All language subtitles for Pink Floyd Behind the Wall 2011 720p AMZN WEB-DL DDP2 0 H 264-GINO

[film rolling]

♪

Pete Murray, I'll always
remember Pete Murray,

'cause he said, "Well, this band
will last two weeks, that's it."

It really puts us down.

♪ Set the controls
for the heart of the sun ♪

♪

♪ The heart of the sun

♪ The heart of the sun

♪ The heart of the sun

♪ The heart of the sun

♪ The heart of the sun

♪ The heart of the sun

♪ The heart of the sun

♪ The heart of the sun

♪ The heart of the sun

♪ The heart of the sun

Fearless, daring
and sometimes, overreaching,

the enigmatic Pink Floyd
pushed the boundaries of music

into new realms
of artistic expression.

♪

Their recording career
began during an era

of black and white television
and ended in the internet age.

♪

They're living legends,
they're not just legends.

They're like the beginning
and the end of a book.

♪

They started off by causing
a massive splash

in the psychedelic era,
but then they went on to become

the biggest of all
the stadium rock bands,

and they happen to have
this misunderstood genius

in their ranks who
then went on to become

an iconic legend.

♪

On one occasion,
going, picking Syd up,

and he was wearing
sort of full make-up.

Not quite drag,
but towards that.

And there was just this
sort of blank, let's not,

let's just pretend it's normal
and carry on.

♪

There is no doubt
that Syd was schizophrenic

and that he was taking medicine
and those drugs

at the same time.

You have the responsibility
of how much of this stuff

you use or don't use because
I don't want to upset--

I don't want to upset his
brothers, sisters,

uncles, aunts, anybody who
loves him or whatever, so.

But you know, I mean,
at this point, you know,

he was hiding around the door
in the flat with his guitar,

trying to brain his girlfriend,

trying to brain Lindsay,
who was living with him.

And I alerted his family
to his condition

and tried to get them
to look after him

and they singularly
failed to do that.

♪ The heart of the sun

♪ The heart of the sun

♪ The heart of the sun

♪ The heart of the sun

♪ The heart of the sun

♪ The heart of the sun

♪ The heart of the sun

♪ The heart of the sun

♪ The heart of the sun

♪ The heart of the sun

♪ The heart of the sun

♪ The heart of the sun

♪ The heart of the sun

♪

One of the things I do remember
was the relief when Syd went.

We knew that it was quite likely
to be a lot of the audience

who'd say, "Where's Syd?"

As they continued to do
for the next 30 years.

♪ The heart of the sun

♪ The heart of the sun

♪ The heart of the sun

♪ The heart of the sun

Overcoming the loss
of Syd Barrett,

Pink Floyd had little public
identity outside their albums.

Their lack of
rock and roll charisma

prompted many column inches

devoted to the paradoxical
nature of their success.

They could look quite devilish,

'cause they had the light
shining up into their face,

you know that effect.

And of course, the drugs helped.

♪

The thing that one couldn't miss
was the fact that most of them

were totally disinterested,
I mean, I remember Roger,

he very defiantly turned
his back on the audience.

And they all looked
as if they'd been

to the local charity shop

to get rather dreary,
second hand clothes.

♪

It was excruciatingly
embarrassing,

to the extent that I used to
mostly play with my back

to the audience.

And I was really, really,

very embarrassed
and very nervous

about what I was doing, I didn't
feel at all sure of myself.

I didn't know what to play.

♪

♪ Witness the man who raves
at the wall ♪

Pink Floyd have produced some
of the most celebrated music

of all time.

They have sold over
a billion albums,

yet their very public
and acrimonious falling out

sometimes threatened
to overshadow

their artistic achievements.

The problem really
is that you're either fighting

or you're having fun, there's
not much middle ground really.

Our personal problems
in the band by that time

were sort of becoming
more dominant.

Roger was becoming
more dominant.

♪

♪ Set the controls
for the heart of the sun ♪

Dave and I were already
absolutely at loggerheads

by then and he had one whole
idea about what

it was going to be like
and I had a whole other idea.

I'm happy to say,
my idea won in the end.

♪ The heart of the sun

♪ The heart of the sun

♪ The heart of the sun

♪ The heart of the sun

Dave and Nick went to Roger
and said we want to tour

as Pink Floyd.

He just said,
"You can't tour without me.

I am Pink Floyd."

And they said, "Righteous."

There weren't very many Roger
songs played in our show.

Let's put it that way.

♪

I'm sorry, Roger,
it's never been called

Roger Waters
and the All Stars.

It's always been called
Pink Floyd.

♪

It's a very classic tale.

You know, when solicitors
tell people,

"Have your disputes,
but don't put it in writing,"

they probably have Roger's
letter resigning from Floyd

in mind as a good exhibit A
in that argument.

♪

You have therapy to get over the
business of being in the band.

We have a show to make.

[crash]

Three engines up and ready.

Three, two...

♪

Yes, that'd be better.

All right, I'll head over.

The Pink Floyd emerged from two
overlapping sets of friends.

Syd Barrett, Roger Waters
were all Cambridge mates.

Nick and Rick
came from Pinner.

Unlike the Stones
and the Beatles,

they didn't come from
the working class.

They had very nice,
comfortable backgrounds.

Unfortunately, I was at school
with Roger Waters.

It was a strange school.

It was called the Cambridgeshire
High School for Boys.

There was nothing high about it,
but my earliest memories of him,

I guess, were at the school.

Now, it was a pretty
rough school,

I mean, it was what might be
called a grammar school.

But there were various kind
of yobs, like me and Roger,

who didn't fit in
to the grammar school,

which was essentially
middle class milieu.

And both of us definitely
smoked behind the bicycle sheds.

And definitely were out to burn
the place down

at the earliest opportunity.

Roger, he was quite frightening.

He was quite scary.

But, he's worn really--he looks
great now, doesn't he?

And yet he looked weird then
because he had a very long face.

But he's worn really well,
he has.

Also attending Cambridgeshire
High School for Boys

was Roger "Syd" Barrett.

He was two years below me
at school.

We became close, you know,
when we were teenagers.

And when we were all sort of
pretending to be interested

in Lawrence Ferlinghetti
and Allen Ginsberg

and talking about smoking dope,
but not doing it.

♪

It was in about '59,

which is about the time
I first came across Syd,

or as he was still, almost then,
Roger Barrett.

We used to go down to
Grantchester Meadows, on punts,

and a picnic.

This is, of course, just prior
to the arrival of pot.

When eventually that came
our way, we were delighted.

My first memories of Syd,
really, were of this sparky,

prince-like, elven creature.

A very, can I say,
beautiful young man?

And we knew he was a poet,

an artist, a painter,
and beginning to play guitar.

Cambridge, like many
British cities at the time

was enlivened by
a thriving music scene.

♪

We used to go down
his mother's house,

on Hills Road,
of a Sunday afternoon.

And there would be
jamming sessions.

I can remember sitting around,
playing acoustic guitars

with him in Cambridge.

♪

Roger was at the jam sessions
in Hills Road.

And it's interesting
because Syd's real name

was Roger Barrett
and Roger Waters.

Both called Roger,
both had lost their fathers.

And I think this really,
really brought them

very close together.

I remember when Syd went out
and bought a Futurama III.

You know, a red,
sort of plastic guitar.

Whereas before that,
people had been fiddling around

with acoustic guitars, and Syd,
I remember particularly,

you know, would learn
to play "Apache."

♪

Syd Barrett, the legendary
founder of the Pink Floyd sound

was to become one of the most
the heavily mythologized men

in rock.

♪

I found Syd very inspiring.

And he had this sort of
fairy-like quality about him.

And he turned heads.

He really did turn heads.

Even at the age of 14, 15,
a sort of charismatic figure,

that people would sort of
point at him, talk about him,

'cause he had some sort
of magnetism.

♪

I thought, "Wow, that's so
beautiful, he is so lovely."

And he looked like your sort of
archetypal doomed poet.

He had these wonderful
violet eyes

and messy black hair
and he was slender

and he wore interesting clothes
and he didn't say a lot.

And it was my mission
to soothe his fevered brow.

It wasn't until later
though that I managed to get

on my own with him

and actually make him
notice me in that way.

He just was very,
you know, a bright light

on the scene.

And I'm sure most people,
including myself,

had certain jealousies

of what a bright light
he appeared to be.

I don't know why,
but we always had this notion

that when we hit London,
'cause London was the mecca

and that was where
one had to be,

that we would start
a band together.

♪

By 1966, a new underground
scene was emerging.

Following two decades
of post-war austerity,

the economy was booming.

Idealism and optimism were rife.

In this Kings Road that London
is lumbered with

stands just a collation known as
the Antiques Supermarket.

And "antiques" can mean clothes.

This lady's time machine
is headed

for the flapper world
of the '20s.

Doubtless a trip many a time
traveler would love to take.

One way of saying "no"
to authority is to parody it.

Some of the young, with little
to say "yes" to, come to Soho,

that pulsating heart
of swinging London

where girls join clubs
to see old men strip.

Or is it vice versa?

And at the cutely named
I Was Lord Kitchener's Valet,

buy uniforms of the past
to affront the uniformity

of the present.

Everything was happening
and it was the Beatles

and "Sgt. Pepper,"
and "All You Need is Love."

We were in the heart of it
and it was amazing.

Very exciting.

That period of the '60s
was a very unique time.

You know, you look at the great
year from the summer of '66

through the summer of '67,
which was the time

of the most wonderful
ferment and activity.

World's End means
were the Kings Road ends,

which shows what the Kings
Roaders think of themselves.

Granny Takes A Trip, the shop
behind the face calls itself

and it's typical
of the non-typical,

conforming to the
non-conformist's image

of the "in."

What they used to call "way out"
and before that "with it"

and before that "groovy"
and before that "hip"

and what Granny herself
would have called

"the very latest thing,
my dear."

♪

There is this whole idealized
sort of concept to the '60s.

Some of it's true
and some of it isn't.

The temptation, when thinking
about the middle '60s,

is to think of it in terms
of drug culture.

Not just sex, drugs,
and rock and roll,

but everybody was gone on LSD,

and you know, there was sex
on the hour, every hour.

I mean, the the whole thing must
have been totally exhausting,

if that were true.

Self-evidently
it wasn't true.

♪

Roger Waters, Rick Wright
and Nick Mason

met during the first year
of an architectural course

in London.

♪

Nick Mason and Roger Waters

were at Regent Street Poly
together.

And like many people, they were
inspired to form a band.

It went through a period
where it was really

a sort of Regent Street Poly
house band almost.

Where all of the rehearsals took
place at college.

There were various
incarnations and names.

They had the Screaming Abdabs,
Sigma 6, The Tea Set,

Megadeaths.

There were a couple of other
characters involved.

Keith Noble and Clyde Metcalfe
were in early lineups.

I mean, I suppose the real start
of the band was with Syd and Bob

and Rick and myself
and Roger.

A couple of them made
the big move to London

and they had a place
at Stanhope Gardens.

And Syd turned up there one day.

By the time he arrived,
I was already playing

with a few other people,
so he kind of joined in.

He was living with a whole
sort of community of people

who were very much believing,
rather like Timothy Leary,

that you know,
acid can release you

and you know,
get to the truth.

♪

He lived in a place called
101 Cromwell Road.

That was just a haven of acid.

People were just dropping it
in people's tea without telling,

it was really, really--
it was really too much.

I like to know
when I was taking my acid.

101 Cromwell Road,
we lived with Syd for awhile.

There were probably five or six
of us and I was the only woman.

David describes 101
as a hip salon

where the great and the good
would come and hang out,

the American Beats,
like Allen Ginsberg.

People like Mick Jagger,
Marianne Faithfull, PJ Proby.

And the early Pink Floyd.

Every night was a party, really.

People were tripping and...

...the house was full
of beautiful women.

We would take LSD
and we painted our faces.

It was quite mad.

Lysergic acid diethylamide 25,
LSD, came our way.

And I'll tell you this,
it was legal.

Turn on, tune in, and drop out.

The message is very simple,
he said six words.

Turn on, tune in, drop out.

♪

Turning on, tuning in,
and dropping out

is what happens to you
when you take a dose

of the strange new drug
called LSD.

LSD has become a way of life
with its own philosophers,

like poet Allen Ginsberg.

Yes, there's trouble
in the United States.

Millions who would love to come
out to a park like today,

and play with the children
and sing together.

It's strange to be in a body.

Can I sleep with you?

Shall we sing together?

But above all, like,
I don't want to feel bad

or I don't want to, ahh--

I don't want to have
to fight them,

I don't want to fight
myself all the time.

I wouldn't want to
have to fight the camera,

to see the camera as an enemy
or communications as an enemy.

What about the people looking
at this, what do they think?

LSD stands for dextro
lysergic acid diethylamide,

a chemical derived from a fungus
that grows on rye.

It is not addictive
like heroin or cocaine,

but it's far more powerful
in its effects.

Taken in a pill or sugar cube,
it acts in an hour

and lasts up to 24.

During this time, the user soars
into another world

where consciousness is vastly
expanded, or seems to be.

This is the famous
psychedelic experience.

Doctor Timothy Leary,
America's high priest of LSD

and its passionate
public defender,

calls it turning on the mind,
tuning into the infinite,

and dropping out
of the here and now.

But there's another
controversial side of LSD.

Not all trips are happy ones.

Some are upsetting,
and even terrifying.

LSD certainly provides
an intense interpersonal--

non interpersonal,
interpsychic experience.

An intense interpsychic
kind of an experience,

but I would not call it a
consciousness expanding drug,

rather a consciousness
decreasing drug.

♪

Syd, he started to dabble
in this LSD experience

and it was about this time
that we became interested

in Eastern mysticism.

Because having experienced
this universal love,

this wonderful opening of
the doors to perception on LSD,

many of us wanted
to get in touch

with this greater meaning,
naturally.

♪

Perhaps half of us became
what's known as satsangis

and if you wanted
to follow the path,

you had to give up drugs
and alcohol

and become a vegetarian.

Syd asked if he could
be brought in,

initiated into this form
of meditation.

He came around and said that's
what he was going to do

and that he wasn't into
smoking dope anymore.

I said, "You can't stop smoking
dope, you've got to smoke dope."

And he did go to the master
to ask for initiation.

Charan Singh said "no,"
and that was a blow.

He was very upset.

He felt rejected.

I think Charan Singh
could already see

that the man was unbalanced
and that actually probably

traveling to India
wouldn't be a good idea.

Jenny and I actually did go to
stay with Charan Singh in India

and Syd and Lindsay
moved into our room

and things did not go well.

♪

We came back
to 101 Cromwell Road

only to find
that in our absence,

they'd held a
"legalize marijuana" evening.

It had rather drawn
the attention of the Old Bill.

And I felt then,
"Well, you know,

maybe 101 as the center of
excellence has seen its day."

Roger Waters came round
and said,

"Look, I bought this car,

this Chrysler
Plymouth Powerglide.

Who'd like to come down to
Greece, I want to go to Patmos,

where St. John had
the revelations."

"Oh, yeah, Roger, what,
you mean we'll go in the car?"

Yeah, so Jenny, myself,
Roger, his girlfriend, Judy,

and Rick crammed ourselves

into this
Chrysler Plymouth Powerglide,

which was pink, of course,

and set off for Patmos.

So we all went off.

And in the middle of the night,
we're on, I don't know,

motorway,
somewhere in Germany.

Rick was driving.

We woke up.

And it would only go backwards.

So anyway,
it was broken, caput.

We dumped the car
and settled for the train

and got ourselves
a little boat out to Patmos.

Nobody had much money so we
had to rough it quite a lot,

and we found a little house
to live in

and it had no furniture,

and I think Roger and his
girlfriend at the time, Judy,

they just laid
on a mattress upstairs

and I think Nigel and I
slept in the kitchen.

The inevitable
tripping occurred.

That's where Roger Waters
had his first acid trip.

On the Isle of Patmos.

Where we were looking at
pictures of St. John

the Divine and there
was this beam of light

coming to a hole in his head.

This is obviously
the divine place,

there's a light pouring
into his head.

And I think he found
that quite strange, yes,

never to be repeated.

And I remember asking Roger
if he'd like to be famous

and he said "Yeah!"

They came back and that's
when it all started happening.

♪

Given the musical sophistication
of their latter years,

it is difficult to conceive of
Pink Floyd as a run of the mill,

rhythm and blues band, yet this
is precisely how they began.

♪

Pink Floyd was originally
supposed to be a blues band.

But the blues scene had kind of
passed on in a way,

so I think the Floyd were never
quite serious blues fanatics

the way that some of those
other groups were.

Because of the drugs
and everything, we'd become

tired of the two,
three minute pop song.

And we wanted something
longer to go into

and the Floyd really
were the first music

of acid consciousness,
I mean, they would play

forty minute riffs on one tune.

It would just go on like that,
and that's what we liked

and we could lose ourselves
in the infinite variety

of their solos
and things like that.

By 1966, not only the Beatles,
but a great number of groups

had discovered Ravi Shankar
and all that that entails

and the sitar and the ragas.

You know, a raga can go on
for 30 minutes

and that's just
the introduction,

if you see what I mean?

And Roger had definitely been
to a Ravi Shankar concert

at the Festival Hall.

So, I suspect that that
was where the influence came.

♪

[cheering]

♪

We'd started off playing blues.

And I don't think any of us,
I certainly didn't see

what kind of band
we were going to be.

The early Pink Floyd started off
with a lot of blues

and whatever you call that,
R&B stuff.

And Syd would take them off
into extended sort of jamming

as he got more interested
in the new waves

that was happening at the time.

I remember sitting
with a piece of paper with Syd,

drawing out what the line up
was going to be

and what amps
we were going to have.

Two AC30s we decided was it
and put the vocals

and lead guitar
through one AC30

and the bass
and the rhythm guitar

and the keyboards
through the other one.

So there was very much
a plan always.

The group started by playing
gigs at fringe events.

♪

They managed to get a gig
at this club in Kensington

called The Countdown, where they
were playing 90 minute sets,

three times a night.

And they found
they didn't have enough songs.

So they started making
the songs longer, improvising.

And that's how the Pink Floyd
spacey instrumental started.

♪ Set the controls
for the heart of the sun ♪

♪

Down in the sort of basin
of Notting Hill

there was a place called
All Saints Hall

and the Floyd
were playing there

and when we went
in there and heard them

we realized this was definitely
the music of the future,

it was certainly the future
for awhile.

The thing I remember
about that concert

was it was the loudest noise
I'd ever heard.

My eardrums were ringing
for hours and hours

and hours afterwards.

You could say a lot of the music
we played then was pretty bad,

but I suspect we got away
with some of the stuff we did

because everyone in the audience
was quite stoned.

The guy on Melody Maker,
Chris Welch,

he described them as a sort of
thunderous racket.

He couldn't handle
the improvisations.

They were like
a schizophrenic band.

♪ The heart of the sun

♪ The heart of the sun

♪ The heart of the sun

Certainly for quite some time,
they were death commercially.

I mean, I don't think record
companies wanted to know them.

The audiences certainly
didn't want to know them.

And their later success,
you can't believe that they went

through several years
of not doing well.

♪

I came across the Floyd for
the first time at a money raiser

for the London Free School
at a church hall

in Notting Hill Gate.

And I remember seeing them and
thinking, "Wow, they're great."

They all knew who Joe Boyd
was because he was

the big record producer
of the underground.

Joe was an expatriate American
who was already

a respected record producer

and plus he was instrumental
in all the stuff

going on in the '60s.

♪

By the summer of 1966,

Pink Floyd had acquired
two managers.

Peter Jenner and Andrew King.

I knew Peter Jenner
and Andrew King,

and I was the only person
they knew in the music business,

so they said here's a tape
of this group.

I actually tried to--
immediately tried to get Elektra

who I was still working for,
to sign them.

And the boss of Elektra came to
England and we set up a showcase

for them and he wasn't
interested and I got fired.

But I really wanted to stay
in Britain,

but I needed a source of income,
I mean, some way to pay my rent.

Then I started bringing people
down to the Palace Square

to hear the Floyd.

You didn't have to be a genius
to figure out that they were,

that Syd was writing
great songs

and this was a really
interesting group.

Joe Boyd found a new vocation
and opened Britain's first

psychedelic rock club.

We opened UFO on
the 23rd of December, 1966,

the Floyd booked.

And we didn't really know
who was gonna turn up.

I mean, our only advertising,
I think we had a little tiny ad

in Melody Maker and an ad
in International Times

and we passed out little
leaflets in Portobello Road

the previous Saturday.

We were very nervous,
'cause we'd agreed to pay

I think 15 pounds for the rental
of this Irish dance hall

for the night, Friday night,

and it was freezing cold,

and who knew who
was gonna show up.

And in fact,
we packed the place.

And...I would have to call
the audience, generally,

what you would refer to
as freaks.

♪

UFO was pretty seedy.

There was nowhere
to sit, really.

You'd just all lie there,
sort of out of your mind

staring up at the stage

or the films or whatever

because it really was a place
just to drop acid and go to.

There was people...

actually were astonished

to find that there
were so many like them.

They came down, they went,
"Oh wow, we are not alone."

You know, "Me and my friends
are not the only people

dressing in crazy clothes
and taking funny substances

and wanting to listen
to this kind of music."

So it was kind of revelation
for me and for the audience

to see that there were so many
people who were interested.

♪

The Pink Floyd, once called

the "underground's
house orchestra."

On Friday nights, they and
other groups play at UFO,

U-F-O,
Unidentified Flying Object,

a night time environment where
films, projection, and music

make the underground's nightclub
a huge entertainment scene.

For the rest of the week it is,
improbably, an Irish dance hall.

It's here that the underground
becomes most obviously

a young people's movement.

The only people over about 30

are reporters come to
investigate what's going on.

They're treated with amused
tolerance by the people

they're investigating.

One of the aims here is to make
music a felt experience.

To make the patterns of light
and sound merge and fuse

deep inside each listener.

The attempt has been called
psychedelic or mind expanding.

Psychedelic is a silly term
used by commentators

as a blanket word
to cover anything

they don't fully understand.

If this is psychedelic,
then psychedelic music

may be with us for some time.

Many people claim it to be
the next popular music,

music as experience,
not as melody.

♪

I was taking a few trips then
and I was just lying

on the floor while they played,
not in my body.

And being transported, you know,
hundreds, millions, light years

up into the cosmos
on the sounds of their music.

♪

The group decorated those great
songs with long improvisations

and played them in front of
bouncing lights

and pulsing colors
and all that kind of thing.

That was great
because it just enhanced

the whole experience
and I wasn't alone,

I mean, everybody felt that way.

It was very obscure
and very odd.

And the whole effect
was mesmerizing

and they were dressed in their
beautiful satins and silks

and the lights were shining on
them and they were like sort of

colorful gargoyles almost.

The underground movement
in London is small, as yet.

Elsewhere, it has become
a great force.

Instant theater, happenings,
light and sound shows,

psychedelic music is spreading.

Today's underground may be the
answer to tomorrow's leisure.

We were the so-called
beautiful people,

but the News of the World,

who must have heard
about all this

and come down and had a look,

said there were people
there injecting reefers,

which is--yes,
I'd like to try and do that.

So the outside world
was starting to cop on

to what was happening
on the so-called underground.

♪

I was asked by the editor
of the News of the World

if I had any photographs
of the Pink Floyd

and I said, "Oh no," but then I
arranged them with Peter Jenner

who was their manager
at the time.

And they said," Yes, come along,
photograph them."

I was nervous when he said
to me, "Don't accept any food,

drinks, cigarettes
or anything like that."

I didn't ask why and I just
accepted what he said.

I went there and they were so
kind, they were so nice

and they said, "Would you like
a cup of tea?"

And I said, "Oh, no,"
terrified, you know?

They seemed like four very well
educated public school boys.

[shutter clicking]

They were rather bewildered
in actual fact, yes.

I think that's quite
a good word, bewildered.

♪

And I don't think they'd
ever, you know, been asked

to move the instruments.

They were kind of looking
quizzically at each other,

thinking, "I wonder what
this mad woman wants."

I was asked to go again because
the first time they all looked

rather, a bit odd really,
somewhat.

And Jenner said, you know,
he'd prefer to have another set

of pictures, where Syd Barrett
didn't look so spaced out.

But in the second shoot,
Syd took control

and they responded to him,
whatever he said

of the whole session, really.

News of the World used it
for an exposé on drugs.

I'd hadn't realized that that's
what they wanted it for.

I thought, "Oh crikey,
I'm going to be sued," you know?

It's hard to say how many people
were high or not.

Probably in the first month,

there was probably
a pretty good percentage,

but then the combination
of the fact that the publicity

drew a lot of outsiders
or people who hadn't

had much experience
taking drugs.

Plus, the fact that police got
interested and started searching

people in the queue outside
meant as the crowds got bigger,

they got a little bit
straighter.

♪

The Floyd's number one priority
was to release a record.

In January 1967, Joe Boyd
steered the group

into Chelsea's
Sound Techniques Studios

to record the Barrett penned
song, "Arnold Layne."

They were a pleasure
to work with,

we had a lot of fun doing
"Arnold Layne"

and the B-side and we did it.

I mean, we did it
in one evening,

recorded it and mixed it
the next night.

I mean, it wasn't a big,
long process,

but it was a lot of fun.

It reached about number 20
in the charts.

It got banned on Radio London
for encouraging transvest-ism

or something.

Well it's about a guy sniffing
girls panties in the backyard,

you know, it's a bit naughty.

You know, and this was 1967,
the BBC wasn't--

They'd only just started playing
pop music really

and all of a sudden they're
presented with this record

about a guy who
is kind of a pervert,

so their response was to ban it,
which of course,

gave it a lot of publicity.

Now, I think it was
a good enough record

to get higher in the charts
if they hadn't banned it,

but you could equally make
the argument that it got

into the charts at all because
they did ban it.

Who knows?

Record label EMI
was suitably impressed,

and signed the Pink Floyd
on the basis

the band agreed to work
exclusively

with staff producers at the
label's own Abbey Road Studios,

leaving Joe Boyd
unceremoniously dumped.

♪

Peter Jenner and Andrew King,
they were able to get a deal

with EMI and they signed
for 5,000 pounds.

I wasn't upset
that they signed EMI,

although, yeah, I was upset
that they didn't sign

my deal with my company
through--to Polydor,

but I was particularly upset
when EMI said,

"No, no, no we can't use
Joe Boyd,

we're going to use
our own producer."

That was not good.

♪

Joe was terrific for us and
produced two really good singles

and then it all went
a different way.

The band settled into recording
their debut album,

"Piper at the Gates of Dawn"
in Studio 3, Abbey Road.

Meanwhile, in Studio 2,
the Beatles

were working on "Sgt. Pepper's
Lonely Hearts Club Band."

One of the things that did work
for us really well

was EMI as a record company
because we rearranged

our record deal so that we had
pretty unlimited studio time.

And we spent a lot of time
in the studios,

and we spent a lot of time
learning things.

And a lot of it was very much
thanks to The Beatles.

They were working on
"Piper at the Gates of Dawn"

in the Abbey Road Studios,
in a studio and next door

the Beatles were working
on "Sgt. Pepper."

They certainly visited
each other

and listened to what
each other were doing

and then out came the most
psychedelic record

the Beatles ever did.

"Piper at the Gates of Dawn"
was to draw frequent comparisons

with "Pepper" in the wake
of its release and ascendancy

on the British LP charts.

Good rock musicians,
like good composers,

like good artists anywhere,
they're like magpies.

They'll steal bits from here
and bits from there.

They all do it,
nothing wrong with that,

provided what you're making
is something new

and, I mean,
a musician as attuned

and as acute as John Lennon,

there is no way he wouldn't
have picked up on what

others were doing and seeing
is there any way I can use this.

There's nothing wrong with that,

I think that's the process
of all great art.

Syd was using a Zippo lighter to
do a sort of slide guitar effect

and Rick Wright, he was always
trying to work out new noises

to get out of his keyboard.

♪

Lennon felt that Pink Floyd were
on the cusp of doing something

really important, again because
of the Indian connection,

because by then they'd been
to the Maharishi

and they for certain,
a rather short time,

they wore a lot of beads
and flowers in their hair

and talked rubbish
about you know,

transcendental meditation.

I mean, it was absolute garbage,
but there we are.

We've had enough acid,
it'd done all it can do for us,

you know, there was no
going any further

it only does so much.

Are you experiencing
the subtler state

of thought at this moment?

No, I am out in the grass,
speaking--

What do you have to do to obtain
this state of thought?

Just a few instructions
from a trained teacher,

and one begins
to experience it.

How long does it take?

About half an hour.

How do you know
when it's happened?

One begins to feel relaxed.

Right from the beginning,
one begins to feel

some improved level
of well being.

You just feel more energetic,

just simply for doing work
or anything.

You just come out
of it like,

"Let's get going," you know?

♪

"Piper at the Gates of Dawn"
was rapturously received

and the band became
the musical darlings

of the flowering counterculture.

♪

We were touring
virtually everyday.

We were having
the screaming girls

and Syd was definitely a star
and he did like it, actually.

I think Syd really enjoyed
that part of the whole,

the fame thing.

And I think the rest of us
were more uncomfortable with it.

The album did really well,
the first one,

but they were on
the Top of the Pops

doing "See Emily Play,"
which got in the top ten,

but on the other hand,
if you went to see them live,

they'd play
"Interstellar Overdrive"

for like half an hour.

They were very exploratory,
yet they had pop songs

that got in the charts
and they had this balance going

for awhile,
until everything changed.

♪

Even at this early stage,
Syd Barrett was showing signs

of mental fragility.

They'd stopped playing at UFO
because they got too big,

but they'd said,
"We'll come back in the summer

and play a gig here
for the old price,

just for old time's sake."

And so they did
and he came in

and as he passed,
you know, near me,

I looked at Syd and he--

Like somebody turned out
the lights.

His eyes looked very vacant
and very--

It was very distressing.

After their first album,
"Piper at the Gates of Dawn,"

I remember Syd saying,
"I'm not going to mime,

I'm not going to mime."

At that stage, one felt
that

Syd was drifting away

from really being integrated
with the band

and was beginning
to disintegrate.

He really wanted to retain
his artistic integrity.

He didn't like the
commercialization of the music.

"See Emily Play" really took off
after they made

their first
Top of the Pops appearance.

They did three appearances
for that single,

although Syd refused
to do the third one.

He was already showing signs
of being rather disturbed,

rebelling against being
a pop star,

even before they were
proper pop stars.

We were recording a Radio One
show at the BBC

and Syd didn't turn up.

I think it was a Friday.

And no one could find him.

So we basically waited
and waited

and I think we had to cancel
the recording

or we tried to do some
without him, I'm not sure.

And then the managers went off
trying to find him.

And when they found Syd, which I
think was a Sunday or Monday,

they told us, "Well, something's
happened to Syd."

And something had happened
to him, total difference.

Total difference.

♪

I went to the session
when they made "See Emily Play."

Syd was a changed person.

He didn't appear
to recognize me at first,

sort of stared right through me.

And had what Roger has very
aptly put as black holes

in the sky for eyes.

♪

Tales of Syd's erratic
behavior were numerous.

I was in the West End
and I ran into Syd's girlfriend

in Cambridge Circus
and she seemed a bit distressed

and she'd motioned
and there was Syd

lying or sitting in the gutter
on those little side streets

that goes down to Seven Dials.

And she told me, she said,
"He's been taking acid

every day for 7 days."

And he looked just completely
out of it.

♪

It was hard to tell
when he was on it

and when he wasn't
on it, actually.

Lindsay and Syd and Nigel and I
all went to stay in a cottage

in Wales and we all took
LSD and Syd already,

we could hardly
communicate with him.

He wasn't really there.

He was behaving very strangely
and spent one night

balanced on a wine bottle,

with his bare feet
on a wine bottle

and his hands on a low beam.

I think he was grinning,
probably, but just like that.

Just spinning
backwards and forwards.

And I think I was more concerned
about his girlfriend, Lindsay,

because I think
she was very distressed.

At that time, none of us knew
how to handle that.

We were just trying to stay
sane ourselves, really.

So I think at that time,
we were not equipped

to be able to even
begin to help him.

We said, "Oh, it's just
poetic genius,

it's just LSD, it's just
drug induced madness."

We didn't know--

Well, we had no experience
actually of mental illness.

And I think he just slowly

drifted into becoming
incomprehensible.

And none of us could help,
none of us could help.

We have all these terms now,
like bipolar and schizophrenia

and it's quite likely that he
did suffer from one of those,

which combined with large
quantities of LSD,

sent him over the edge.

♪

October 1967: Pink Floyd
began a tour of America.

During the first few days, Syd's
mental state soon threatened

to undermine it.

We did a tour in '68
of the States.

I mean, just of the West Coast.

I think we only did 3 gigs
or something and, you know,

where it was quite clear
that he'd gone,

he was no longer with us
in any real sense.

We always said, "Well, is Syd
going to make it tonight?

Is he going to get
on stage, even?"

And then someone came in,
I don't know who,

don't know if it was any member
of the band and said,

"You've gotta come see
what Syd's doing."

And he'd crushed up all these
mandrakes and mixed it up

with Brylcreem and then
rubbed it in his hair.

And then came on stage
and it all started melting.

So bizarre.

One gig he just detuned
his guitar on the stage.

Another gig he just
played one note.

They had to get a guy called
Davy O'List,

who was in The Nice,

who'd flown over
to kind of deputize,

bolster Syd because
the guitar just wasn't there

a lot of the time.

♪

Despite their ailing front man,
on their return to Britain,

the band continued to perform.

♪

They were setting up
for a gig one day

and it was like,
"Should we go get Syd?"

And someone said,
"No, let's not bother."

And they didn't get Syd,
and that's it,

he was out of the band.

When I look back on how
we treated Syd,

I don't see a bunch
of very kind,

nice people, doing
the very best they could.

Everyone was sort of thinking,
"Well, how on Earth

can we get this under control
so we can carry on?"

It's hard now to say--

Being wise after the event,
there's a lot of other routes

that might have been taken.

On April 6th, 1968,
it was officially confirmed

that Syd was no longer
a member of Pink Floyd.

Roger Waters rang me
and said,

"The Floyd have a gig
tonight in Brighton,

but Syd's just not going
to make it.

Would you ring David Gilmour
and see if he could pack up

his guitar and join us?"

And David joined the band.

I guess he never looked back.

♪

In the beginning,
I had no clue what I was doing,

it was probably dreadful
and I thought

it wasn't a lot of fun,
I have to tell you.

It was a huge relief
to have Dave in the band,

didn't have the fear
of what's going to happen next,

or whatever and we then started
trying to learn to write,

I mean, Roger and me and Dave.

And I'm sure that's when I
started doing my improvisation

or whatever on the keyboards.

The songs that came later
that Roger and Dave wrote

are very different
from Syd's songs.

They're not as dense,
they're not as witty,

they're not as jaunty.

♪

After leaving the band in 1968,
Syd spent the remainder

of the year in a fragile state.

I was in Harrods shopping
and I saw Syd,

I don't think he saw me.

I saw him, he had his
brown paper bag,

and was buying sweets 'cause I
think he just lived on sweets.

That was the last time
I saw him.

Syd's departure coincided
with them becoming successful.

I'm speaking commercially.

So it was a terrible dilemma.

I mean, Roger felt almost
brotherly love for Syd.

I mean, it was more than
even that.

He felt responsible for Syd.

They were great friends.

They'd been together for God
knows how many years.

It was a real tragedy and Roger
for years worried about this.

And still worries about it.

And when Syd died,
was still worrying about it.

He died in 2006,
from pancreatic cancer.

Commendably, they all made sure
he got his royalties,

right up until, you know,
he died.

It's a shame for people to
remember him as this sort of

burnt-out shell.

He is one of the few real
musical geniuses

of this pop era, I think.

Although his actual output
is pathetically small,

it is quite influential.

The specter of Syd haunted us
subsequently.

I mean, obviously,
we went back to it

with "Wish You Were Here"
in a major way.

♪

Pink Floyd cultivated
an impassive on stage demeanor,

calculated to keep their
audiences entirely focused

on the music and
state of the art

multimedia extravaganza.

♪

In 1973, after eight albums,

"Dark Side of the Moon"
hoisted Floyd onto a plane

of popularity few bands
experience.

The pivotal release became one
of the most celebrated albums

in the history
of recorded music,

remaining on the best seller
chart for a phenomenal 26 years.

♪

The next release,
"Wish You Were Here"

became one of the most
successful follow-up albums

of all time.

♪

The "Wish You Were Here" album
is probably

the best balanced album
in terms of the music

having the emotional strength
on its own.

To me, that works better than
"Dark Side of the Moon" does.

♪

Following "Wish You Were Here,"

the quartet's chemistry
rapidly disintegrated.

♪

When we were making that record,
in the aftermath of the success

of "Dark Side of the Moon,"
you know, in a way,

I sort of knew,
that really we were over

as far as the band of brothers

notion of a pop group
was concerned.

We just weren't anymore
and we were never going to be

that again.

♪

I think it was the last album
where we worked well together.

I know that when we started off,

we weren't putting
our heart into it.

The disagreements did start
at that point.

Around that time,
I split up with my first wife

and I remember in
the canteen downstairs,

here at Abbey Road,

having a nervous breakdown.

I think that's the only way
I can describe it,

but it was very,
very short lived,

but it was like I was sitting
at the table downstairs,

having something to eat,
in a bad way

and suddenly
everything telescoped.

Everything went down
the other end of a telescope.

It all just went--

Everything, and I thought,

"Fuck me, I'm going mad.

This is what it must be like."

Suddenly, reality
has changed completely.

♪

1979 brought the release
of "The Wall."

Conceived by Roger Waters
as an ambitious double album,

a spectacular live show and a
groundbreaking feature film,

"The Wall" went on to achieve
iconic status.

Roger Waters came to me about
eight, ten years ago

and played me the raw tapes
of "The Wall"

and said that he would
be making a film of it

and a show of it,
all of which we did.

And the we started thinking
about what images

would go with the music and
what parts we would illustrate.

I just draw the master drawings,
which I pass

to the master animators
and they draw out

all the main movements.

"The Wall" was probably

their most spectacular
stage presentation.

It was all fostered weirdly
by Roger spitting on a fan

during a gig, and he decided
he'd like to do a gig

isolated from the crowd,
which led, eventually,

to the band being gradually
covered up by a massive wall

on stage,
which was then demolished.

They'd really taken
the stage show to limits

that even the Stones
had never got to at that point.

They really were
the most excessive,

huge band in the world.

♪

It was the biggest and best show
that was on the road

at the time,
and looking back at it now,

it was basically
bicycle technology,

but at the time,
it was cutting edge.

♪

It was a total touring entourage
of about 120-130 people.

It was pretty well organized
because it had to be

because it was such
a big machine.

You were a cog in a machine.

I saw them do "The Wall"
in Naples,

somewhere completely mad
like that.

Rock and roll in the '80s
became show.

You needed the lasers,
you needed the big projection

at the back,
you needed smoke going off,

you needed Mick Jagger
coming up out of the pit,

as if he's the messiah,

and then you needed Madonna
with pointed breasts,

I mean, the most pointed breasts
ever seen on a human being.

It's hype, it's ridiculous,
in other words,

it's got nothing
to do with music anymore.

You know, if you're playing to a
stadium of 50, 60,000 people,

which they did frequently,
you're not making music anymore.

They can't hear themselves.

The audience can't
hear it properly.

To have this huge crowd going--

Like this and sort of
lighting a candle.

I mean, it's bollocks!

In stadiums, it's got nothing
to do with music anymore.

And now they were just
this behemoth of a band,

and it was going to implode
and there was something

of a cocaine problem
going on in the band

and it grabbed several members
and that never helps.

♪

During the recording
of "The Final Cut,"

Roger had actually fired Rick
from the band,

which is a very, very sad thing
to do to a gorgeous man

and it didn't make
any difference.

It isn't as if there wasn't
enough money to go around,

let him stay.

At one point,
he'd been relegated

to being a session man,
he'd left the band

and then he came back,
just paid as much

as the session bass players.

I do think for him to be hired
by the band he helped form

and paid as a session guy,

I think that's
fairly disgusting.

That underlying angst in Roger

has caused him
to treat some people

rather wrongly, I feel,
and I think Rick

being the gorgeous, lovely,
peaceful gentleman that he is,

that he was, meant that he did
get the brunt of it.

They couldn't figure out what
Rick contributed.

I remember several conversations
with various other members

of the band who
should be nameless,

is that they liked him,
but they couldn't figure out

what he contributed.

And I think that
was totally unfair.

But of course once that idea,
that seed of an idea,

gets planted, then you're almost
kind of thinking,

"I wonder what he contributes,"
if you see what I mean.

♪

By the mid '80s,
the group began to unravel.

Relationships got really bad
between Roger

and the rest of the band.

He was now traveling separately,
and the last album

was entirely dictated by him.

It was called "The Final Cut"
and every track was written

by Roger.

He left--by 1995 he was gone.

It happens, they grow up
together, it's a long time.

And to be expected to be happy
living in each other's pockets

for most of your lives,
it doesn't happen.

It can't happen like that.

♪

I don't have any power in any
of that decision making process

because the rights
in all of the old stuff

reside with a company called
Pink Floyd Music Limited

and there are four shareholders.

Rick Wright, Nick Mason,
Dave Gilmour, and me

and we all have one vote
so I can always be outvoted,

and I always am
and so I don't really bother

to have much to do with it
'cause it's a waste

of my energy.

♪

Following Roger Water's
departure,

the band members went
their separate ways,

until 1987, when Gilmour
and Mason forged ahead

with the Pink Floyd name,
releasing albums

and staging tours.

The very first thing they did
was to reinstate Rick Wright

as a full member of the band.

♪

They don't trash hotel rooms,
and they don't hide

behind security guards.

Could you imagine
the Rolling Stones

getting this close
to the music press Rottweilers?

Were you particularly proud
of last year's shows?

Yeah, yeah, very much so.

For what reason?

They're very, very good shows,
we're proud of the album,

what we did before,
and I think we put together--

I think this show is probably
one of the best we've ever done.

I couldn't think of any other
band who would start out playing

to drug crazed hippies
and end up playing

to conservative cabinet
ministers and possibly future--

I mean, it's not a criticism,
I'm just wondering,

did you ever expect
yourself to--

There are some areas in which
we have gone backwards,

it has to be said.

We all still like to be
successful and famous,

all things that apply to us
when we were fighting our way up

sort of 20-something years ago
still apply.

You're on a world tour,
does playing in London

have any added
significance for you?

Oh, it's the hassle in London.

Thousands of people wanting
tickets, all that sort of stuff.

It's going to be great,
it's the first--

Actually although people say
it's a huge bar,

it is actually the smallest
place we've played

and it's the last period
of our tour,

so we're finished
when we finish here.

Why do you keep doing it?

It's what I do.

Why do you keep
doing what you do?

♪

Go back to your seats
now, please.

Floyd are on a one hundred
million pound world tour.

But a 1,200-seater stand
collapsed minutes before

they went on stage.

Earls Court was evacuated,
the Pink Floyd concert

was cancelled.

Now the Health and Safety
Executive are examining

the wreckage to find out
what went wrong.

♪

Things did go wrong
quite often.

In Venice, our show
was on a barge.

This barge was 360 feet long

and I think it was
120 foot wide

and 12 foot deep.

Think of a just
a big, steel tank.

We built the entire show
in the docks.

So the whole stage
was on this barge,

it's the big festival outdoors,
stadium stage.

We sailed in being towed
by two tugs,

really early in the morning,
through the mist

with Jolly Rogers
flying off the PA.

We were the third tallest
structure in Venice.

♪

Dave was standing
in downstage center

looking at all this madness
going on around him

and I went over and said,
"Thanks, Dave,

this is wicked, this is,"
he said "It is the most

ridiculous thing I've ever
done in my life, Bob.

I can't believe
we're doing this."

♪

It was meant to be the most
spectacular concert

in the history of rock.

Two hundred thousand people
packed into St. Mark's Square

to hear Pink Floyd, 100 million
watched on television

around the world.

But the following morning,
there was another spectacle,

St. Mark's Square under a sea
of filth and litter.

The concert had taken place
with few facilities laid on

for the fans and virtually
no public toilets.

Some fans had clambered onto
whatever vantage points

they could,
with inevitable results.

At least one historic monument
was also said

to have been damaged.

Venetians were furious and now
to defuse the row,

the mayor says he may resign,

together with the
entire town council.

Venice is still recovering
from last week's concert,

a team of architects had
predicted that the decibel level

of Pink Floyd's music could
cause permanent damage

to buildings.

In that case,
Venice may be regretting

the day Pink Floyd came to town
for a very long time yet.

♪

In 1996, Pink Floyd
were inducted

into the US Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame,

followed by the same honor
in the UK in 2005.

It's nice to be loved
and for one's contribution

to be recognized in some way

and I suppose I do agree
that I think that

we have had an influence.

I think we're really pleased.

It is an honor and it's very
nice to be recognized

rather than having to watch
other people being inducted.

...Floyd into the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame.

I think it probably means
that this is official,

that we never, ever have to be
a support act ever again.

Thank you!

[applause]

♪

On July 2nd, 2005, for the first
time in almost 25 years,

Pink Floyd reformed
for their final performance.

If the Pink Floyd can agree
on what to play,

surely the G8 summit
can agree on what

to do about sorting out Africa.

I was intrigued to see it.

Roger seemed
really pleased to be back.

And Dave seemed less so.

Now the body language
was a bit odd.

There was obviously
animosity there.

If there was tensions,
it was very cleverly disguised.

If I'm honest, which I am,
it was more about

being with Nick and Rick and
Dave on stage again, I think.

There was an enormous joy
in that.

From the moment we walked
into rehearsals,

which we did on a sort of
Tuesday afternoon

before the thing
had started playing,

it was obvious it was going
to be so easy

because there's nothing complex
about any of the music.

I looked around at one point
and there were people in tears.

It's something that no one
thought they'd see again.

It brought a tear to my eye to
see them all up there together,

delightful.

♪

The problem with Live 8
was you weren't quite sure

why you were there.

On that occasion, you felt

you were there because
you ought to be there

rather than, "Gosh, isn't it
good to see them?"

A lot of bands have a lot
of acrimony,

a lot of splits and so on.

One of the reasons I was so
happy to be on stage again

was to say, "Hey, whatever,
we disagree, so what?"

They all stood on the stage
with their arms

around each other,
thank God that happened.

They had buried the hatchet
and I'm really glad it happened

because Rick Wright died,
not that long afterwards.

♪

Everyone was very distressed
that he seemed just gone

for no particularly good reason.

I was very, very shocked
to hear the news.

And I said, said a few things
in my mind.

Thank you, Rick, thank you for
everything you've done for us

and I'm so pleased to
have met you

and so pleased I worked
with you,

you were such a lovely,
lovely man

and very, very dearly,
very sorely missed.

He was like the life blood
of Pink Floyd.

He was very underrated.

He was the unseen--if you're
talking about geniuses,

I think you could say
he inherited that mantle.

I was invited to Q
to present Pink Floyd

with the Living Legends
Award for 2009.

It was three weeks after
Rick Wright passed away

and David got the whole
of the Grosvenor Hotel

to stand up in unison

and raise a glass
to Rick's memory

and it's not often I see people
with tears in their eyes

coming up to me, telling me that
was just one of the most

amazing things they've
ever seen, it was amazing.

♪

Roger just didn't want to know,
just didn't want to know.

Didn't believe it,
didn't want to know.

That was misinterpreted
as not caring.

But I think the extent
to which he let it be known

that he didn't want to know
was the extent paradoxically

that he really desperately cared

and was very,
very upset about it.

The same with Syd,
go right back to Syd Barrett.

Exactly the same situation.

♪

Roger Waters and David Gilmour
have continued to pursue

solo careers, occasionally
joined by Nick Mason.

There's almost like a primal
therapy thing with Roger,

to explore his
innermost psyche.

Which is a bit self indulgent,
but at the same time,

there are people who will
be able to relate to it

and he is speaking
for a generation

of people like him.

I take my hat off to him
for that,

because that takes some doing.

Dave Gilmour is seen
as the face of Floyd now,

yet he's made solo albums that
have done, done pretty well.

He gave away a house
in West London to a charity,

and a part of that is I think
compensating for the fact that,

"I didn't deserve all this
money that I'm earning now."

He's also not afraid for a bit
of experimentation

because he's just done
a new album

with Dr. Alex Paterson
of The Orb.

Four decades since
their first album,

Pink Floyd continue
to inspire rock fans

around the world.

♪

I've been in taxis in obscure
corners of the third world

and you know, the glove
compartment opens

and there's two cassettes
in there

and one of them is
"Dark Side of the Moon"

and the other one
is Madonna, you know?

And if you told me that
in 1967,

that 25 years later,
I'd be somewhere in Indonesia

or whatever and see those
cassettes in somebody's car,

I would have thought
you were nuts,

but it's fantastic
that it's true.

Everybody knows of Pink Floyd,
you say something to Grandma,

and Grandma will
heard of Pink Floyd.

It's kind of bizarre.

It's terrific, I mean, it's
so great when people come up

and say,
they'd like an autograph

and it's not for their Granny,

it's actually
for their children.

Pink Floyd music will continue
to inspire us

for centuries to come.

They captured so much
of the spirit of the times.

Their music is timeless,
deep, and wonderful.

♪