syd Barrett at Southampton University on 1968-01-26. T-Rex with Marc Bolan opened the show. The new version of Floyd entered Abbey Road studios to begin recording A Saucerful Of Secrets on 1968-02-01. (That first week of recording, The Beatles were there recording Lady Madonna, Across The Universe, The Inner Light, and Hey Bulldog.) The band started touring on 1968-02-17 (and played Careful With That Axe, Eugene for the first time). Gilmour went from joining the band, to recording an album, to touring and performing new material in 8 weeks.

Vulture Ranking (out of 165 songs): 104
Ultimate Classic Rock Ranking (out of 167 songs): 111
Louder Ranking (out of 50 songs): NR
WMGK Ranking (out of 40 songs): NR
Ranker Ranking (out of 132 songs): 85
Billboard Ranking (out of 50 songs): NR

Vulture Ranking (104 out of 165 songs): This is a downright comical example of how bad Pink Floyd was immediately post-Barrett. Waters’s junk heap of dumb musical ideas marries wan Beatle-isms to wacky rhythms, a circusy break, and sideways lurches into psychedelia, all recorded poorly and overlaid with a dreadful set of lyrics. These might have been meant as a jaunty McCartney-esque picaresque, but they come off as cruel; Waters’s own experience with the war (which took his father when he was a tot) surely argues against reading this as a mocking take on a war amputee, but it’s not entirely clear why or how.

UCR Ranking (111 out of 167 songs): Another recording that dates from Floyd’s uneasy transition from a band under Barrett’s leadership, the Waters-penned song features a rare lead vocal from Nick Mason, a kazoo played by David Gilmour and bouts of laughter in the backing vocals. It’s kind of fun, which is disturbing for a tune about an unstable veteran (the first hint of Waters’ World War II obsession).

Up next, another war themed song from a decade later.
Thanks for the writeup! How did Mookie Gizzy rank this @ 23?
 
Lots of great info and it’s fun to listen to some songs that haven’t been in my normal rotation.
Yeah. These guys have a large and varied catalogue. I view this as a good way to explore pieces of it y'all enjoy that I haven't spent as much time with.
Yup - variety is the spice of life with Floyd. Glad to see so much stuff going on beyond the DSOTM to The Wall run, which I’m sure will dominate the top of the countdown.
 
#91-T - Corporal Clegg from A Saucerful Of Secrets (1968)

Appeared On: 1 ballot (out of 32 . . . 3.1%)
Total Points: 3 points (out of 800 possible points . . . 0.25%)
Top Ranker: @Mookie Gizzy
Highest Ranking: 23

Live Performances:
PF
: 3 (Brussels - 1968-02-19 (Lip synced)
DG's PF: None
DG: None
RW: None
NM: None

Covers: Samarin, Morgan & Hull LLP

If nothing else, Sixties Floyd was always different. Corporate Clegg is a Rogers composition and is the only PF song to feature vocals by Gilmour, Wright, and Mason (without Waters). The title was chosen as a reference to Thaddeus Von Clegg, the inventor of the kazoo, hence the section where kazoos are played (by DG). It also has a brass ensemble called The Stanley Myers Orchestra.

The song is about a soldier who lost his leg in World War II, and his apparently alcoholic wife. It is the first mention of war in a Pink Floyd song, something that would become a common theme in Roger Waters' lyrics, Roger having lost his father in 1944. This can be seen as rather lighter in tone than Pink Floyd's later approach to war as a theme / topic. Among the scrambled voices towards the end we hear an officer telling his one-legged man: "Clegg! Been meaning to speak to you. About that leg of yours! You're excused parade from now on!"

Drummer Nick Mason sang the lines, "He won it in the war... in orange red and blue... he's never been the same... and from her majesty the queen." It was Mason's only vocal contribution until Pink Floyd's sixth album, Meddle, in 1971. The band made a video for the song. The song was "performed" live three times, but the band essentially lip synced on TV while the studio track played.

Roger Waters told Mojo magazine over 40 years after the song was released that the song is autobiographical. He explained: "Corporal Clegg is about my father and his sacrifice in World War II. It's somewhat sarcastic - the idea of the wooden leg being something you won in the war, like a trophy."

To give people a sense of the timeline, Nick Mason asked David Gilmour to join the band right before Christmas in 1967. They made their debut as a five-piece with Syd Barrett and David Gilmour at the University of Aston in Birmingham on 1968-01-12. It is believed that line-up performed together only 4 times. Pink Floyd played their first gig without Syd Barrett at Southampton University on 1968-01-26. T-Rex with Marc Bolan opened the show. The new version of Floyd entered Abbey Road studios to begin recording A Saucerful Of Secrets on 1968-02-01. (That first week of recording, The Beatles were there recording Lady Madonna, Across The Universe, The Inner Light, and Hey Bulldog.) The band started touring on 1968-02-17 (and played Careful With That Axe, Eugene for the first time). Gilmour went from joining the band, to recording an album, to touring and performing new material in 8 weeks.

Vulture Ranking (out of 165 songs): 104
Ultimate Classic Rock Ranking (out of 167 songs): 111
Louder Ranking (out of 50 songs): NR
WMGK Ranking (out of 40 songs): NR
Ranker Ranking (out of 132 songs): 85
Billboard Ranking (out of 50 songs): NR

Vulture Ranking (104 out of 165 songs): This is a downright comical example of how bad Pink Floyd was immediately post-Barrett. Waters’s junk heap of dumb musical ideas marries wan Beatle-isms to wacky rhythms, a circusy break, and sideways lurches into psychedelia, all recorded poorly and overlaid with a dreadful set of lyrics. These might have been meant as a jaunty McCartney-esque picaresque, but they come off as cruel; Waters’s own experience with the war (which took his father when he was a tot) surely argues against reading this as a mocking take on a war amputee, but it’s not entirely clear why or how.

UCR Ranking (111 out of 167 songs): Another recording that dates from Floyd’s uneasy transition from a band under Barrett’s leadership, the Waters-penned song features a rare lead vocal from Nick Mason, a kazoo played by David Gilmour and bouts of laughter in the backing vocals. It’s kind of fun, which is disturbing for a tune about an unstable veteran (the first hint of Waters’ World War II obsession).

Up next, another war themed song from a decade later.
Thanks for the writeup! How did Mookie Gizzy rank this @ 23?
Because I like the song? It’s a song you’d never hear played on FM radio, and I mixed it up a bit instead of going all Dark Side, Wish and Wall
 
#91-T - Corporal Clegg from A Saucerful Of Secrets (1968)

Appeared On: 1 ballot (out of 32 . . . 3.1%)
Total Points: 3 points (out of 800 possible points . . . 0.25%)
Top Ranker: @Mookie Gizzy
Highest Ranking: 23

Live Performances:
PF
: 3 (Brussels - 1968-02-19 (Lip synced)
DG's PF: None
DG: None
RW: None
NM: None

Covers: Samarin, Morgan & Hull LLP

If nothing else, Sixties Floyd was always different. Corporate Clegg is a Rogers composition and is the only PF song to feature vocals by Gilmour, Wright, and Mason (without Waters). The title was chosen as a reference to Thaddeus Von Clegg, the inventor of the kazoo, hence the section where kazoos are played (by DG). It also has a brass ensemble called The Stanley Myers Orchestra.

The song is about a soldier who lost his leg in World War II, and his apparently alcoholic wife. It is the first mention of war in a Pink Floyd song, something that would become a common theme in Roger Waters' lyrics, Roger having lost his father in 1944. This can be seen as rather lighter in tone than Pink Floyd's later approach to war as a theme / topic. Among the scrambled voices towards the end we hear an officer telling his one-legged man: "Clegg! Been meaning to speak to you. About that leg of yours! You're excused parade from now on!"

Drummer Nick Mason sang the lines, "He won it in the war... in orange red and blue... he's never been the same... and from her majesty the queen." It was Mason's only vocal contribution until Pink Floyd's sixth album, Meddle, in 1971. The band made a video for the song. The song was "performed" live three times, but the band essentially lip synced on TV while the studio track played.

Roger Waters told Mojo magazine over 40 years after the song was released that the song is autobiographical. He explained: "Corporal Clegg is about my father and his sacrifice in World War II. It's somewhat sarcastic - the idea of the wooden leg being something you won in the war, like a trophy."

To give people a sense of the timeline, Nick Mason asked David Gilmour to join the band right before Christmas in 1967. They made their debut as a five-piece with Syd Barrett and David Gilmour at the University of Aston in Birmingham on 1968-01-12. It is believed that line-up performed together only 4 times. Pink Floyd played their first gig without Syd Barrett at Southampton University on 1968-01-26. T-Rex with Marc Bolan opened the show. The new version of Floyd entered Abbey Road studios to begin recording A Saucerful Of Secrets on 1968-02-01. (That first week of recording, The Beatles were there recording Lady Madonna, Across The Universe, The Inner Light, and Hey Bulldog.) The band started touring on 1968-02-17 (and played Careful With That Axe, Eugene for the first time). Gilmour went from joining the band, to recording an album, to touring and performing new material in 8 weeks.

Vulture Ranking (out of 165 songs): 104
Ultimate Classic Rock Ranking (out of 167 songs): 111
Louder Ranking (out of 50 songs): NR
WMGK Ranking (out of 40 songs): NR
Ranker Ranking (out of 132 songs): 85
Billboard Ranking (out of 50 songs): NR

Vulture Ranking (104 out of 165 songs): This is a downright comical example of how bad Pink Floyd was immediately post-Barrett. Waters’s junk heap of dumb musical ideas marries wan Beatle-isms to wacky rhythms, a circusy break, and sideways lurches into psychedelia, all recorded poorly and overlaid with a dreadful set of lyrics. These might have been meant as a jaunty McCartney-esque picaresque, but they come off as cruel; Waters’s own experience with the war (which took his father when he was a tot) surely argues against reading this as a mocking take on a war amputee, but it’s not entirely clear why or how.

UCR Ranking (111 out of 167 songs): Another recording that dates from Floyd’s uneasy transition from a band under Barrett’s leadership, the Waters-penned song features a rare lead vocal from Nick Mason, a kazoo played by David Gilmour and bouts of laughter in the backing vocals. It’s kind of fun, which is disturbing for a tune about an unstable veteran (the first hint of Waters’ World War II obsession).

Up next, another war themed song from a decade later.
Thanks for the writeup! How did Mookie Gizzy rank this @ 23?
Because I like the song? It’s a song you’d never hear played on FM radio, and I mixed it up a bit instead of going all Dark Side, Wish and Wall
Makes perfect sense - everyone has their own individual taste in their top 25 (recall that I was the only one who had "Lucifer Sam" in their top 25). When you have 25 songs to choose from and a few of the big albums have only a few songs among them, the rest is going to vary.
 
#91-T - The Hero Returns (Parts 1 & 2) from B Side and The Final Cut (1983)

Appeared On: 1 ballot (out of 32 . . . 3.1%)
Total Points: 3 points (out of 800 possible points . . . 0.38%)
Top Ranker: @Anarchy99
Highest Ranking: 23

Live Performances:
PF
:None
DG's PF: None
DG: None
RW: None
NM: None

Covers: 3chevedonoilrE, 8-Bit Arcade

Another one of my selections, the song started out called Teacher, Teacher with completely different lyrics for use on The Wall. It ended up as the B Side to Not Now John, and even thought it was not released on its own, it reached #31 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock Chart.

Schoolboy, schoolboy, did you hear what I said? / How am I supposed to make you see the light? / It's hard enough to sleepwalk through the day / Without some creepy little boy like you
Bombarding my lonely shell / Glimpses of half-open doors / Gleams in the night that I might well have followed myself
Teacher, teacher, you might as well be dead / All those years you tried to suck my brain away / It was hard enough to drag myself from bed / Without some crazy lunatic like you
Bombarding my still soft shell / Sticks and stones that you found lying around / In the pile of unspeakable feelings, you found
When you turn back the stone / Turned over the stone / Of your own disappointment / Back home

By the time it made it to The Final Cut or as a B Side (extended by 1:06), it had morphed into a song mainly about a soldier's return home and how he struggles to understand why he fought and what he must do to cope with the struggle of knowing that not all of his friends made it back. Also coping with the horrors of war, in particular the Bombing of Dresden that caused unnecessary death and destruction to civilians (that killed up to an an estimated 35,000 people).
Waters wrote all of the songs on The Final Cut, and he sings about the homecoming of a soldier who needs understanding but receives adulation, which does him no good. Waters was very much antiwar, as he saw the trauma inflicted on the returning soldiers. He says that the character in this song is the teacher portrayed in the 1979 Pink Floyd album The Wall - a person with considerable demons whose only job prospect is in the school system. At the end of this song, we learn that our hero is haunted by hearing his war comrade's dying voice over an intercom. The song references "the lunatic" from Brain Damage and "the machine" from the Wish You Where Here album.

I picked this one because, oddly enough, I can somewhat relate to Waters' father and Roger growing up without a father. My situation was not quite as dire, but my father fought in WWII and had some great war stories. He grew up in Washington, DC and knew someone with political clout that got him a job in DC at the office that ran the Panama Canal to keep him from being drafted (he was 18 when the war started in 1939). He apparently had some friends that were musicians, and he fancied himself as an ensemble that played big band music. As part of his deal to get out of the war, they played a lot of high brow government functions and high brow events. My father wasn't a musician, but he was the conductor and musical director. He called the band Ace Hutkins and His Orchestra and other times Ace Hutkins & The Band Of Renown. (That wasn't his name.)

Eventually, my father's political contact could no long protect him (he had been labelled as an essential and mission critical employee to the government's operation of the Panama Canal). After 5 years working for the canal, he got drafted into the Army in 1944 and was sent to serve in Italy (which was considered a kooshy assignment as there really hadn't been much action where he was sent). Dad wasn't exactly officer material, so he went through infantry training and was picked to be a machine gunner.

It was a dream location in the beginning, as he spent time in scenic Tuscany canoodling with fledgling young Italian coeds. To say dad was a playa would be an understatement. Decades later, we found boxes of WWII pictures of him with all sorts of women. But the dream turned to nightmare fairly quickly, as one day there was an offensive that resulted in many injured and dismembered soldiers returning to camp. Dad got sent to the front line on the Italian / Austrian border with heavy fighting. As he was getting dropped at the line, a message came through that he was not to go into battle. The assistant to a general had been killed in an attack, and my father was sent for because he new shorthand. Everyone else in the truck with him that day died within 3 days.

He became the right hand man for the general (don't remember his name), but even that turned dangerous. One night, mobile HQ was under attack (as the enemy thought the general was there but he wasn't). Many of the soldiers in his unit died that night, and some of the soldiers bailed and deserted. My father stuck around and was sending coded messages about what was happening during the battle. He ended up getting shot (not seriously wounded) and earned a Bronze Star for bravery for calling in locations of the enemy for air and artillery support to thwart the attack.

He returned to the States and met my mother. She, too, had been impacted by the war. Her mother was from Germany, and my grandmother's 8 brothers were killed fighting for the Germans. She met my grandfather when the Americans came to liberate Germany and married him without speaking a word of English. My father's parents were from Russia / Ukraine, and they emigrated to the U.S. during the Russian Revolution (and also did not speak a lick of English). As I think of it, the older generation of my family all fought against each other.

Things didn't work out between my parents. They separated when I was 6 and divorced when I was 8. Divorces weren't as common then, and I never really had much of a relationship with my father. I remember at one point when he was in his mid-50's when I was in elementary school him dating a Venezuelan model that was a dead ringer for an early 20's Ana de Armas. I never really got to know dad that well (limited visitation time), and he died in the 1990's.

Anyway, that's one of the reasons I relate to The Hero's Return (and other RW anti-war tribunals). Life has a weird way of somehow coming together. My father could very easily have been killed off over 20 years before I was born. But some how, some way, he wasn't, and I am here to compile a list of PF songs.

Vulture Ranking (out of 165 songs): 112
Ultimate Classic Rock Ranking (out of 167 songs): 109
Louder Ranking (out of 50 songs): NR
WMGK Ranking (out of 40 songs): NR
Ranker Ranking (out of 132 songs): NR
Billboard Ranking (out of 50 songs): NR

Vulture Ranking (112 out of 165 songs): Here the hero-teacher of The Final Cut, back from the war, ruminates on his new charges, how he can’t talk to his wife, and how the memories of the war won’t leave him. Aside from some U2-like delay on the guitar, it’s pretty unmemorable, though it works all right as a bit of plot.

UCR Ranking (109 out of 167 songs): Even if it’s more sonically exciting than half of the tracks on The Final Cut, The Hero’s Return still sounds like the disjointed The Wall leftover that it is. Like One of the Few, Waters uses the song as backstory for his war-veteran school teacher and the desperate memories that made him a broken man.

Coming up, another track from The Wall. SPOILER ALERT: It is NOT Comfortably Numb.
 
Last edited:
#91-T - Corporal Clegg from A Saucerful Of Secrets (1968)

Appeared On: 1 ballot (out of 32 . . . 3.1%)
Total Points: 3 points (out of 800 possible points . . . 0.25%)
Top Ranker: @Mookie Gizzy
Highest Ranking: 23

Live Performances:
PF
: 3 (Brussels - 1968-02-19 (Lip synced)
DG's PF: None
DG: None
RW: None
NM: None

Covers: Samarin, Morgan & Hull LLP

If nothing else, Sixties Floyd was always different. Corporate Clegg is a Rogers composition and is the only PF song to feature vocals by Gilmour, Wright, and Mason (without Waters). The title was chosen as a reference to Thaddeus Von Clegg, the inventor of the kazoo, hence the section where kazoos are played (by DG). It also has a brass ensemble called The Stanley Myers Orchestra.

The song is about a soldier who lost his leg in World War II, and his apparently alcoholic wife. It is the first mention of war in a Pink Floyd song, something that would become a common theme in Roger Waters' lyrics, Roger having lost his father in 1944. This can be seen as rather lighter in tone than Pink Floyd's later approach to war as a theme / topic. Among the scrambled voices towards the end we hear an officer telling his one-legged man: "Clegg! Been meaning to speak to you. About that leg of yours! You're excused parade from now on!"

Drummer Nick Mason sang the lines, "He won it in the war... in orange red and blue... he's never been the same... and from her majesty the queen." It was Mason's only vocal contribution until Pink Floyd's sixth album, Meddle, in 1971. The band made a video for the song. The song was "performed" live three times, but the band essentially lip synced on TV while the studio track played.

Roger Waters told Mojo magazine over 40 years after the song was released that the song is autobiographical. He explained: "Corporal Clegg is about my father and his sacrifice in World War II. It's somewhat sarcastic - the idea of the wooden leg being something you won in the war, like a trophy."

To give people a sense of the timeline, Nick Mason asked David Gilmour to join the band right before Christmas in 1967. They made their debut as a five-piece with Syd Barrett and David Gilmour at the University of Aston in Birmingham on 1968-01-12. It is believed that line-up performed together only 4 times. Pink Floyd played their first gig without Syd Barrett at Southampton University on 1968-01-26. T-Rex with Marc Bolan opened the show. The new version of Floyd entered Abbey Road studios to begin recording A Saucerful Of Secrets on 1968-02-01. (That first week of recording, The Beatles were there recording Lady Madonna, Across The Universe, The Inner Light, and Hey Bulldog.) The band started touring on 1968-02-17 (and played Careful With That Axe, Eugene for the first time). Gilmour went from joining the band, to recording an album, to touring and performing new material in 8 weeks.

Vulture Ranking (out of 165 songs): 104
Ultimate Classic Rock Ranking (out of 167 songs): 111
Louder Ranking (out of 50 songs): NR
WMGK Ranking (out of 40 songs): NR
Ranker Ranking (out of 132 songs): 85
Billboard Ranking (out of 50 songs): NR

Vulture Ranking (104 out of 165 songs): This is a downright comical example of how bad Pink Floyd was immediately post-Barrett. Waters’s junk heap of dumb musical ideas marries wan Beatle-isms to wacky rhythms, a circusy break, and sideways lurches into psychedelia, all recorded poorly and overlaid with a dreadful set of lyrics. These might have been meant as a jaunty McCartney-esque picaresque, but they come off as cruel; Waters’s own experience with the war (which took his father when he was a tot) surely argues against reading this as a mocking take on a war amputee, but it’s not entirely clear why or how.

UCR Ranking (111 out of 167 songs): Another recording that dates from Floyd’s uneasy transition from a band under Barrett’s leadership, the Waters-penned song features a rare lead vocal from Nick Mason, a kazoo played by David Gilmour and bouts of laughter in the backing vocals. It’s kind of fun, which is disturbing for a tune about an unstable veteran (the first hint of Waters’ World War II obsession).

Up next, another war themed song from a decade later.
Thanks for the writeup! How did Mookie Gizzy rank this @ 23?
Because I like the song? It’s a song you’d never hear played on FM radio, and I mixed it up a bit instead of going all Dark Side, Wish and Wall
Makes perfect sense - everyone has their own individual taste in their top 25 (recall that I was the only one who had "Lucifer Sam" in their top 25). When you have 25 songs to choose from and a few of the big albums have only a few songs among them, the rest is going to vary.
It’s all good. If I remember correctly I had a bunch of songs go early in the Zep countdown, too.
 
#91-T - Corporal Clegg from A Saucerful Of Secrets (1968)

Appeared On: 1 ballot (out of 32 . . . 3.1%)
Total Points: 3 points (out of 800 possible points . . . 0.38%)
Top Ranker: @Mookie Gizzy
Highest Ranking: 23

Live Performances:
PF
: 3 (Brussels - 1968-02-19 (Lip synced)
DG's PF: None
DG: None
RW: None
NM: None

Covers: Samarin, Morgan & Hull LLP, Brain Candies, Zуммеры

If nothing else, Sixties Floyd was always different. Corporate Clegg is a Rogers composition and is the only PF song to feature vocals by Gilmour, Wright, and Mason (without Waters). The title was chosen as a reference to Thaddeus Von Clegg, the inventor of the kazoo, hence the section where kazoos are played (by DG). It also has a brass ensemble called The Stanley Myers Orchestra.

The song is about a soldier who lost his leg in World War II, and his apparently alcoholic wife. It is the first mention of war in a Pink Floyd song, something that would become a common theme in Roger Waters' lyrics, Roger having lost his father in 1944. This can be seen as rather lighter in tone than Pink Floyd's later approach to war as a theme / topic. Among the scrambled voices towards the end we hear an officer telling his one-legged man: "Clegg! Been meaning to speak to you. About that leg of yours! You're excused parade from now on!"

Drummer Nick Mason sang the lines, "He won it in the war... in orange red and blue... he's never been the same... and from her majesty the queen." It was Mason's only vocal contribution until Pink Floyd's sixth album, Meddle, in 1971. The band made a video for the song. The song was "performed" live three times, but the band essentially lip synced on TV while the studio track played.

Roger Waters told Mojo magazine over 40 years after the song was released that the song is autobiographical. He explained: "Corporal Clegg is about my father and his sacrifice in World War II. It's somewhat sarcastic - the idea of the wooden leg being something you won in the war, like a trophy."

To give people a sense of the timeline, Nick Mason asked David Gilmour to join the band right before Christmas in 1967. They made their debut as a five-piece with Syd Barrett and David Gilmour at the University of Aston in Birmingham on 1968-01-12. It is believed that line-up performed together only 4 times. Pink Floyd played their first gig without Syd Barrett at Southampton University on 1968-01-26. T-Rex with Marc Bolan opened the show. The new version of Floyd entered Abbey Road studios to begin recording A Saucerful Of Secrets on 1968-02-01. (That first week of recording, The Beatles were there recording Lady Madonna, Across The Universe, The Inner Light, and Hey Bulldog.) The band started touring on 1968-02-17 (and played Careful With That Axe, Eugene for the first time). Gilmour went from joining the band, to recording an album, to touring and performing new material in 8 weeks.

Vulture Ranking (out of 165 songs): 104
Ultimate Classic Rock Ranking (out of 167 songs): 111
Louder Ranking (out of 50 songs): NR
WMGK Ranking (out of 40 songs): NR
Ranker Ranking (out of 132 songs): 85
Billboard Ranking (out of 50 songs): NR

Vulture Ranking (104 out of 165 songs): This is a downright comical example of how bad Pink Floyd was immediately post-Barrett. Waters’s junk heap of dumb musical ideas marries wan Beatle-isms to wacky rhythms, a circusy break, and sideways lurches into psychedelia, all recorded poorly and overlaid with a dreadful set of lyrics. These might have been meant as a jaunty McCartney-esque picaresque, but they come off as cruel; Waters’s own experience with the war (which took his father when he was a tot) surely argues against reading this as a mocking take on a war amputee, but it’s not entirely clear why or how.

UCR Ranking (111 out of 167 songs): Another recording that dates from Floyd’s uneasy transition from a band under Barrett’s leadership, the Waters-penned song features a rare lead vocal from Nick Mason, a kazoo played by David Gilmour and bouts of laughter in the backing vocals. It’s kind of fun, which is disturbing for a tune about an unstable veteran (the first hint of Waters’ World War II obsession).

Up next, another war themed song from a decade later.
Never heard this before. I just listened to it prior to reading your write up. And was saying to myself, WTF is that a kazoo? Then the chorus of them chimed in later. Confirmation with your write up. Unique!
 
#91-T - The Hero Returns (Parts 1 & 2) from B Side and The Final Cut (1983)

Appeared On: 1 ballot (out of 32 . . . 3.1%)
Total Points: 3 points (out of 800 possible points . . . 0.38%)
Top Ranker: @Anarchy99
Highest Ranking: 23

Live Performances:
PF
:None
DG's PF: None
DG: None
RW: None
NM: None

Covers: 3chevedonoilrE, 8-Bit Arcade

Another one of my selections, the song started out called Teacher, Teacher with completely different lyrics for use on The Wall. It ended up as the B Side to Not Now John, and even thought it was not released on its own, it reached #31 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock Chart.

Schoolboy, schoolboy, did you hear what I said? / How am I supposed to make you see the light? / It's hard enough to sleepwalk through the day / Without some creepy little boy like you
Bombarding my lonely shell / Glimpses of half-open doors / Gleams in the night that I might well have followed myself
Teacher, teacher, you might as well be dead / All those years you tried to suck my brain away / It was hard enough to drag myself from bed / Without some crazy lunatic like you
Bombarding my still soft shell / Sticks and stones that you found lying around / In the pile of unspeakable feelings, you found
When you turn back the stone / Turned over the stone / Of your own disappointment / Back home

By the time it made it to The Final Cut or as a B Side (extended by 1:06), it had morphed into a song mainly about a soldier's return home and how he struggles to understand why he fought and what he must do to cope with the struggle of knowing that not all of his friends made it back. Also coping with the horrors of war, in particular the Bombing of Dresden that caused unnecessary death and destruction to civilians (that killed up to an an estimated 35,000 people).
Waters wrote all of the songs on The Final Cut, and he sings about the homecoming of a soldier who needs understanding but receives adulation, which does him no good. Waters was very much antiwar, as he saw the trauma inflicted on the returning soldiers. He says that the character in this song is the teacher portrayed in the 1979 Pink Floyd album The Wall - a person with considerable demons whose only job prospect is in the school system. At the end of this song, we learn that our hero is haunted by hearing his war comrade's dying voice over an intercom. The song references "the lunatic" from Brain Damage and "the machine" from the Wish You Where Here album.

I picked this one because, oddly enough, I can somewhat relate to Waters' father and Roger growing up without a father. My situation was not quite as dire, but my father fought in WWII and had some great war stories. He grew up in Washington, DC and knew someone with political clout that got him a job in DC at the office that ran the Panama Canal to keep him from being drafted (he was 18 when the war started in 1939). He apparently had some friends that were musicians, and he fancied himself as an ensemble that played big band music. As part of his deal to get out of the war, they played a lot of high brow government functions and high brow events. My father wasn't a musician, but he was the conductor and musical director. He called the band Ace Hutkins and His Orchestra and other times Ace Hutkins & The Band Of Renown. (That wasn't his name.)

Eventually, my father's political contact could no long protect him (he had been labelled as an essential and mission critical employee to the government's operation of the Panama Canal). After 5 years working for the canal, he got drafted into the Army in 1944 and was sent to serve in Italy (which was considered a kooshy assignment as there really hadn't been much action where he was sent). Dad wasn't exactly officer material, so he went through infantry training and was picked to be a machine gunner.

It was a dream location in the beginning, as he spent time in scenic Tuscany canoodling with fledgling young Italian coeds. To say dad was a playa would be an understatement. Decades later, we found boxes of WWII pictures of him with all sorts of women. But the dream turned to nightmare fairly quickly, as one day there was an offensive that resulted in many injured and dismembered soldiers returning to camp. Dad got sent to the front line on the Italian / Austrian border with heavy fighting. As he was getting dropped at the line, a message came through that he was not to go into battle. The assistant to a general had been killed in an attack, and my father was sent for because he new shorthand. Everyone else in the truck with him that day died within 3 days.

He became the right hand man for the general (don't remember his name), but even that turned dangerous. One night, mobile HQ was under attack (as the enemy thought the general was there but he wasn't). Many of the soldiers in his unit died that night, and some of the soldiers bailed and deserted. My father stuck around and was sending coded messages about what was happening during the battle. He ended up getting shot (not seriously wounded) and earned a Bronze Star for bravery for calling in locations of the enemy for air and artillery support to thwart the attack.

He returned to the States and met my mother. She, too, had been impacted by the war. Her mother was from Germany, and my grandmother's 8 brothers were killed fighting for the Germans. She met my grandfather when the Americans came to liberate Germany and married him without speaking a word of English. My father's parents were from Russia / Ukraine, and they emigrated to the U.S. during the Russian Revolution (and also did not speak a lick of English). As I think of it, the older generation of my family all fought against each other.

Things didn't work out between my parents. They separated when I was 6 and divorced when I was 8. Divorces weren't as common then, and I never really had much of a relationship with my father. I remember at one point when he was in his mid-50's when I was in elementary school him dating a Venezuelan model that was a dead ringer for an early 20's Ana de Armas. I never really got to know dad that well (limited visitation time), and he died in the 1990's.

Anyway, that's one of the reasons I relate to The Hero's Return (and other RW anti-war tribunals). Life has a weird way of somehow coming together. My father could very easily have been killed off over 20 years before I was born. But some how, some way, he wasn't, and I am here to compile a list of PF songs.
Vulture Ranking (out of 165 songs): 112
Ultimate Classic Rock Ranking (out of 167 songs): 109
Louder Ranking (out of 50 songs): NR
WMGK Ranking (out of 40 songs): NR
Ranker Ranking (out of 132 songs): NR
Billboard Ranking (out of 50 songs): NR

Vulture Ranking (112 out of 165 songs): Here the hero-teacher of The Final Cut, back from the war, ruminates on his new charges, how he can’t talk to his wife, and how the memories of the war won’t leave him. Aside from some U2-like delay on the guitar, it’s pretty unmemorable, though it works all right as a bit of plot.

UCR Ranking (109 out of 167 songs): Even if it’s more sonically exciting than half of the tracks on The Final Cut, The Hero’s Return still sounds like the disjointed The Wall leftover that it is. Like One of the Few, Waters uses the song as backstory for his war-veteran school teacher and the desperate memories that made him a broken man.

Coming up, another track from The Wall. SPOILER ALERT: It is NOT Comfortably Numb.
I find most of The Final Cut to be a slog musically, but this track is not, thanks to its U2-ish guitars. Still, your writeup is far more interesting than the song itself.
 
#91-T - Corporal Clegg from A Saucerful Of Secrets (1968)

Appeared On: 1 ballot (out of 32 . . . 3.1%)
Total Points: 3 points (out of 800 possible points . . . 0.38%)
Top Ranker: @Mookie Gizzy
Highest Ranking: 23

Live Performances:
PF
: 3 (Brussels - 1968-02-19 (Lip synced)
DG's PF: None
DG: None
RW: None
NM: None

Covers: Samarin, Morgan & Hull LLP, Brain Candies, Zуммеры

If nothing else, Sixties Floyd was always different. Corporate Clegg is a Rogers composition and is the only PF song to feature vocals by Gilmour, Wright, and Mason (without Waters). The title was chosen as a reference to Thaddeus Von Clegg, the inventor of the kazoo, hence the section where kazoos are played (by DG). It also has a brass ensemble called The Stanley Myers Orchestra.

The song is about a soldier who lost his leg in World War II, and his apparently alcoholic wife. It is the first mention of war in a Pink Floyd song, something that would become a common theme in Roger Waters' lyrics, Roger having lost his father in 1944. This can be seen as rather lighter in tone than Pink Floyd's later approach to war as a theme / topic. Among the scrambled voices towards the end we hear an officer telling his one-legged man: "Clegg! Been meaning to speak to you. About that leg of yours! You're excused parade from now on!"

Drummer Nick Mason sang the lines, "He won it in the war... in orange red and blue... he's never been the same... and from her majesty the queen." It was Mason's only vocal contribution until Pink Floyd's sixth album, Meddle, in 1971. The band made a video for the song. The song was "performed" live three times, but the band essentially lip synced on TV while the studio track played.

Roger Waters told Mojo magazine over 40 years after the song was released that the song is autobiographical. He explained: "Corporal Clegg is about my father and his sacrifice in World War II. It's somewhat sarcastic - the idea of the wooden leg being something you won in the war, like a trophy."

To give people a sense of the timeline, Nick Mason asked David Gilmour to join the band right before Christmas in 1967. They made their debut as a five-piece with Syd Barrett and David Gilmour at the University of Aston in Birmingham on 1968-01-12. It is believed that line-up performed together only 4 times. Pink Floyd played their first gig without Syd Barrett at Southampton University on 1968-01-26. T-Rex with Marc Bolan opened the show. The new version of Floyd entered Abbey Road studios to begin recording A Saucerful Of Secrets on 1968-02-01. (That first week of recording, The Beatles were there recording Lady Madonna, Across The Universe, The Inner Light, and Hey Bulldog.) The band started touring on 1968-02-17 (and played Careful With That Axe, Eugene for the first time). Gilmour went from joining the band, to recording an album, to touring and performing new material in 8 weeks.

Vulture Ranking (out of 165 songs): 104
Ultimate Classic Rock Ranking (out of 167 songs): 111
Louder Ranking (out of 50 songs): NR
WMGK Ranking (out of 40 songs): NR
Ranker Ranking (out of 132 songs): 85
Billboard Ranking (out of 50 songs): NR

Vulture Ranking (104 out of 165 songs): This is a downright comical example of how bad Pink Floyd was immediately post-Barrett. Waters’s junk heap of dumb musical ideas marries wan Beatle-isms to wacky rhythms, a circusy break, and sideways lurches into psychedelia, all recorded poorly and overlaid with a dreadful set of lyrics. These might have been meant as a jaunty McCartney-esque picaresque, but they come off as cruel; Waters’s own experience with the war (which took his father when he was a tot) surely argues against reading this as a mocking take on a war amputee, but it’s not entirely clear why or how.

UCR Ranking (111 out of 167 songs): Another recording that dates from Floyd’s uneasy transition from a band under Barrett’s leadership, the Waters-penned song features a rare lead vocal from Nick Mason, a kazoo played by David Gilmour and bouts of laughter in the backing vocals. It’s kind of fun, which is disturbing for a tune about an unstable veteran (the first hint of Waters’ World War II obsession).

Up next, another war themed song from a decade later.
Never heard this before. I just listened to it prior to reading your write up. And was saying to myself, WTF is that a kazoo? Then the chorus of them chimed in later. Confirmation with your write up. Unique!
It seems like they were trying to do a Syd Barrett song without Syd Barrett.
 
#91-T - The Hero Returns (Parts 1 & 2) from B Side and The Final Cut (1983)

Appeared On: 1 ballot (out of 32 . . . 3.1%)
Total Points: 3 points (out of 800 possible points . . . 0.38%)
Top Ranker: @Anarchy99
Highest Ranking: 23

Live Performances:
PF
:None
DG's PF: None
DG: None
RW: None
NM: None

Covers: 3chevedonoilrE, 8-Bit Arcade

Another one of my selections, the song started out called Teacher, Teacher with completely different lyrics for use on The Wall. It ended up as the B Side to Not Now John, and even thought it was not released on its own, it reached #31 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock Chart.

Schoolboy, schoolboy, did you hear what I said? / How am I supposed to make you see the light? / It's hard enough to sleepwalk through the day / Without some creepy little boy like you
Bombarding my lonely shell / Glimpses of half-open doors / Gleams in the night that I might well have followed myself
Teacher, teacher, you might as well be dead / All those years you tried to suck my brain away / It was hard enough to drag myself from bed / Without some crazy lunatic like you
Bombarding my still soft shell / Sticks and stones that you found lying around / In the pile of unspeakable feelings, you found
When you turn back the stone / Turned over the stone / Of your own disappointment / Back home

By the time it made it to The Final Cut or as a B Side (extended by 1:06), it had morphed into a song mainly about a soldier's return home and how he struggles to understand why he fought and what he must do to cope with the struggle of knowing that not all of his friends made it back. Also coping with the horrors of war, in particular the Bombing of Dresden that caused unnecessary death and destruction to civilians (that killed up to an an estimated 35,000 people).
Waters wrote all of the songs on The Final Cut, and he sings about the homecoming of a soldier who needs understanding but receives adulation, which does him no good. Waters was very much antiwar, as he saw the trauma inflicted on the returning soldiers. He says that the character in this song is the teacher portrayed in the 1979 Pink Floyd album The Wall - a person with considerable demons whose only job prospect is in the school system. At the end of this song, we learn that our hero is haunted by hearing his war comrade's dying voice over an intercom. The song references "the lunatic" from Brain Damage and "the machine" from the Wish You Where Here album.

I picked this one because, oddly enough, I can somewhat relate to Waters' father and Roger growing up without a father. My situation was not quite as dire, but my father fought in WWII and had some great war stories. He grew up in Washington, DC and knew someone with political clout that got him a job in DC at the office that ran the Panama Canal to keep him from being drafted (he was 18 when the war started in 1939). He apparently had some friends that were musicians, and he fancied himself as an ensemble that played big band music. As part of his deal to get out of the war, they played a lot of high brow government functions and high brow events. My father wasn't a musician, but he was the conductor and musical director. He called the band Ace Hutkins and His Orchestra and other times Ace Hutkins & The Band Of Renown. (That wasn't his name.)

Eventually, my father's political contact could no long protect him (he had been labelled as an essential and mission critical employee to the government's operation of the Panama Canal). After 5 years working for the canal, he got drafted into the Army in 1944 and was sent to serve in Italy (which was considered a kooshy assignment as there really hadn't been much action where he was sent). Dad wasn't exactly officer material, so he went through infantry training and was picked to be a machine gunner.

It was a dream location in the beginning, as he spent time in scenic Tuscany canoodling with fledgling young Italian coeds. To say dad was a playa would be an understatement. Decades later, we found boxes of WWII pictures of him with all sorts of women. But the dream turned to nightmare fairly quickly, as one day there was an offensive that resulted in many injured and dismembered soldiers returning to camp. Dad got sent to the front line on the Italian / Austrian border with heavy fighting. As he was getting dropped at the line, a message came through that he was not to go into battle. The assistant to a general had been killed in an attack, and my father was sent for because he new shorthand. Everyone else in the truck with him that day died within 3 days.

He became the right hand man for the general (don't remember his name), but even that turned dangerous. One night, mobile HQ was under attack (as the enemy thought the general was there but he wasn't). Many of the soldiers in his unit died that night, and some of the soldiers bailed and deserted. My father stuck around and was sending coded messages about what was happening during the battle. He ended up getting shot (not seriously wounded) and earned a Bronze Star for bravery for calling in locations of the enemy for air and artillery support to thwart the attack.

He returned to the States and met my mother. She, too, had been impacted by the war. Her mother was from Germany, and my grandmother's 8 brothers were killed fighting for the Germans. She met my grandfather when the Americans came to liberate Germany and married him without speaking a word of English. My father's parents were from Russia / Ukraine, and they emigrated to the U.S. during the Russian Revolution (and also did not speak a lick of English). As I think of it, the older generation of my family all fought against each other.

Things didn't work out between my parents. They separated when I was 6 and divorced when I was 8. Divorces weren't as common then, and I never really had much of a relationship with my father. I remember at one point when he was in his mid-50's when I was in elementary school him dating a Venezuelan model that was a dead ringer for an early 20's Ana de Armas. I never really got to know dad that well (limited visitation time), and he died in the 1990's.

Anyway, that's one of the reasons I relate to The Hero's Return (and other RW anti-war tribunals). Life has a weird way of somehow coming together. My father could very easily have been killed off over 20 years before I was born. But some how, some way, he wasn't, and I am here to compile a list of PF songs.
Vulture Ranking (out of 165 songs): 112
Ultimate Classic Rock Ranking (out of 167 songs): 109
Louder Ranking (out of 50 songs): NR
WMGK Ranking (out of 40 songs): NR
Ranker Ranking (out of 132 songs): NR
Billboard Ranking (out of 50 songs): NR

Vulture Ranking (112 out of 165 songs): Here the hero-teacher of The Final Cut, back from the war, ruminates on his new charges, how he can’t talk to his wife, and how the memories of the war won’t leave him. Aside from some U2-like delay on the guitar, it’s pretty unmemorable, though it works all right as a bit of plot.

UCR Ranking (109 out of 167 songs): Even if it’s more sonically exciting than half of the tracks on The Final Cut, The Hero’s Return still sounds like the disjointed The Wall leftover that it is. Like One of the Few, Waters uses the song as backstory for his war-veteran school teacher and the desperate memories that made him a broken man.

Coming up, another track from The Wall. SPOILER ALERT: It is NOT Comfortably Numb.
I find most of The Final Cut to be a slog musically, but this track is not, thanks to its U2-ish guitars. Still, your writeup is far more interesting than the song itself.
I was going write something similar. Decent song but great write up. This is a great thread already and it’s realky early in the game.
 
#91-T - Corporal Clegg from A Saucerful Of Secrets (1968)

Appeared On: 1 ballot (out of 32 . . . 3.1%)
Total Points: 3 points (out of 800 possible points . . . 0.25%)
Top Ranker: @Mookie Gizzy
Highest Ranking: 23

Live Performances:
PF
: 3 (Brussels - 1968-02-19 (Lip synced)
DG's PF: None
DG: None
RW: None
NM: None

Covers: Samarin, Morgan & Hull LLP

If nothing else, Sixties Floyd was always different. Corporate Clegg is a Rogers composition and is the only PF song to feature vocals by Gilmour, Wright, and Mason (without Waters). The title was chosen as a reference to Thaddeus Von Clegg, the inventor of the kazoo, hence the section where kazoos are played (by DG). It also has a brass ensemble called The Stanley Myers Orchestra.

The song is about a soldier who lost his leg in World War II, and his apparently alcoholic wife. It is the first mention of war in a Pink Floyd song, something that would become a common theme in Roger Waters' lyrics, Roger having lost his father in 1944. This can be seen as rather lighter in tone than Pink Floyd's later approach to war as a theme / topic. Among the scrambled voices towards the end we hear an officer telling his one-legged man: "Clegg! Been meaning to speak to you. About that leg of yours! You're excused parade from now on!"

Drummer Nick Mason sang the lines, "He won it in the war... in orange red and blue... he's never been the same... and from her majesty the queen." It was Mason's only vocal contribution until Pink Floyd's sixth album, Meddle, in 1971. The band made a video for the song. The song was "performed" live three times, but the band essentially lip synced on TV while the studio track played.

Roger Waters told Mojo magazine over 40 years after the song was released that the song is autobiographical. He explained: "Corporal Clegg is about my father and his sacrifice in World War II. It's somewhat sarcastic - the idea of the wooden leg being something you won in the war, like a trophy."

To give people a sense of the timeline, Nick Mason asked David Gilmour to join the band right before Christmas in 1967. They made their debut as a five-piece with Syd Barrett and David Gilmour at the University of Aston in Birmingham on 1968-01-12. It is believed that line-up performed together only 4 times. Pink Floyd played their first gig without Syd Barrett at Southampton University on 1968-01-26. T-Rex with Marc Bolan opened the show. The new version of Floyd entered Abbey Road studios to begin recording A Saucerful Of Secrets on 1968-02-01. (That first week of recording, The Beatles were there recording Lady Madonna, Across The Universe, The Inner Light, and Hey Bulldog.) The band started touring on 1968-02-17 (and played Careful With That Axe, Eugene for the first time). Gilmour went from joining the band, to recording an album, to touring and performing new material in 8 weeks.

Vulture Ranking (out of 165 songs): 104
Ultimate Classic Rock Ranking (out of 167 songs): 111
Louder Ranking (out of 50 songs): NR
WMGK Ranking (out of 40 songs): NR
Ranker Ranking (out of 132 songs): 85
Billboard Ranking (out of 50 songs): NR

Vulture Ranking (104 out of 165 songs): This is a downright comical example of how bad Pink Floyd was immediately post-Barrett. Waters’s junk heap of dumb musical ideas marries wan Beatle-isms to wacky rhythms, a circusy break, and sideways lurches into psychedelia, all recorded poorly and overlaid with a dreadful set of lyrics. These might have been meant as a jaunty McCartney-esque picaresque, but they come off as cruel; Waters’s own experience with the war (which took his father when he was a tot) surely argues against reading this as a mocking take on a war amputee, but it’s not entirely clear why or how.

UCR Ranking (111 out of 167 songs): Another recording that dates from Floyd’s uneasy transition from a band under Barrett’s leadership, the Waters-penned song features a rare lead vocal from Nick Mason, a kazoo played by David Gilmour and bouts of laughter in the backing vocals. It’s kind of fun, which is disturbing for a tune about an unstable veteran (the first hint of Waters’ World War II obsession).

Up next, another war themed song from a decade later.
Thanks for the writeup! How did Mookie Gizzy rank this @ 23?
Because I like the song? It’s a song you’d never hear played on FM radio, and I mixed it up a bit instead of going all Dark Side, Wish and Wall
Makes perfect sense - everyone has their own individual taste in their top 25 (recall that I was the only one who had "Lucifer Sam" in their top 25). When you have 25 songs to choose from and a few of the big albums have only a few songs among them, the rest is going to vary.
It’s all good. If I remember correctly I had a bunch of songs go early in the Zep countdown, too.
A lot of my list is PF chalk, but I have two or three that might draw some giggles. I think one might be next. But that's what makes this fun.
 
#91-T - Corporal Clegg from A Saucerful Of Secrets (1968)

Appeared On: 1 ballot (out of 32 . . . 3.1%)
Total Points: 3 points (out of 800 possible points . . . 0.25%)
Top Ranker: @Mookie Gizzy
Highest Ranking: 23

Live Performances:
PF
: 3 (Brussels - 1968-02-19 (Lip synced)
DG's PF: None
DG: None
RW: None
NM: None

Covers: Samarin, Morgan & Hull LLP

If nothing else, Sixties Floyd was always different. Corporate Clegg is a Rogers composition and is the only PF song to feature vocals by Gilmour, Wright, and Mason (without Waters). The title was chosen as a reference to Thaddeus Von Clegg, the inventor of the kazoo, hence the section where kazoos are played (by DG). It also has a brass ensemble called The Stanley Myers Orchestra.

The song is about a soldier who lost his leg in World War II, and his apparently alcoholic wife. It is the first mention of war in a Pink Floyd song, something that would become a common theme in Roger Waters' lyrics, Roger having lost his father in 1944. This can be seen as rather lighter in tone than Pink Floyd's later approach to war as a theme / topic. Among the scrambled voices towards the end we hear an officer telling his one-legged man: "Clegg! Been meaning to speak to you. About that leg of yours! You're excused parade from now on!"

Drummer Nick Mason sang the lines, "He won it in the war... in orange red and blue... he's never been the same... and from her majesty the queen." It was Mason's only vocal contribution until Pink Floyd's sixth album, Meddle, in 1971. The band made a video for the song. The song was "performed" live three times, but the band essentially lip synced on TV while the studio track played.

Roger Waters told Mojo magazine over 40 years after the song was released that the song is autobiographical. He explained: "Corporal Clegg is about my father and his sacrifice in World War II. It's somewhat sarcastic - the idea of the wooden leg being something you won in the war, like a trophy."

To give people a sense of the timeline, Nick Mason asked David Gilmour to join the band right before Christmas in 1967. They made their debut as a five-piece with Syd Barrett and David Gilmour at the University of Aston in Birmingham on 1968-01-12. It is believed that line-up performed together only 4 times. Pink Floyd played their first gig without Syd Barrett at Southampton University on 1968-01-26. T-Rex with Marc Bolan opened the show. The new version of Floyd entered Abbey Road studios to begin recording A Saucerful Of Secrets on 1968-02-01. (That first week of recording, The Beatles were there recording Lady Madonna, Across The Universe, The Inner Light, and Hey Bulldog.) The band started touring on 1968-02-17 (and played Careful With That Axe, Eugene for the first time). Gilmour went from joining the band, to recording an album, to touring and performing new material in 8 weeks.

Vulture Ranking (out of 165 songs): 104
Ultimate Classic Rock Ranking (out of 167 songs): 111
Louder Ranking (out of 50 songs): NR
WMGK Ranking (out of 40 songs): NR
Ranker Ranking (out of 132 songs): 85
Billboard Ranking (out of 50 songs): NR

Vulture Ranking (104 out of 165 songs): This is a downright comical example of how bad Pink Floyd was immediately post-Barrett. Waters’s junk heap of dumb musical ideas marries wan Beatle-isms to wacky rhythms, a circusy break, and sideways lurches into psychedelia, all recorded poorly and overlaid with a dreadful set of lyrics. These might have been meant as a jaunty McCartney-esque picaresque, but they come off as cruel; Waters’s own experience with the war (which took his father when he was a tot) surely argues against reading this as a mocking take on a war amputee, but it’s not entirely clear why or how.

UCR Ranking (111 out of 167 songs): Another recording that dates from Floyd’s uneasy transition from a band under Barrett’s leadership, the Waters-penned song features a rare lead vocal from Nick Mason, a kazoo played by David Gilmour and bouts of laughter in the backing vocals. It’s kind of fun, which is disturbing for a tune about an unstable veteran (the first hint of Waters’ World War II obsession).

Up next, another war themed song from a decade later.
Thanks for the writeup! How did Mookie Gizzy rank this @ 23?
Because I like the song? It’s a song you’d never hear played on FM radio, and I mixed it up a bit instead of going all Dark Side, Wish and Wall
Makes perfect sense - everyone has their own individual taste in their top 25 (recall that I was the only one who had "Lucifer Sam" in their top 25). When you have 25 songs to choose from and a few of the big albums have only a few songs among them, the rest is going to vary.
It’s all good. If I remember correctly I had a bunch of songs go early in the Zep countdown, too.
A lot of my list is PF chalk, but I have two or three that might draw some giggles. I think one might be next. But that's what makes this fun.
My #25 was an "I doubt anyone else cares about this song" pick, but it's still out there, so at least one other person listed it.
 
Time for our first edition of Pink Floyd Tinder . . . featuring @FatMax. Max's list averages 14.2 songs in common with everyone else.

SWIPE RIGHT / WOULD YOU CARE TO COME UP TO MY PLACE FOR A DRINK?
@Yambag (17 similar songs - 9 of the same Top 10)
@BassNBrew (17 + 8)
@lardonastick (17 + 8)
Friend of @PIK95 (17 + 7)
@Yo Mama (17 + 6)

SWIPE LEFT / HE'S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU
@jabarony (9 + 3)
@Mookie Gizzy (10 + 5)
@Pip's Invitation (10 + 6)
@zamboni (10 + 6)

Before people clamor for me to do this for them next, I will get to everyone at some point.
 
Last edited:
Time for our first edition of Pink Floyd Tinder . . . featuring @FatMax. Max's list averages 13.7 songs in common with everyone else.

SWIPE RIGHT / WOULD YOU CARE TO COME UP TO MY PLACE FOR A DRINK?
@Yambag (17 similar songs - 9 of the same Top 10)
@BassNBrew (17 + 8)
@lardonastick (17 + 8)
Friend of @PIK95 (17 + 7)
@Yo Mama (17 + 6)

SWIPE LEFT / HE'S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU
@jabarony (9 + 3)
@Mookie Gizzy (10 + 5)
@Pip's Invitation (10 + 6)
@zamboni (10 + 6)

Before people clamor for me to do this for them next, I will get to everyone at some point.

I'm good with that! Clearly @Yambag is a solid human being with a good taste in music.
 
A lot of my list is PF chalk, but I have two or three that might draw some giggles. I think one might be next. But that's what makes this fun.
You're fooling yourself. The first appearance from any of the songs on your list will be at song #70 (and it's not from The Wall album).
 
A lot of my list is PF chalk, but I have two or three that might draw some giggles. I think one might be next. But that's what makes this fun.
You're fooling yourself. The first appearance from any of the songs on your list will be at song #70 (and it's not from The Wall album).
Ah. Obviously I know what song that will be. Kinda surprised someone else even had it on their list.

You might have posted this somewhere, but how does the scoring system work? 1pt for a 25, 2pts for a 24, etc?
 
#91-T - Corporal Clegg from A Saucerful Of Secrets (1968)

Appeared On: 1 ballot (out of 32 . . . 3.1%)
Total Points: 3 points (out of 800 possible points . . . 0.25%)
Top Ranker: @Mookie Gizzy
Highest Ranking: 23

Live Performances:
PF
: 3 (Brussels - 1968-02-19 (Lip synced)
DG's PF: None
DG: None
RW: None
NM: None

Covers: Samarin, Morgan & Hull LLP

If nothing else, Sixties Floyd was always different. Corporate Clegg is a Rogers composition and is the only PF song to feature vocals by Gilmour, Wright, and Mason (without Waters). The title was chosen as a reference to Thaddeus Von Clegg, the inventor of the kazoo, hence the section where kazoos are played (by DG). It also has a brass ensemble called The Stanley Myers Orchestra.

The song is about a soldier who lost his leg in World War II, and his apparently alcoholic wife. It is the first mention of war in a Pink Floyd song, something that would become a common theme in Roger Waters' lyrics, Roger having lost his father in 1944. This can be seen as rather lighter in tone than Pink Floyd's later approach to war as a theme / topic. Among the scrambled voices towards the end we hear an officer telling his one-legged man: "Clegg! Been meaning to speak to you. About that leg of yours! You're excused parade from now on!"

Drummer Nick Mason sang the lines, "He won it in the war... in orange red and blue... he's never been the same... and from her majesty the queen." It was Mason's only vocal contribution until Pink Floyd's sixth album, Meddle, in 1971. The band made a video for the song. The song was "performed" live three times, but the band essentially lip synced on TV while the studio track played.

Roger Waters told Mojo magazine over 40 years after the song was released that the song is autobiographical. He explained: "Corporal Clegg is about my father and his sacrifice in World War II. It's somewhat sarcastic - the idea of the wooden leg being something you won in the war, like a trophy."

To give people a sense of the timeline, Nick Mason asked David Gilmour to join the band right before Christmas in 1967. They made their debut as a five-piece with Syd Barrett and David Gilmour at the University of Aston in Birmingham on 1968-01-12. It is believed that line-up performed together only 4 times. Pink Floyd played their first gig without Syd Barrett at Southampton University on 1968-01-26. T-Rex with Marc Bolan opened the show. The new version of Floyd entered Abbey Road studios to begin recording A Saucerful Of Secrets on 1968-02-01. (That first week of recording, The Beatles were there recording Lady Madonna, Across The Universe, The Inner Light, and Hey Bulldog.) The band started touring on 1968-02-17 (and played Careful With That Axe, Eugene for the first time). Gilmour went from joining the band, to recording an album, to touring and performing new material in 8 weeks.

Vulture Ranking (out of 165 songs): 104
Ultimate Classic Rock Ranking (out of 167 songs): 111
Louder Ranking (out of 50 songs): NR
WMGK Ranking (out of 40 songs): NR
Ranker Ranking (out of 132 songs): 85
Billboard Ranking (out of 50 songs): NR

Vulture Ranking (104 out of 165 songs): This is a downright comical example of how bad Pink Floyd was immediately post-Barrett. Waters’s junk heap of dumb musical ideas marries wan Beatle-isms to wacky rhythms, a circusy break, and sideways lurches into psychedelia, all recorded poorly and overlaid with a dreadful set of lyrics. These might have been meant as a jaunty McCartney-esque picaresque, but they come off as cruel; Waters’s own experience with the war (which took his father when he was a tot) surely argues against reading this as a mocking take on a war amputee, but it’s not entirely clear why or how.

UCR Ranking (111 out of 167 songs): Another recording that dates from Floyd’s uneasy transition from a band under Barrett’s leadership, the Waters-penned song features a rare lead vocal from Nick Mason, a kazoo played by David Gilmour and bouts of laughter in the backing vocals. It’s kind of fun, which is disturbing for a tune about an unstable veteran (the first hint of Waters’ World War II obsession).

Up next, another war themed song from a decade later.
Thanks for the writeup! How did Mookie Gizzy rank this @ 23?
Because I like the song? It’s a song you’d never hear played on FM radio, and I mixed it up a bit instead of going all Dark Side, Wish and Wall
All good! No disrespect to your selection.......I will just say it's a bold one! I've never really been able to get into early Floyd.
 
One more Tinder and then I have other stuff to do. @Dwayne Hoover . . . come on down.

SWIPE RIGHT / TWO UNIVERSES COLLIDE
@lardonastick (19 similar songs - 9 of the same Top 10) 👩‍❤️‍👩
@New Binky the Doormat (17 + 9)
@Desert_Power (17 + 8)
@Yo Mama (17 + 7)

SWIPE LEFT / NOT IF YOU WERE THE LAST MAN ON EARTH
@jabarony (4 + 2)
Next on the list was @Anarchy99 (11 + 9) . . . and many of my selections were picks just to get songs on the countdown. Obviously with 9 of the same Top 10, we were on the same wavelength.

CHALK RANKINGS (Average songs per list)
Dwayne Hoover - 14.29
FatMax - 14.16
 
#91-T - Corporal Clegg from A Saucerful Of Secrets (1968)

Appeared On: 1 ballot (out of 32 . . . 3.1%)
Total Points: 3 points (out of 800 possible points . . . 0.25%)
Top Ranker: @Mookie Gizzy
Highest Ranking: 23

Live Performances:
PF
: 3 (Brussels - 1968-02-19 (Lip synced)
DG's PF: None
DG: None
RW: None
NM: None

Covers: Samarin, Morgan & Hull LLP

If nothing else, Sixties Floyd was always different. Corporate Clegg is a Rogers composition and is the only PF song to feature vocals by Gilmour, Wright, and Mason (without Waters). The title was chosen as a reference to Thaddeus Von Clegg, the inventor of the kazoo, hence the section where kazoos are played (by DG). It also has a brass ensemble called The Stanley Myers Orchestra.

The song is about a soldier who lost his leg in World War II, and his apparently alcoholic wife. It is the first mention of war in a Pink Floyd song, something that would become a common theme in Roger Waters' lyrics, Roger having lost his father in 1944. This can be seen as rather lighter in tone than Pink Floyd's later approach to war as a theme / topic. Among the scrambled voices towards the end we hear an officer telling his one-legged man: "Clegg! Been meaning to speak to you. About that leg of yours! You're excused parade from now on!"

Drummer Nick Mason sang the lines, "He won it in the war... in orange red and blue... he's never been the same... and from her majesty the queen." It was Mason's only vocal contribution until Pink Floyd's sixth album, Meddle, in 1971. The band made a video for the song. The song was "performed" live three times, but the band essentially lip synced on TV while the studio track played.

Roger Waters told Mojo magazine over 40 years after the song was released that the song is autobiographical. He explained: "Corporal Clegg is about my father and his sacrifice in World War II. It's somewhat sarcastic - the idea of the wooden leg being something you won in the war, like a trophy."

To give people a sense of the timeline, Nick Mason asked David Gilmour to join the band right before Christmas in 1967. They made their debut as a five-piece with Syd Barrett and David Gilmour at the University of Aston in Birmingham on 1968-01-12. It is believed that line-up performed together only 4 times. Pink Floyd played their first gig without Syd Barrett at Southampton University on 1968-01-26. T-Rex with Marc Bolan opened the show. The new version of Floyd entered Abbey Road studios to begin recording A Saucerful Of Secrets on 1968-02-01. (That first week of recording, The Beatles were there recording Lady Madonna, Across The Universe, The Inner Light, and Hey Bulldog.) The band started touring on 1968-02-17 (and played Careful With That Axe, Eugene for the first time). Gilmour went from joining the band, to recording an album, to touring and performing new material in 8 weeks.

Vulture Ranking (out of 165 songs): 104
Ultimate Classic Rock Ranking (out of 167 songs): 111
Louder Ranking (out of 50 songs): NR
WMGK Ranking (out of 40 songs): NR
Ranker Ranking (out of 132 songs): 85
Billboard Ranking (out of 50 songs): NR

Vulture Ranking (104 out of 165 songs): This is a downright comical example of how bad Pink Floyd was immediately post-Barrett. Waters’s junk heap of dumb musical ideas marries wan Beatle-isms to wacky rhythms, a circusy break, and sideways lurches into psychedelia, all recorded poorly and overlaid with a dreadful set of lyrics. These might have been meant as a jaunty McCartney-esque picaresque, but they come off as cruel; Waters’s own experience with the war (which took his father when he was a tot) surely argues against reading this as a mocking take on a war amputee, but it’s not entirely clear why or how.

UCR Ranking (111 out of 167 songs): Another recording that dates from Floyd’s uneasy transition from a band under Barrett’s leadership, the Waters-penned song features a rare lead vocal from Nick Mason, a kazoo played by David Gilmour and bouts of laughter in the backing vocals. It’s kind of fun, which is disturbing for a tune about an unstable veteran (the first hint of Waters’ World War II obsession).

Up next, another war themed song from a decade later.
Thanks for the writeup! How did Mookie Gizzy rank this @ 23?
Because I like the song? It’s a song you’d never hear played on FM radio, and I mixed it up a bit instead of going all Dark Side, Wish and Wall
Makes perfect sense - everyone has their own individual taste in their top 25 (recall that I was the only one who had "Lucifer Sam" in their top 25). When you have 25 songs to choose from and a few of the big albums have only a few songs among them, the rest is going to vary.
Yea i get your point.....for me, Floyd is great from Meddle thru the Wall.....with a few good tracks here, and there, from albums before, and after.

The early psych stuff just isn't my taste at all really.....I don't hate it, but I don't go out of my way to listen.

Waters is both a huge reason for the greatness, and the destruction of the band.....imo, the Final Cut is a Waters solo album where he had completely taken over.....no one holding him in check....he not valuing other band members at all, while simultaneously ridiculing for their lack of contribution......the result is a blatant political, anti war album that just isn't very good......Floyd led by Gilmour was a shell of what they were at their climax. Gilmour was no lyricist, and did not have the creative drive of Waters.....Lapse, and Division were largely written by outsiders to the band.....are they decent albums? Sure.....are they anywhere near the sweet spot of Floyd? Absolutely not!

All of this is what makes Floyd interesting.......I'm really enjoying the write ups! I'm learning more about this enigmatic band for sure.
 
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I disagree @Manster MLOR and Division Bell are both epic. I like Division Bell better than the Wall, while MLOR is just behind it. The Wall has like Three Great Songs, and a bunch of trash. I feel the same about the Beatles White Album.
 
Yea i get your point.....for me, Floyd is great from Meddle thru the Wall.....with a few good tracks here, and there, from albums before, and after.
As I probably mentioned already, I am not much of a fan of the Syd or DG only era. For me, the sweet spot is from 1968 - 1979 (maybe we can extend it to 1981 if we consider The Wall shows). Even though those were also the peak RW years . . . I more enjoy the work and musicianship of DG in that timeframe. I agree that without RW the band was a bit rudderless, and as much as David didn't get along with Roger, IMO, Roger got the most out of him performance wise.

One of the reasons AMLOR sounds like a DG solo album is because it was. While the lawsuits played out in the 80's, in Waters' absence, Gilmour had been recruiting musicians for a new project. Gilmour invited Bob Ezrin (co-producer of The Wall) to help evaluate and consolidate the new material. Ezrin had turned down Waters' offer to help develop his new solo album, Radio K.A.O.S. Ezrin came onboard with Gilmour to sift through a lot of demos that Dave had recorded.

At this stage, there was no commitment for a new PF album. Gilmour intended the material to go on his third solo album. In 1986, with the rights to the Pink Floyd name still in dispute, Gilmour and Ezrin went to CBS Records with the tapes in hand and pushed for the label to put it out as a new PF release. Except the label told them that the music "doesn't sound a f****** thing like Pink Floyd." Despite the label's feedback, by the end of that year, Gilmour had decided to turn the material into a Pink Floyd project, and he agreed to rework the material CBS had found objectionable.

Pretty much after the fact (the songs were already written) Gilmour reached out to Mason and Wright to record and mix the tracks. Mason was given status as a band member, but he was one of three drummers on the album. Richard Wright was initially only credited as an additional / session musician, with 4 other piano and keyboard players handling the major of the work. Wright was paid $11,000 a week for his contributions to the album. (Given that it went on to sell over 10 million copies, that was a drop in the ocean . . . I don't know if Wright ever got a percentage of the album sales.) After 24 years and a reissue of the album, Wright was finally added as a band member.

I am sure I will have more on this when we get to songs from the album.
 
Time for our first edition of Pink Floyd Tinder . . . featuring @FatMax. Max's list averages 13.7 songs in common with everyone else.

SWIPE RIGHT / WOULD YOU CARE TO COME UP TO MY PLACE FOR A DRINK?
@Yambag (17 similar songs - 9 of the same Top 10)
@BassNBrew (17 + 8)
@lardonastick (17 + 8)
Friend of @PIK95 (17 + 7)
@Yo Mama (17 + 6)

SWIPE LEFT / HE'S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU
@jabarony (9 + 3)
@Mookie Gizzy (10 + 5)
@Pip's Invitation (10 + 6)
@zamboni (10 + 6)

Before people clamor for me to do this for them next, I will get to everyone at some point.

I'm good with that! Clearly @Yambag is a solid human being with a good taste in music.
@FatMax I'm honored and feel like I need to bust out a good pick up line!
 
I disagree @Manster MLOR and Division Bell are both epic. I like Division Bell better than the Wall, while MLOR is just behind it. The Wall has like Three Great Songs, and a bunch of trash. I feel the same about the Beatles White Album.
I actually really like the White Album! It's a bit all over the place, but theres a lot of good music there, imo

The Wall is a rock opera......I dig it. A very unique project, even if it was mostly Waters driven.

I don't dislike Lapse, and Bell......I've always loved Gilmour as a guitar player, and singer....those two things cannot be overvalued to Floyd as a band......what takes away from the albums for me, is they aren't really Pink Floyd albums.....I mean they are, but without Waters' creative drive, they had to get outside help for the song writing.....those albums are more "Gilmour and friends" type things to me.

But, to each his/her own. It'd be boring if we all agreed.
 
What takes away from the albums for me, is they aren't really Pink Floyd albums.....I mean they are, but without Waters' creative drive, they had to get outside help for the song writing.....those albums are more "Gilmour and friends" type things to me.
See the Grateful Dead performing in 2015 without Jerry Garcia. Sure, the NAME said the Grateful Dead . . . but it wasn't the same.
 
What takes away from the albums for me, is they aren't really Pink Floyd albums.....I mean they are, but without Waters' creative drive, they had to get outside help for the song writing.....those albums are more "Gilmour and friends" type things to me.
See the Grateful Dead performing in 2015 without Jerry Garcia. Sure, the NAME said the Grateful Dead . . . but it wasn't the same.
My biggest question is......how much of the motivation to continue on as PF was to stick it to Waters, vs. to use the name because it would sell albums, and tickets?
 
Looking ahead at the next 25 or so entries . . . take your pick on what's flotsam and what's jetsam. Almost makes me want to disclose the songs in random order. Not sure I will be able to keep the write ups interesting for that long.
 
Figure my list will be fairly chalky except for having The Wall outside of my top tier of 3 Floyd albums. Never got into the Barrett stuff or the post-Waters stuff as much.
 
My biggest question is......how much of the motivation to continue on as PF was to stick it to Waters, vs. to use the name because it would sell albums, and tickets?
Who knows if what is circulating on the internet 40 years later is accurate (lord knows my memory isn't good enough to remember), but part of what went on was to compel RW to record another PF album (as much as the other guys couldn't stand him).

After The Final Cut came and went, Gilmour, Mason, Waters and band manager Steve O'Rourke met for dinner in 1984 to discuss their future. Mason and Gilmour left the restaurant thinking that Pink Floyd could continue after Waters had finished The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking, noting that they had had several hiatuses before. Waters left believing that Mason and Gilmour had accepted that Pink Floyd was finished. Mason said that Waters later saw the meeting as "duplicity rather than diplomacy", and wrote in his memoir: "Clearly, our communication skills were still troublingly nonexistent. We left the restaurant with diametrically opposed views of what had been decided."

After Pros and Cons was released, Roger declared that there would be no PF reunion. He wanted O'Rourke to work on how to amicable settle royalty payments moving forward. That started all the finger pointing and legal filings.

Waters complete two tours before Gilmour's first solo tour, and Roger went heavy on Floyd songs in his set. Gilmour's solo album and tour didn't exactly light things up revenue wise. He had to cancel some shows for lack of ticket sales. Mason released a solo effort that Dave appeared on, and it bombed. Mason ended up attending one of Roger's shows and really wanted to get back together. Except shortly thereafter, Waters announced that he had left the band, which he believed was "a spent force creatively."

After the failure of his About Face tour, Gilmour hoped at some point to continue with the Pink Floyd name. The threat of a lawsuit from Gilmour, Mason and CBS Records was meant to compel Waters to write and produce another Pink Floyd album with his bandmates, who had barely participated in making The Final Cut. DG was especially critical of that album, labelling it "cheap filler" and "meandering rubbish".

According to Gilmour, "I told Roger before he left, 'If you go, man, we're carrying on. Make no bones about it, we would carry on', and Roger replied: 'You'll never f****** do it.'" Waters had written to EMI and Columbia declaring his intention to leave the group and asking them to release him from his contract.

There certainly wasn't a lot of peace, love, and harmony then. Waters had nothing positive to say about AMLOR when it came out: "I think it's facile, but a quite clever forgery ... The songs are poor in general ... and Gilmour's lyrics are third-rate." Although Gilmour initially viewed the album as a return to the band's top form, Wright disagreed, stating: "Roger's criticisms are fair. It's not a band album at all." Add to that that RW threatened to sue any promoter or venue that marketed the AMLOR tour under the Pink Floyd name, and things were a giant mess.

But as for your initial question, it sounds like at the beginning, the rest of the band was trying to force Waters to come back and continue on with Pink Floyd.
 
What takes away from the albums for me, is they aren't really Pink Floyd albums.....I mean they are, but without Waters' creative drive, they had to get outside help for the song writing.....those albums are more "Gilmour and friends" type things to me.
See the Grateful Dead performing in 2015 without Jerry Garcia. Sure, the NAME said the Grateful Dead . . . but it wasn't the same.
My biggest question is......how much of the motivation to continue on as PF was to stick it to Waters, vs. to use the name because it would sell albums, and tickets?
I think both of those factors were in play. I would guess the latter was the bigger reason but I don't know for sure. Momentary outsold About Face by orders of magnitude.
 
and Roger replied: 'You'll never f****** do it.'"
This sums up Roger Waters' personality as well as anything he ever said or did. He was so convinced that he WAS Pink Floyd, that Pink Floyd was inconceivable without him, and that his bandmates didn't have the skill or desire to continue as Pink Floyd without him, that he just left the band instead of working with the others and their management to legally dissolve it. And it bit him in the a$$.
 
This sums up Roger Waters' personality as well as anything he ever said or did. He was so convinced that he WAS Pink Floyd, that Pink Floyd was inconceivable without him, and that his bandmates didn't have the skill or desire to continue as Pink Floyd without him, that he just left the band instead of working with the others and their management to legally dissolve it. And it bit him in the a$$.
We should hardly grieve for Roger. In exchange for the rights to the PF name, he ended up with the exclusive rights to everything associated with The Wall. He played roughly 220 dates on his solo version of The Wall tour, which took in $458.6 million. Last year, the rights to the PF song catalog went on the market for $500 million. I'm guessing Roger will be ok (even if he isn't that great a person). For someone that complained that PF couldn't enjoy anonymity anymore and didn't want to sell out to record companies just to release something to make money and then be forced to keep touring, he sure seems ok about touring every few years with some pretty inflated ticket prices. By the end of his current tour, he'll have performed 500+ times since 2010. That's about 10 times the number of full shows that DG has played in that time. But Roger's going to be Roger.
 
What takes away from the albums for me, is they aren't really Pink Floyd albums.....I mean they are, but without Waters' creative drive, they had to get outside help for the song writing.....those albums are more "Gilmour and friends" type things to me.
See the Grateful Dead performing in 2015 without Jerry Garcia. Sure, the NAME said the Grateful Dead . . . but it wasn't the same.
My biggest question is......how much of the motivation to continue on as PF was to stick it to Waters, vs. to use the name because it would sell albums, and tickets?
I think both of those factors were in play. I would guess the latter was the bigger reason but I don't know for sure. Momentary outsold About Face by orders of magnitude.
Momentary Lapse of Reason had at least four great songs. I think it's a solid record.
 
Things didn't work out between my parents. They separated when I was 6 and divorced when I was 8. Divorces weren't as common then, and I never really had much of a relationship with my father. I remember at one point when he was in his mid-50's when I was in elementary school him dating a Venezuelan model that was a dead ringer for an early 20's Ana de Armas. I never really got to know dad that well (limited visitation time), and he died in the 1990's.
I'm sorry you had that experience. I had a reasonably similar one in that my parents split when I was 6 and after a few post-divorce Sundays, never saw him again past the age of 7 (he took his own life in the 2000s). He never served in any war though - got out of Vietnam service being in college at the time - so perhaps this song didn't resonate with me as much as it might have.
 
This sums up Roger Waters' personality as well as anything he ever said or did. He was so convinced that he WAS Pink Floyd, that Pink Floyd was inconceivable without him, and that his bandmates didn't have the skill or desire to continue as Pink Floyd without him, that he just left the band instead of working with the others and their management to legally dissolve it. And it bit him in the a$$.
We should hardly grieve for Roger. In exchange for the rights to the PF name, he ended up with the exclusive rights to everything associated with The Wall. He played roughly 220 dates on his solo version of The Wall tour, which took in $458.6 million. Last year, the rights to the PF song catalog went on the market for $500 million. I'm guessing Roger will be ok (even if he isn't that great a person). For someone that complained that PF couldn't enjoy anonymity anymore and didn't want to sell out to record companies just to release something to make money and then be forced to keep touring, he sure seems ok about touring every few years with some pretty inflated ticket prices. By the end of his current tour, he'll have performed 500+ times since 2010. That's about 10 times the number of full shows that DG has played in that time. But Roger's going to be Roger.
Oh the irony of Roger making piles of money from performing The Wall over and over.
 
What takes away from the albums for me, is they aren't really Pink Floyd albums.....I mean they are, but without Waters' creative drive, they had to get outside help for the song writing.....those albums are more "Gilmour and friends" type things to me.
See the Grateful Dead performing in 2015 without Jerry Garcia. Sure, the NAME said the Grateful Dead . . . but it wasn't the same.
My biggest question is......how much of the motivation to continue on as PF was to stick it to Waters, vs. to use the name because it would sell albums, and tickets?
I think both of those factors were in play. I would guess the latter was the bigger reason but I don't know for sure. Momentary outsold About Face by orders of magnitude.
Momentary Lapse of Reason had at least four great songs. I think it's a solid record.
I think it's a solid album too. Its just really only a Pink Floyd album in name. Gilmour used material that was going to be on his next solo album, and outside help was brought in to help write songs........but vocally, and musically, it's got a lot of what was the best of Floyd's sound, for sure.
 

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