Grantchester Meadows

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Grantchester Meadows
Pink Floyd
publication October 25, 1969
length 7:26
Genre (s) Avant-garde rock , progressive rock
Author (s) Roger Waters
Publisher (s) Emi Records Ltd
album Ummagumma

Grantchester Meadows is the second track on the A side of LP 2 (studio album) of the double album Ummagumma by the British rock band Pink Floyd from 1969.

The work comes from the pen of the band's bassist , Roger Waters . Since each band member was given half an LP side on the studio record (LP 2) so that they could fill them with their own compositions - independently of the other band members - Waters carried Grantchester Meadows and several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict .

Grantchester Meadows was also up for debate about being included in the best of album Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd , which was released in late 2001, but this was ultimately omitted.

Music and conception

Grant Chester Meadows is only with a acoustic guitar accompanied Folk ballad , the song text is accompanied with animations of animal sounds, such Gänsegeschnatter and -Flight, field Lerch chirping or buzzing a housefly that the end of the piece by a top of a floor of the property, the stairs hastening Person who is killed with the fly swatter on the third attempt. Using tape loops , the originally recorded chirping of birds is repeated in the background over the entire song. Occasionally, hardly audible, children's voices can be heard. Halfway through the piece, suddenly the calls of a goose can be heard, which in the further course of the piece then audibly rise from the water. With this song, spatial sound impressions and sound tensions can be perfectly understood, because these techniques create exemplary spatial penetration and depth. The piece was therefore often used to demonstrate the sound properties of a (new) stereo system. This is exemplified by fading in the noises of the goose mentioned, whose calls are initially heard clearly on the left channel and whose subsequent flight noises are clearly shifted from the left to the right channel.

The text of the song describes a dreamlike, idyllic scenery on the River Cam , the village of Grantchester near Cambridge , near which band member David Gilmour lived during the time when the engagements for Ummagumma were in progress . Roger Waters, who had also grown up in Cambridge and often went fishing in the meadows of Grantchester , was inspired by nature and developed a penchant for picturesque ballads in the 1960s and early 1970s. With Ron Geesin he should try this outside of Pink Floyd in the soundtrack for the pop art film The Body in 1970, to continue this in the same year with Pink Floyd in the country-style piece If on the album Atom Heart Mother .

Live versions

Grantchester Meadows was part of Pink Floyd's The Man and the Journey concerts in 1969 and 1970 (the song was renamed: Daybreak, Pt. I ), where the shows often opened with this song. Gilmour played a second acoustic guitar and sang the second voice, while Richard Wright performed two solo parts on the Farfisa organ.

Staffing

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ James Guthrie, Building a compilation album ( Memento June 2, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ^ Toby Manning, The Rough Guide to Pink Floyd (1st ed.), London: Rough Guides (2006), p. 161. ISBN 1-84353-575-0 .
  3. ^ Julian Palacios, Lost in the Woods: Syd Barrett and the Pink Floyd (1st ed.), London: Boxtree, page 6, ISBN 0-7522-2328-3 .
  4. ^ Mark Blake, Pigs Might Fly: The Inside Story of Pink Floyd , London: Aurum, p.12 . ISBN 978-1-78131-057-1 .
  5. ↑ Berry Miles, Pink Floyd, The Early Years , Chapters 2 and 3, pp. 40-69, ISBN 978-3-85445-278-2
  6. ^ The Man and the Journey - The Man
  7. ^ Andy Mabbett, The Complete Guide to the Music of Pink Floyd , London: Omnibus. ISBN 0-7119-4301-X .