Pink Floyd – A Saucerful Of Secrets, Live (1969) *NEW VIDEO

FESCH.TV INFORMIERT:

For nine months I had been listening to tracks from Pink Floyd’s first two albums, The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn and A Saucerful Of Secrets, courtesy largely of Toronto’s CHUM FM radio (and recordings I made from the station on reel-to-reel). When WYSL became an all-night underground FM radio station I found pretty much the same tracks being played … until November 1969 and the release of Ummagumma. The first song that received a lot of air time and became a station favorite was „The Grand Vizier’s Garden Party.“ No doubt this was because it was the most highly experimental of all the album’s tracks.

A month later this track, the live version of „A Saucerful Of Secrets,“ was added to the station’s playlist of favorites off Ummagumma. This version was enough to wipe me out so completely I just HAD to buy the album. Thus, in January 1970, Ummagumma became my first Pink Floyd album purchase.

I essentially follow a similar path on this video as I did on the studio version of „A Saucerful Of Secrets“ from 1968.

Like that version, it is apparent that it is broken up into four distinct sections. These again are likely 1) „Something Else“ 2.“Syncopated Pandemonium“ 3.“Storm Signal“ and 4.“Celestial Voices.“ „Celestial Voices,“ on close inspection, actually plays out in two stages: the instrumental theme and the vocal version of the theme which concludes the work.

Along with „Astronomy Domine“ this composition was done both as a „space rock“ adventure as well as a mythological one. According to Roger Waters the first two parts concerns a battle about to be engaged and the battle itself. On the 1968 version, the battle was earthbound, a war between countries. Obviously for the space rock version, the war might be prepared on earth but would take place in outer space. In addition, I decided to add a mythological aspect to the one in space in keeping with Syd Barrett’s vision of space travel and mythology in „Astronomy Domine.“ Also, Time has no meaning here. We can be in ancient Rome one moment and in the far-flung future of The Phantom Menace with Lord Palpatine the next. The actual battle resolves as the Clash of the Gods between Zeus and the Titans.

I shift from the Olympian battlefield on Earth, the Sea, and in Hades to the cosmos in „Storm Signal“ … indicating that the war is about to be resolved by the harmonic convergence of The Planets to prepare the way for „Celestial Voices.“ My interpretation of „Celestial Voices“ deals with both the spiritual realm as well as the erotic.

All in all, this video is a much bigger production than the one I did for the 1968 version of „A Saucerful Of Secrets.“

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Minotaur (2006), directed by Jonathan English
The Phantom Menace (1999), directed by George Lucas
Clash of the Gods: Zeus (2009)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), directed by Stanley Kubrick
The Monarch (2011), directed by Mark Charade
The Indian Tomb (1959), directed by Fritz Lang, dance by Debra Paget
Goddess of the Fire Dance (2017), directed by Jonathan Lawrence, dance by Krystal Tini (in tribute to Debra Paget’s snake dance)