WORKS — An Unknown Pink Floyd Collection
Let’s talk Pink Floyd albums. I guess we all know the big four: Dark Side Of The Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals, The Wall. We can all agree these are Pink Floyd’s most famous and bestselling records. Can we consider them to be the best ones as well? I don’t know and I don’t care. I’m not one for rankings.
Moving on, many of us I believe should be familiar with the less globally known Meddle and Atom Heart Mother. I know, it’s not like I’m talking about unheard-of records, but when comparing them with the big 4 record breaking sales, they do feel niche.
Fighting to keep their heads above water we find The Piper at The Gates of Dawn, Ummagumma, A Saucerful of Secrets, (Roger Waters’) The Final Cut and three last Waters-less albums in A Momentary Lapse of Reason, The Division Bell and The Endless River.
I’m not forgetting about More and Obscured by Clouds, but as those two are to be considered soundtracks, I won’t be including them in this list.
In addition to that, during their time as a band, Pink Floyd released multiple songs collections, including well known releases such as Relics, Echoes and A Foot in the Door, and the less famous ones such as The Later Years and The Early Years series or BBC’s Recording Sessions.
You must be wondering why I listed all of PF’s works. I’m trying to prove a point. Everything will be much clearer in the not so distant future.
Having said all that, I feel like I can quite confidently say that you have at least once bumped into each and every single one of these records. I may be wrong, but I don’t think I am.
There is something else I’m quite positive about: you have no idea what Works is. I may be wrong, but I don’t think I am.
Why is nobody aware of this collection? The background story is quite unusual and I’m glad you’ll be learning it from me, if you don’t know it already.
Works by Pink Floyd deserves a deep rewind.
The year is 1983. The Wall was released 4 years prior and Pink Floyd is done touring, as a matter of fact the band is more into fighting these days. Richard Wright is out of the band, Roger Waters is pretty much already going solo, even though that would officially happen in two years time, in 1985. David Gilmour is wildly more interested in his wife’s works than Rogers’ and Nick Mason needs to decide whose side to pick in order to being able to financially sustain his colossal cars collection. We all know how that went (Spoiler alert, he didn’t quit PF, leaving Roger Waters on his own).
1983 was also the year Pink Floyd released their final album together with Waters, The Final Cut, which was pretty much a collection of the songs that didn’t make the cut to end on The Wall.
If you want a glimpse of what the world had to offer in 1983, Italy had just won the World Cup one year prior, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird were battling it out on the basketball court, Reagan was president and mafia was getting bigger like pollution in the river.
Back to the music. Pink Floyd had been working together with Harvest, a british music label, since the release of Ummagumma in 1969. So, it was no surprise to anyone when the band announced The Final Cut would receive the same treatment. An intriguing problem came up when another production label started competing against Harvest for the rights to Pink Floyd’s music: US based label Capitol Records, which throughout its history has worked with the lights of Paul McCartney, Frank Sinatra and The Beach Boys amongst others. That is how “Works” was born: its aim was to compete against the Final Cut’s release. As you’ve probably guessed by now, Works didn’t end up being successful, and lost to The Final Cut when it came to record sales.
But what did Works include? Quite surprisingly, the Capitol Records’ sponsored record didn’t feature any song from the last three PF albums (The Wall, Animals and Wish You Were Here), only going as far as Dark Side Of The Moon’s “Brain Damage” and “Eclipse”. The record’s side A also included Meddle’s “One of These Days” and “Fearless”, Syd Barrett’s “Arnold Layne” and “See Emily Play”, featured on side B together with “Set the Controls for the Heart of The Sun”, “Several Species of Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict” and Obscured by Clouds’ “Free Four”.
There is one last song I haven’t mentioned yet: Embryo. “Embryo” is Works’ closing song. The song was a concert staple between 1970 and 1971, though a full studio version had never been released beside on a rare multi-artist album “Picnic — A Breath of Fresh Air” until it was featured on Works.
The studio version of the song, recorded in 1968, is a quiet, almost acoustic piece sung by David Gilmour lasting less than five minutes, whereas when played live, the song would last around 12 minutes, and would often not even resemble the studio recorded version.
Quite bizarrely, the last time Embryo was played, on 20 November 1971, Richard Wright’s Hammond suddenly failed, resulting in the other three members of the band having to play for roughly 15 minutes while waiting for the instrument to be repaired, performing not yet released songs such as an instrumental version of “Breathe” and a rough “Any Colour You Like”, as well as “Raving and Drooling”, which would eventually turn out to become Animals’ “Sheep”.
In closing, what you just read is Works’ story, not your average Pink Floyd collection.
I was lucky enough to get my hands on a 1983 original Japanese pressing, which as you would expect is the best vinyl pressing you could possibly wish for. I suggest you go and give it a listen, as for me it turned out to be one of my most played records.
