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Rating: Third studio album for the legendary band, the first without the "physical presence" of Syd Barrett. No one could predict what might happen next, and no one saw a bright future for the band. 1969. The band began to take an interest in cinema, writing music for certain films, particularly those films that in a certain sense "fully reflected" the "acid" period of the late sixties. The Floyd started working on a film directed by Barbet Schroeder entitled "More," which is officially their first experience with soundtracks. Over the years, this album has nonetheless become a classic, and now the public doesn't even "identify" it as a soundtrack but simply as the band's third album.
It is an album that also contains the only two truly Rock tracks of their entire production, I'm talking about "The Nile Song" and "Ibiza Bar," two tracks that are not exceptional and that, in my opinion, clash with the sublime atmospheres created with the other tracks on the album.
It opens with "Cirrus Minor," a wonderful track, nature anticipates a sweet and melancholic acoustic guitar arpeggio, Gilmour's voice is almost spectral, Wright's organ becomes increasingly powerful, and the finale is completely entrusted to him in a chord progression that vaguely reminds one of the wonderful ending of "A Saucerful Of Secrets." "Cirrus Minor" is a wonderful track, in my opinion, very underrated by both the public and the Floyd, a track that, in my view, has all the characteristics (except for the length) of early Floyd music. Listening to it is sublime. "The Nile Song," the second track, breaks the spectral atmospheres of the previous piece and focuses on something that almost pushes towards hard rock. In my opinion, this is not a "typically Floydian" piece and has little to do with their music, but on the other hand, I understand that they were working for a movie, so it's very likely that some choices didn't come from them. In any case, "The Nile Song" is a track that I find very forgettable. We immediately return to the atmospheres of "Cirrus Minor," and we do so with the third track on the album "Crying Song," the song of crying...a very slow piece that manages very well to leave the listener with that sense of sadness that the track wants to convey. After this "little cry," we finally move on to the instrumental part, a true trademark of early Floyd, "Up the Khyber" is not an exceptional track, but it is certainly a clear testament to the still alive and thriving desire for experimentation. We are immediately catapulted into a beautiful green meadow, a meadow created for dreaming, Gilmour's relaxed and sweet voice sings to us "Green is the colour," which will become a classic in their live performances. A "simple" song, a round of simple chords with good work (as always) by the "painter" Rick Wright, definitely pleasant to listen to. The next track is particularly noteworthy, "Cymbaline," which in my opinion will work much better in live performances, there it will be much longer, much more complex, much more "psychedelic," a wonderful track! The following tracks, apart from "Ibiza Bar," are all instrumental, among them is a small masterpiece, and in my opinion, together with "Cirrus Minor" and "Cymbaline," it completes the circle that makes this album exceptional. The track in question is "Quicksilver," seven minutes of pure madness. A track that takes you into the darkest recesses of sound, the Gong gradually enters until it explodes, moments of silence that turn into small sound vibrations caused by Gilmour's guitar and Rick Wright's Farfisa, a piece that with a good dose of acid inside transports you to any point in the cosmos. The real Pink Floyd, the ones I like.
Free sex, parties, alcohol, and drugs, ingredients that united the Floyd of that era with Schroeder's project, which involved a plot that dealt precisely with these themes. I think the director understood very well that the Floyd were perfect for creating the right music for scenes that involved free sex and drugs. "More" is an album that should be listened to like any other Pink Floyd album, you can "travel" as much as you want, the ingredients for a good trip are not lacking...but it's always good to remember that we are talking about a soundtrack, therefore the "fluctuating" pace between one track and another (example Cirrus Minor - The Nile Song) should not be considered a defect or a poor choice but a well-thought-out logic for a project intended to be an integral part of a film. This is work for a film! After "More," the Floyd will continue to experiment greatly, with "Ummagumma," "Atom Heart Mother," and company...new adventures with cinema, unforgettable and tragic from a certain point of view the experience with Michelangelo Antonioni (anyway, a wonderful instrumental piece by Rick Wright and an incredible version of "Careful with that axe Eugene" will come out of it). "More" is important because it also marks the debut of the four boys without their genius, the genius who started it all...Syd Barrett. For these reasons, I consider "More" a fundamental album, to be listened to and understood fully. With "More," the Floyd "give" us another "journey"...and in the end, we might scream the phrase that Gilmour utters in "Cymbaline"... "....please wake me!"
VinnySparrow
Tracklist and Lyrics
01 Cirrus Minor (05:15)
In a churchyard by a river,
Lazing in the haze of midday,
Laughing in the grasses and the graze.
Yellow bird, you are alone
In singing and in flying on,
In laughing and in leaving.
Willow weeping in the water,
Waving to the river daughters,
Swaying in the ripples and the reeds.
On a trip to Cirrus Minor,
Saw a crater in the sun
A thousand miles of moonlight later.
04 A Spanish Piece (01:05)
Pass the tequila, Manuel
(glug, snort)
Listen, gringo, laugh at my lisp and I kill you
I think
This Spanish music
It sets my soul on fire
Lovely seniorita
Your eyes are like stars
Your teeth are like pearls
Your ruby lips
06 The Nile Song (03:25)
I was standing by the Nile
When I saw the lady smile.
I would take her out for a while,
For a while.
Oh, my tears wept like a child.
How her golden hair was blowing wild.
Then she spread her wings to fly,
For to fly.
Soaring high above the breezes,
Going always where she pleases.
She will make it to the islands in the sun.
I will follow in her shadow
As I watch her from my window.
One day I will catch her eye.
She is calling from the deep,
Summoning my soul to endless sleep.
She is bound to drag me down,
Drag me down.
10 Cymbaline (04:49)
The path you tread is narrow
And the drop is sheer and very high
The ravens all are watching
From a vantage point nearby
Apprehension creeping
Like a tube-train up your spine
Will the tightrope reach the end?
Will the final couplet rhyme?
And it's high time...
Cymbaline
Yes it's high time...
Cymbaline
Please wake me
A butterfly with broken wings
Is falling by your side
The ravens all are closing in
And there's nowhere you can hide
Your manager and agent
Are both busy on the phone
Selling coloured photographs
To magazines back home
And it's high time...
Cymbaline
Yes it's high time...
Cymbaline
Please wake me
The lines converging where you stand
They must have moved the picture plane
The leaves are heavy round your feet
You hear the thunder of the train
Suddenly it strikes you
That they're moving into range
And Doctor Strange is always changing size
And it's high time...
Cymbaline
Yes it's high time...
Cymbaline
Please wake me
And it's high time...
Cymbaline
Yes it's high time...
Cymbaline
Please wake me
13 Ibiza Bar (03:16)
I'm so afraid of the mistakes that I made
Taking every time that I wake
I feel like a hard-boiled and cut-up man
So give me a time when the countries will lie on the storyline if kind
Are days are made since the first page
I've lived every line that you wrote
Take me down, take me down, from the shelf above your head
So give me a time when the countries will lie on the storyline if kind
And if I live on the shelf like the rest
And if love bleeds like a sad song
Please pick-up your camera and use me again
So give me a time when the countries will lie on the storyline if kind
Yea
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