Welcome to the Machine

Song infobox
Name = Welcome to the Machine


Artist = Pink Floyd
Album = Wish You Were Here
Released = 15 September 1975
track_no = 2
Recorded = January - July 1975
Genre = Progressive rock
Length = 7:31
Writer = Waters
Label = Harvest, EMI (UK) Columbia, Capitol (US)
Producer = Pink Floyd
prev = Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts I - V)
prev_no = 1
next = Have a Cigar
next_no = 3"Welcome to the Machine" is the second song on Pink Floyd's 1975 album "Wish You Were Here". It is 7 minutes and 31 seconds long. It is notable for its use of heavily processed synthesizers and guitars, as well as a wide and varied range of tape effects.

Theme

The song explores the band's negativity towards the music industry and the whole of industrialized society. The song centres around an aspiring musician who is getting signed by a seedy executive to the music industry, "The Machine". The voice predicts all the boy's seemingly rebellious ideas ("You bought a guitar to punish your ma, you didn't like school, and you know you're nobody's fool"). The boy's illusions of personal identity are further crushed with lines such as, "What did you dream, it's alright we told you what to dream". The lyrics also allude to the band's disillusionment with the music industry as a money-making machine rather than a forum of artistic expression. On the original LP, the song segued from the first 5 parts of the suite "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" and closed the first side. On the CD pressings, especially the 1997 and 2000 remastered issues, it segues (although very faintly) to "Have a Cigar". This segueing is a few seconds longer on the US version than the UK version.

Recording

The track was built upon a basic throbbing sound made by an EMS VCS 3 followed by a one-repeat echo. David Gilmour admitted that he had trouble singing one line of the song; saying, "It was a line I just couldn't reach so we dropped the tape down half a semitone." [ [http://www.pink-floyd.org/artint/99.htm "An Interview with David Gilmour by Gary Cooper"] ] He sang the part, then the pitch of the vocals were raised to meet the rest of the song.

Music video

Gerald Scarfe created a music video, initially a backdrop film for when the band played the track on its 1977 In the Flesh tour. The fanciful video begins with a giant mechanical beast; a cross between a Triceratops and an armadillo. The creature slowly lumbers across an apocalyptic cityscape. The scene then shifts to show emaciated rats leaping around corpse-laden steel girders. Gleaming industrial smokestacks soon fade in, and disturbingly crack and ooze blood. A view of a barren desert is then immediately shown. In the background a small tower grows out of this desert, but then transforms into a screaming monster and decapitates an unsuspecting man in the foreground. His head then very slowly decays to a damaged skull as the sun sets. Finally, an ocean of blood washes away this scene, and the waves turn into thousands of hands waving in rhythm to the music (much like people at a rock concert). All of the surrounding buildings are swept away; except one. Despite being pulled at by the bloody masses, it survives and, synchronising with the sound effects at the end of the track, flies up and away, high above the clouds to where it fits snugly into a hole inside a gargantuan floating ovoid structure.

Credits

Music and lyrics by Roger Waters
*Roger Waters - EMS VCS 3, bass guitar, backing vocals
*David Gilmour - six and 12-string acoustic guitars, lead and backing vocals
*Richard Wright - EMS VCS 3, ARP String Ensemble synthesizer, Mini-Moog Synthesizers
*Nick Mason - tympani, cymbals

Recorded January to July 1975 at Abbey Road Studios, London.

Live performances

In live performances of the song on Pink Floyd's 1977 "In the Flesh" tour, Gilmour and Waters shared lead vocals, although in initial performances, Gilmour sang on his own with some backing vocals by Waters. Also for the 1977 live performances, David Gilmour played his acoustic guitar parts on his Fender Stratocaster while Waters played an Ovation acoustic guitar and Snowy White played bass guitar. Floyd would play the track again on its 1987/88/89 A Momentary Lapse of Reason/Another Lapse tours when Tim Renwick played lead guitar, while Gilmour played a 12-string acoustic guitar. It was performed by Roger Waters on the 1987 Radio KAOS tour and the 1999-2002 "In the Flesh" tour.

Trivia

*This is the only song in which David Gilmour can be seen using headphones live.

*The song has been covered by metal band Shadows Fall on their album The Art of Balance.

*The song has been covered by Progressive metal band Queensrÿche on their album Take Cover.

*The penultimate level of the video game "Ecco the Dolphin" is named after this song. It is set inside a gigantic alien device.

*The Pink Floyd tribute band The Machine are named after this song and they often use it as their opening number.

*Roger Waters performed this song on his 1999-2002 In The Flesh Tour. It was also featured on the In The Flesh concert DVD/CD.

*Tim Footman used the title for his book, "Welcome to the Machine: OK Computer and the Death of the Classic Album" (2007, ISBN 1-84240-388-5). The Radiohead album (1997) shares many musical and thematic elements with Pink Floyd's mid-70's oeuvre, although members of Radiohead have resisted the comparison.

Quotes

References

External links

* [http://home.att.net/~chuckayoub/pink_floyd/lyrics/welcome_to_the_machine.html Welcome To The Machine Lyrics]
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEVDJ_kp1Cc Welcome To The Machine live in Olympic Stadium Spiridon Spiros Louis, Athens. May 31, 1989]
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbifrXX2Ltw&NR=1 The original video on YouTube]
* [http://www.weareawake.us Welcome To The Machine concept album by AWAKE based partially on Pink Floyd's song of the same name]