TRACK BY TRACK
A look at the musical intricacies of a masterpiece
SPEAK TO ME
The creeping introduction of the pounding heartbeat was lifted from the band’s contribution to the Zabriskie Point soundtrack in 1970. Fading in from a deep, resonant heartbeat, it seems to suggest a baby’s first bleary impressions of the brash, cynical world. Credited to Mason, although written by Waters, the title came from the album’s engineer Alan Parsons’s oft-repeated instruction from the studio control booth.
It also featured a vari-speeded clock lifted from Time, a scream from The Great Gig In The Sky and spoken parts: “I’ve been mad for fucking years” from road manager Chris Adamson, and “I’ve always been mad” from doorman Jerry Driscoll. And then…
BREATHE IN THE AIR
The languorous chord progression of Breathe In The Air finally bursts out of a crescendo of screams and backwards sounds. Two of David Gilmour’s long-term fascinations are on here: the Leslie rotating speaker on the rhythm guitar, and the gently swooping pedal steel (although Roger Waters has claimed that this is an open-tuned Stratocaster played with a slide). The song is about trying to be true to yourself, constructed during the Broadhurst Gardens sessions in London by Waters, Gilmour and Wright. Gilmour’s vocals are double-tracked for fuller effect.