Pink Floyd is one of those English rock bands that gave us a vastly diverse range of songs, from trippy music to philosophical lyrics and heady prog-rockers. Here is a list of the top weirdest songs by Pink Floyd. Read on!
The British rock band, Pink Floyd, was co-founded by Pink Anderson and Floyd Council in 1965. The band rose to immense success from its very formation, owing to its psychedelic rock music and twisty lyrics. However, the band broke when one of the lead members left the band to make his career as a solo artist. But that did not mean the end of Pink Floyd.
Throughout the years, this English rock band and its legacy have given us a variety of groovy, dark, good, and weird songs, making us remember why they were pioneers in music. Today, even decades later, people try to copy and re-contextualize their style, but a legend will always be a legend.
From the psychedelic madness and widescreen filmy soundscapes to the psych-jazz doodling - Pink Floyd surely knew how to throw in their spirit into a song to make it adventurous and interesting - though not always classic - for their dedicated fans! We bring you one such list comprising the most weird songs by Pink Floyd of all time. Scroll on!
All the songs on Pink Floyd's album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, should (as a matter of fact) be on our list of most weird songs by Pink Floyd. This album was created when the band was at its peak psychedelic phase, giving us an almost 10-minute instrumental freak-out with their song Interstellar Overdrive. This song is stuck in a bizarre combination of a hellish carnival of echoing Farfisa organ and guitar noise and an unnerving chromatic riff which is simply uncomfortable to listen to.
This soundtrack was created after Pink Floyd dismissed Barrett (their one-time mastermind) early in the sessions and struggled to curate proper music. The result was this 12-minute track. From drawing diagrams on pieces of paper to visually representing the build from horror-film ambiance and even adding soothing keyboard vistas - this soundtrack simply could not get any more absurd. Although the band accepted that it was not the finest of their performances, and stated, " The song, A Saucerful of Secrets, was a very important track as it gave the band a direction forward." Even the audience agreed that they needed a better direction when creating songs.
As plain and unimaginative as the title sounds, the song lacks depth when compared to classic Pink Floyd songs. The song, A Spanish Piece, feels more like a rushed afterthought with a very un-Floyd-like vibe. The last one minute of this song is only fluid Spanish guitar licks over a whispered vocal and muted kick drum. Another oddball in the song is its cringe-y fake accent and lines like, "Listen, gringo: Laugh at my lisp, and I kill you."
Overall neither the soundtrack nor the lyrics could help this song to avoid our list of most weird songs by Pink Floyd.
The album, Ummagumma, earmarked one solo studio song for every member of this rock band. With its stuttering percussion overdubs to random jumps from studious flute, the song The Grand Vizier’s Garden Party was for Mason. He was a bare-bones Pink Floyd drummer who did not sing or play tuned instruments and said, "I attempted to do a variation on the obligatory drum solo." The song is a peculiar one.
The soundtrack, More, to Schroeder's film, More, allowed Pink Floyd to stretch out of desperation. The songs of this entire album sound as if this British band was running out of ideas and experimenting with almost anything that they could work with. And this can even be seen in the song Up the Khyber which adopts an unlikely psych-jazz aura with Wright and Nick Mason haphazardly banging away on the piano, organ, and tom-toms. The song is wacko enough to land on our list of most weird songs by Pink Floyd of all time.
Waters tried to attempt an idea on Several Species, which was one of numerous tedious and strange solo tracks from the album Ummagumma. Similar to its name, this song is actually just manipulated and looped noises, resembling the atmosphere or chaos of cartoon chipmunks sprinting around a cave. Waters himself said, "It is not actually anything; it is a bit of concrete poetry." Concrete poetry or not, one thing we are sure of that is this song belongs on our list of most weird songs by Pink Floyd of all time.
From species and garden parties, the topic moved to breakfast ingredients. While preparing his morning food, Alan Styles calmly lists his favorite breakfast meals - and this theme is set to the soundtrack of baroque-y keyboards and fingerpicked folk. However dumb and bizarre the concept sounds, the overall combination feels less heavy, charming, and more playful, considering the reputation of Pink Floyd songs. Alan has even included the sound of his sizzling bacon - can a song be any more insane?
Absolutely Curtains is almost a traditional Pink Floyd song for its first three-and-a-half minutes. Then there is an uncanny shift from moderate suspense from sheets of piano and organ to unexpected mysterious vocalizations. The band even stated that the song is a religious chanting of the Mapuga tribe and is supposed to have unexpected twists. But the audience did not go well with this unlikely concept, therefore, this song too falls on our list of most weird songs by Pink Floyd.
The album, The Dark Side of the Moon, started its life onstage in 1972 and was considered a high watermark of studio technology after finesse and refinement in 1973. While every song in this album made the final playlist, there was this one song, On the Run, which was drastically revamped. The song, On the Run, explored the anxiety of modern travel and evolved from a funky-styled instrumental theme into an electronic collage partially created with the band's new EMS Synthi AKS synthesizer. With its white-noise hi-hats, sequenced rumbling patterns, and helicopter-like wobbles, this song became one of the ultimate headphone tracks ever curated by Pink Floyd (at that time).
The concept behind this song was that Pink Floyd took inspiration to curate music from ordinary items (but why?). As per Alan Parsons, "We were just going nuts. We would put up the rubber bands and get a bass line going, and then drums were added to that." This super strange song comes from one of their household projects. However, the band did ditch the entire concept to go with a more conventional theme that suited their band images, they did release two such songs wherein they salvaged some wine-glass atmosphere and a funky rubber-band bass groove. Let's just say, it was probably for the best that Pink Floyd ditched this strange theme.
People worldwide agree that things were (and to date are) never easygoing and smooth when it comes to the legacy of Pink Floyd. Therefore, another weird fact about the band surfaced that the remix of their song, Animals, which was supposed to be released in 2018, came out now, in 2022, after a delay of 3 years.
Now, you can think that delayed release is natural, especially when it comes to music. However, this delayed track only has the remixed music without any notes. Pretty bizarre, right?
What do you think about the songs of Pink Floyd? Let us know in the comments section below.
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