Echoes FAQ v4.6

That's Peter Jenner (the Floyd's manager) listing a bunch of stars, galaxies, and other stuff through a megaphone. Exactly what's being said is real hard to decipher, but here's what Mark Brown and I have managed:

"Moon in both [houses]..."
"...Scorpio, [Arabian Skies], Libra..."
"...Pluto was not discovered until 1930..."

And then a bit that seems to be a pre-flight countdown:

"...[two/ten] seconds to [ignition]..."
"...all systems satisfied..."

Then, in the middle section of the song, you can hear something like:

"...just completed orbital..."

The question here is whether it should be "dom-in-ee" (to rhyme with "astronomy") or the Latin "doh-mi-nay" (meaning to rule, or have dominion over).

The basic answer is that there is evidence for both pronunciations. I have RoIOs where band members announce it as "doh-mi-nay," and I've heard interviews where they pronounce it "dom-in-ee." At one early Free School performance, it was listed on the concert announcement as "Astronomy Domini" -- yet Syd's song sheet for same the night's performance had it as the usual "Domine." So I guess just go on pronouncing it as you have been...

The pronunciation of Ummagumma also seems to be a little up in the air, BTW. I've heard (on the BBC Omnibus Pink Floyd special) Nick Mason pronounce it "oo-mah-goo-mah," but there's also a RoIO where Roger announces a song from "uh-ma-gum-a."

Well, most people seem to feel it means "Power Toke" or "Power Tokage" or something along those lines. Another suggestion is "Power Touch," but the problem with that is that the space is between the C and H, not between O and C.

Here's something that might shed some light, courtesy of Steve South and the Longmans Encyclopedia:

Toc H, an interdenominational Christian fellowship of men and women of every social background, with branches throughout the world, which seeks to promote an understanding of the meaning and purpose of life through unreserved involvement in the community. Founded in 1915, it started its work in a soldiers' club at Talbot House (Toc H was the army signalers' designation of the initials TH) at Poperingtie, Flanders. Incorporated by royal charter in 1922, it is organized in groups and maintains residential houses called 'marks'.

The flip side to Pink Floyd's first single, "Arnold Layne," was originally a song called "Let's Roll Another One." Now, the Floyd were already known to be heavily connected with the drug-influenced psychedelic underground, but their record company wasn't about to release anything with such a blatant drug reference. So they had Floyd change the song.

The extent of the changes made are purely a matter of speculation, as no one I've talked to has ever heard the original. Waters has said they "had to change all the lyrics" (emphasis added). However, a line of the original song, as quoted by Mason, was "tastes right if you eat it right." This is awfully similar to a lyric ("tastes good if you eat it soon") in the revised version of the song, "Candy and a Currant Bun." So most probably, the changes were in detail; and not a total reworking.

There are some RoIOs that claim to include this song, but to the best of my knowledge, none of these are actually the original song. Mostly, they're just bad recordings of disconnected guitar phrases, with a lot of noise, wow, flutter, and general garbage all about. And no lyrics whatsoever.

Well, since we've been discussing this a lot, I have found the answer. As I was going to my local bookstore I found a book called I Ching (the book of changes) in an English translation, and I did look up Chapter 24 and guess what?

It's called "Fu" meaning Change/success (like in "change become success" and is a very nearly transcript of this song. It contains lines like "a movement is accomplished in six stages, and the seventh brings return," only paraphrased.

Also from the same chapter:

"The 7 is the number of the Young wise, it forms when darkness [.. == 6 ..] is increased by 1."

The US release of Piper was a bit different than the UK release. Here are the track lists for both of them [from a posting by bear]:

us release of 'piper at the gates of dawn'

• see emily play (*)
• pow r. toch (=)
• take up my stethoscope and walk (=)
• lucifer sam
• matilda mother
• the scarecrow
• the gnome
• chapter 24
• interstellar overdrive

uk release of 'piper at the gates of dawn'

• astronomy domine (*)
• lucifer sam
• matilda mother
• flaming (*)
• fpow r. toc h. (=)
• ftake up thy stethoscope and walk (=)
• finterstellar overdrive
• fthe gnome
• fchapter 24
• fscarecrow
• bike (*)

Note also that in the US the double-album A Nice Pair has almost, but not quite, the complete Piper. The version of "Astronomy Domine" that appears on the original US Capitol pressings of ANP is not the original (studio) version, but was instead the live version that appears on Ummagumma. Other than that, it is identical to the original UK Piper.

The band's first performance as a five-piece was Aston University, on January 12th. Following that, they played

• Weston Super Mare 13 Jan
• Lewes Sussex 19 Jan
• Hastings Sussex 20 Jan

The next show, at Southampton University on January 26th, was the one Syd was not picked up for. Following this, the band hoped to keep Syd on as a songwriter, but have Gilmour be their performing guitarist. But Syd's songwriting efforts (notably "Have You Got It Yet?") seemed destined for commercial failure, and the rest of the band didn't agree with his plan to add banjo and sax players to the group. So it was decided, on March 2, to break up the management partnership of Blackhill Enterprises, and Syd was thus formally and officially out of the group. The press wasn't informed until April 6th.

In addition to making the Madcap Laughs and Barrett albums, doing a set on the Top Gear Show (released on The Peel Session EP), and recording the songs that were used to make up Opel, Syd was also involved in the following musical activities in his post-Floyd days:

• Wrote/recorded several songs which have never seen the light of day, such as "Bob Dylan Blues," "Just Before You Disappear," "Lanky, pt.2," "Living Alone," and "Rhamadan."

• Played with David Gilmour (bass) and Jerry Shirley (drums) at the Olympia Extravaganza Music and Fashion Festival, on June 6th, 1970. They played "Terrapin," "Gigolo Aunt," "Effervescing Elephant," and "Octopus."

• Played guitar at an Eddie Burns show in January, 1972, at the King's College Cellar. He was joined by Delivery's Jack Monck on bass and Pink Fairies' drummer Twink.

• Briefly joined Twink and Monck in a group called "Stars." They made several appearances in small cafes and such, and did one major gig in February, 1972 at the Cambridge Corn Exchange. Here they played "Octopus," "Dark Globe," "Gigolo Aunt," "Baby Lemonade," "Waving My Arms in the Air," "Lucifer Sam," and some blues 12-bars.

  The band's rehearsals were taped, but have never been released.

• Made several attempts at recording a third solo album, mostly at the insistence of his management. One attempt had him overdubbing several guitar parts over each other -- this session was abandoned. Later, in November 1974, Syd returned to the studio again. Only backing tracks were recorded; and these, along with any lyrics from this period, have never been released.

• Played acoustic guitar with Jack Bruce at a poetry reading performance.

[Thanks to Gerhard and Chris Fleming:]
The song, often appearing on early Floyd RoIOs, is a Beatles outtake. Its proper title is "What's the New Mary Jane?" and there are (I think) four versions available by the Beatles. All Beatles-related sources state that "What's the New" is a Lennon song that is given a Lennon/McCartney song writing credit for contractual reasons. There is some similarity between this track and the early Floyd material -- the song sounds like a cross between Revolution 9 and a normal Beatles song.

To the best of anyone's knowledge, there is no mention of any involvement by Syd on this track (or any other Beatles track for that matter) in any Beatles-related book or article. The only places that link Syd to this song are RoIOs, fanzines and computer forums. Final proof that Syd is not on this song is given by Chris Fleming, who wrote:

I have Mark Lewisohn's book THE BEATLES RECORDING SESSIONS. It tells that "What's the New Mary Jane?" was in fact recorded on August 14 1968 during the White Album sessions. In writing the book Lewisohn listened to the original session tapes, and in the book lists in some cases musicians hired for the sessions. I am sure that if Syd had indeed played on this song that Mr. Lewisohn would have found it out through listening to the tapes, studio documentation, or interviews with the engineers.

The "famous" meeting between Pink Floyd and the Beatles took place on March 21, 1967. Syd's 1968 recording dates were May 6th, 14th, 21st and 28th; June 8th and 20th; and July 20th. In other words, Syd does *NOT* appear on this track.

When the group sang the song on their 01/14/69 Top Gear performance, (found on many RoIOs) they used a slightly different second verse. While the original goes

If you survive 'til two thousand and five
I hope you're exceedingly thin
Because if you are stout
you will have to breathe out
to let the people around you breathe in

on the Top Gear performance they sang

so the man next to you can breathe in

Not too big a difference, really, but it tends to surprise people when they first hear it...

Well, there used to be an interesting story that explained both the identity of the protagonist and how Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead lost his right-hand ring finger. However, it turns out that the story isn't exactly true (Garcia is missing the finger, but his brother's name is not Eugene, it's Tiff.)

Here are two more possibilities:

"Careful with that Axe, Eugene" was the flip side of "Point Me at the Sky." Some people believe that PMatS starts off with the line

Hey, Eugene
This is Henry McClean
And I've finished my beautiful flying machine

Anyway, Chris Coffman mentioned this:

I really don't want to add more fuel to this thread, but I just played "Point Me at the Sky" (my roomate's first ever exposure to this song). My roomate seems to remember a book from his childhood called "Eugene and His Flying Machine," or something like that. He thinks it may have had another kid in it named Henry. I don't want anyone thinking I'm setting this forth as fact, but does anyone know of such a book?

Well, this rings a bell for me, and so I've been trying to track it down, if it indeed exists. The closest I've come so far is a book called "Wizzard McBean [rhymes with McClean] and his Flying Machine," which is out of print.

Also, R. Brigham Lampert uncovered the following:

In the early 1960's there was a small serial killing spree in the area of London near the river Thames. After three or four murders, a suspect was caught. That suspect's name was Eugene Craft. He was tried and found guilty. Hence, "Careful" might be referring to that incident.

On the album ASoS, the title track is simply called "A Saucerful of Secrets." On some pressings of Ummagumma, however, the piece is broken down into four sections. These sections are called:

a. "Something Else"           00:00   (ominous opening noises)
b. "Syncopated Pandemonium"   03:57   (with the drum tape-loop and such)
c. "Storm Signal"             07:16   (organ-based section)
d. "Celestial Voices"         10:14   (closing spacey part with the voices)

(...with times courtesy Charles Saeger)

Gilmour said (in Guitar World, Feb. '93):

He's on three or four...tracks on the album, including "Remember A Day" and "Jug Band [Blues]". He's also on a tiny bit of "Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun."

This account is echoed by Malcolm Jones. A February 1992 article in Record Collector suggests Syd may have been on "Corporal Clegg," which is also noted in Schaffner's book. The "Crazy Diamond" book notes "See Saw" as another possibility; early Floyd biographer Rick Sanders agrees.

Both, actually. In the lyrics to the Saucerful of Secrets album included with the Shine On set, and in the separately-packaged EMI remaster, the line in "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun" goes

knowledge of love is knowledge of shadow

On the other hand, in the lyrics to the live version on the remastered CD of Ummagumma, it's

one inch of love is one inch of shadow

This discrepancy is actually pretty easily explained; both are correct. On the studio recording, one can pretty clearly hear the initial "naw" sound of the word; on Ummagumma, and on any other live performance, it's equally clearly "one inch." So I guess Roger just decided to change the lyrics when doing the song live, perhaps as a joke.

First off, what is a Pict?

Pict : A member of a possibly non-Celtic people who once occupied Great Britain, carried on continual border wars with the Romans, and about the ninth century became amalgamated with the Scots.

As to what's being said, that's hard to say. But I think it's been accepted that it's somebody (probably Waters) imitating a Scottish accent. The following are two interpretations, the first by Brian Tompsett, and the second by Mike Merriam.

Brian Tompsett

Aye an' a bit of Mackeral settler rack and ruin
ran it doon by the haim, 'ma place
well I slapped me and I slapped it doon in the side
and I cried, cried, cried.

The fear a fallen down taken never back the raize
and then Craig Marion, get out wi' ye Claymore out mi pocket
a' ran doon, doon the middin stain
picking the fiery horde that was fallen around ma feet.

Never he cried, never shall it ye get me alive
ye rotten hound of the burnie crew.
Well I snatched fer the blade O my Claymore
cut and thrust and I fell doon before him round his feet.
Aye!

A roar he cried
frae the bottom of his heart that I would nay fall but as dead,
dead as 'a can be by his feet; de ya ken?

...and the wind cried back.

Mike Merriam

Aye an' a bit of Mackeral (Fagger, wreck'n) fear
Ran it doon by the (haim)
And I (flew).
When I (slapped) me,
And I flopped it doon in the shade,
And I cried, cried, 'n cried.

The fear o' fallen down 'a taken, ne'er back t' raise.

And then cried Mary,
And I took that weighted claymore right out of (---),
And ran doon, doon the mountain side,
And back unt' the fiery horde that was fall'n round y' feet.

Never, I cried,
Never shall ye take me alive,
Y' rotten hound and the (----- --rew).

Well I (snapped fore) the blade o' my claymore,
Cut and thrust,
And I fell down before him.
Right at his feet. Aye!

A roar, he cried,
Fr' the bottom of his heart,
That I would nay fall

But as dead,
Dead as I can, by feat
(D' ya ken?)

And the wind cried Mary.

There has been much discussion on echoes as to whether he is saying "and the wind cried back" or "and the wind cried Mary" in that last line. I guess just listen real closely, try to isolate the left and right channels, and make up your own mind...

Also, from Adam Winstanley:

Regarding Several Species...the most recent edition of the Amazing Pudding has a short piece on that. Waters does most of it but if you have one of those old record players that can do 16rpm you can hear Gilmour in the middle somewhere ["This is pretty avant-garde isn't it..."] and if you speed it up to 78rpm you can hear "bring back my guitar." Ron Geesin isn't on the track although he parodied it on a track called "To Roger Waters, Where-ever you are."

[With much help from Adam Winstanley and others]:
In fact several concert recordings exist of The Man and The Journey and many people probably possess RoIOs of these pieces without realising it. The Man and The Journey were two parts of "More Furious Madness From The Massed Gadgets of Auximenies" and consisted of several well-known Floyd tunes linked into a concept piece as follows:

MORE FURIOUS MADNESS FROM THE MASSED GADGETS OF AUXIMENIES

PART ONE: THE MAN (representing a day in the life of a man)

• Daybreak ("Grantchester Meadows")
• Work and Afternoon ("Biding My Time") [the band was served afternoon tea on stage at this point]
• Doing It (instrumental) ("Grand Vizier's Garden Party, pt. 3")
• Sleep
• Nightmare ("Cymbaline")
• Daybreak (reprise)

PART TWO: THE JOURNEY

• The Beginning ("Green is the Colour")
• Beset By Creatures of the Deep ("Careful with that Axe, Eugene")
• The Narrow Way ("The Narrow Way, pt. 3")
• The Pink Jungle ("Pow R Toc H")
• The Labyrinths of Auximenes ("Moonhead")
• Behold the Temple of Light ("Nile Song"-based instrumental)
• The End of the Beginning ("Saucerful of Secrets" -- final part)

The complete piece lasted about 70 minutes.

This information comes from the 1969 Pink Floyd tour programme, parts of which were reproduced in an early Amazing Pudding (No. 13, I think) and also from listening to RoIOs and tapes from this period:

• 14 April 69: Royal Festival Hall, London
  (I think the original performance.)

• 8th August 69: Plumpton Festival
  (The Journey only -- Roger introduces it as "the second half of...a kind of concept thing...we did around the country a bit earlier this year.")

• 17 September 69: Concertgebouw, Amsterdam
  (This was broadcast on Dutch radio and versions exist with the radio announcer saying some of the titles given above. From the recent Amazing Puddings and Brain Damage I see this is available on CD RoIO. It also used to on a vinyl RoIO called The Man.)

[Thanks to Conrado Daws and Karl Magnacca]:
Rick Wright did, at least during live performances. We have a picture of him playing it in a "The Man"/"The Journey"-era concert, and, during the trumpet portion of the song, you can hear Roger-esque bass but no keyboard.

(This despite what you might read in TAP.)

The "Atom Heart Mother Suite" is a side-long instrumental split into six different, named parts. Most of the divisions are marked by a return of the main theme of the piece, played by everybody (group and orchestra).

Beyond this, there is some controversy over where each section starts and ends. The EMI and MFSL versions of the disc have index markers; they are essentially the same on both discs (give or take a few seconds), and are given below. Many echoesians, however, are somewhat unsatisfied with these divisions, and so have developed an alternative indexing scheme. This is also given below, along with an explanation...

The first part, naturally, is "Father's Shout," with all the weird sounds, horses, and ends with the motorcycle.

The second part, "Breast Milky," starts off as a duet for organ and viola; and gradually includes drums, guitar, and the rest of the orchestra. (2:59)

Then "Mother Fore" begins. This section is a quiet choral section, with mostly chorus and organ. (5:22)

"Funky Dung" has a lot of guitar, strong bass, and that weird choir singing things that sound vaguely like "toast....coffee...yeah...." or "saa saa saa saa saaa.....brrrrrrrrrroooooooooonnnn." (10:11)

"Mind Your Throats Please" is the strange (like it's not all strange?) part that begins with alternating organ notes. After the slower beginning with organ and such, a section that echoes has been calling the "Overload" section begins, with lots of out-of-sync voices and sounds; sounding a bit like the Beatles' "Revolution 9." This is either part of "Mind Your Throats" or "Remergence," depending on whose opinion you ask. (15:25)

"Remergence," then, is the climactic final section, where the main theme gradually "re-emerges." (17:44)

As you can see, the main argument lies in the question of the lengths of "Father's Shout" versus "Remergence." I guess this just goes to show how subjective some of these things can be...

It's named for Alan Stiles, a roadie of Floyd's back then. The band was never very happy with this piece, even though it was played in several concerts. Early British pressings of the album had the sound of the water dripping from the tap continue into the trail-off groove in the record, allowing some turntables to play dripping water forever (or until someone turns it off, whichever came first).

The song is divided into three named sections:

a. "Rise and Shine"     00:00
b. "Sunny Side Up"      04:22
c. "Morning Glory"      08:17

Yes, they did. Following their first experiment with orchestration on the "Atom Heart Mother" suite, the Floyd decided to further their temporary transition from "heavy metal" to "weighty brass" by collaborating with choreographer Roland Petit. Petit had proposed a ballet based on Marcel Proust's "Remembrance of Things Past"; in 1970 the Floyd were commissioned to compose and play music for the ballet, accompanied by a 108-piece orchestra.

This project never got off the ground, though -- especially when Petit decided to change the subject matter of the ballet to "A Thousand and One Nights," which would have doubled the amount of music needed. Eventually, Petit did choreograph a ballet based around existing Pink Floyd songs -- "Careful with that Axe, Eugene," "Echoes," "One of these Days," and "Obscured by Clouds." In late 1972 the Floyd spent a week in Paris and Marseilles performing the ballet; there are pictures of this in the Shine On and Ruhlmann books, and some brief video footage on the Video Anthology VoIO.

Not currently.

It was at one time rumoured to be part of a special boxed set (of CDs from Piper through DSotM), and also has been available in the past as a limited product in Europe. This rumour has never been proven true. Then, for a while, it *was* available in New Zealand under the Axis label (with the "ancient coins" cover); but this release wasn't approved by the band, and has since been dropped.

The chanting you hear at the end of "Fearless" is from a football (or soccer, if you're American) game in Liverpool. It's "You'll Never Walk Alone," originally from the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical "Carousel." A really popular cover of "You'll Never Walk..." was done by Gerry and The Pacemakers, and it was this version which was "adopted" as the sort of anthem for the Liverpool team, and is even engraved over the gate at their home stadium. The recording on Meddle is sung by Liverpool's loyal fans, and includes:

And you'll never walk / alone / in the dark / alone

Followed by some screaming, whistling, then

LIVERPOOL LIVERPOOL LIVERPOOL!

For "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" fans, part of "You'll Never Walk Alone" is sung by Eddie, the ship's computer, at the end of Chapter 17.

The voice in the middle of "One of These Days" is Nick Mason, and he says "One of these days I'm going to cut you into little pieces."

At about 3:00 or so, there's a faint organ riff that sounds a lot like the Dr. Who theme to a lot of people.

Also, from Scott Eberline (with help from Gerhard):

In the Westwood One broadcast of Waters' Quebec performance of Radio KAOS a member of the audience asked Waters who it was he wanted to cut into little pieces. Apparently this brought back fond memories for Waters, who replied that it was an English disk jockey named Jimmy Young. The song was meant as a personal attack. The band used to play bits and pieces of Jimmy Young's radio show spliced together in a completely nonsensical manner, immediately before playing "One of These Days".

[Example -- on the RoIO "Lost in the Corridors," during "Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast," you can hear things like "Georgia, lovely greenwood" and "And here's for you, Monkey doo."]

[With the assistance of bear, Ray O'Hara, and Gerhard]:
The Floyd, in their pre-Animals days, often performed as-yet unrecorded tracks in concert ("Murderistic Woman," DSotM, "Raving and Drooling", etc.) These would often undergo significant changes before appearing on albums, and "Echoes" is such a case.

The opening verse of "Echoes" originally had a "space" theme, and several RoIOs exist with these lyrics. One is from the 5 June 1971 Berlin show, available on "Lost in the Corridors" and "Mauerspecte" (which, BTW, has been known to be defective many times, so try before you buy). Another is from a few weeks later; 20 June 1971, at Rome. Neither of these recordings is all that great in terms of sound quality, but taken together I'm pretty sure of the following...

Planets singing face to face
Bound to the air {of life/and land/and light}, how sweet!
If purposely we might embrace
The perfect union deep in space

Ever might this once relent
And give us leave to shine as one
Our two lights {singing better}
{Than one light can} (last two lines are pretty garbled)

And in that longing to be one
The parting suns shine as one
I'll see you've got to travel on
And on and on, around the sun

This makes some sense in relation to the rest of the song -- which survived unchanged -- if you take the whole third verse ("cloudless everyday...") to be about sunlight.

These shows include some of the best and most popular "live" performances of early Floyd material. Here's some information (from "A Journey" as posted by Adam Stanley, with some corrections):

19 July, 1970. BBC's Paris Theatre, London UK.
Sounds of the Seventies: John Peel Show, BBC 1 Radio.
Recorded on the 16th
Broadcast at 6:00 pm
"The Embryo" - 10:30
"Green Is The Colour"/"Careful with that Axe, Eugene" - 11:30
"If" - 4:30
"Atom Heart Mother" - 26:00
Total time: 55:00

This is the only live performance of "If" by Pink Floyd, with Roger on acoustic guitar and Rick on bass and organ simultaneously (Roger did perform it numerous times on his solo tours). "Atom Heart Mother" was performed with the accompaniment of The Philip Jones Brass Ensemble.

5 October, 1971. BBC's Paris Theatre, London UK.
Recording for the John Peel Show, BBC 1 Radio
Recorded on the 30th
Broadcast at 10:00 pm
"Embryo" - 10:30
"Blues" - 5:00
"Fat Old Sun" - 15:00
"One of These Days" - 8:00
"Echoes" - 28:00
Total time: 68:00

Note: "The John Peel Show" was only 55 minutes long. "Embryo" and "Blues" were never broadcast in the UK. They were only aired on WNEW-FM, New York City, USA (sometime in 1971?) This WNEW portion was broadcast only once, unfortunately. The 5 October 1971 and 19 July 1970 shows are re-broadcast nearly every year in the USA on the "King Biscuit Flour Hour." However, it is a combination version of the two shows and is incomplete.

This is some additional information that I have figured out on my own. The version of "Embryo" that most people have is from the 1970 show. It is easily identified by the "Echoes"-like section in the middle. The version of "Embryo" from 1971 is much different; it's available on the "Wavelengths" RoIO. Almost all of the CD RoIOs of these shows are combination, except for the Swinging Pigs discs, and one called "Early Tour Years," which is a double disc with each show on its own disc. And as a side note: When the BBC recorded the Dark Side show at Wembley in 1974 for a broadcast, they also recorded "Echoes," but it has never been aired. So as a result, we are missing a great version of "Echoes," with a sax solo!

Well, maybe they are, and maybe they aren't. This has been discussed to death (and then some) on the list, and what you see on the server represents about the best compromise that we have been able to achieve.

Okay. We'll get into one particular about this song, and hopefully that'll help keep the noise level down. Does the line say "Everything is green and submarine" or "Everything is green and summery?"

Proposition: It says "submarine."

Supporting evidence: [thank you, Dean Herbert]

1. "Overhead the albatross" - albatrosses are ocean birds.
2. "Deep beneath the rolling waves" - Certainly implies the ocean.
3. "Labyrinths of coral caves" - Coral, get it? CORAL. OCEANS.
4. "Everything is green" - it's the color of the OCEAN WATER.
5. "And submarine." - submarine is being used as an adjective here, not a noun. ADJECTIVE. ADJECTIVE. NOT NOUN. GET IT?

And, of course, in the Shine On lyrics, it's "submarine."

[Thanks to Geoff Rimmer (grimmer@nyx.cs.du.edu) for this one.]
I don't remember seeing this in the FAQ or on the mailing list, so for those who haven't rushed out and bought the video of "The Valley Obscured By Clouds" (Warner Home Video. Cost me $69.95 + POSTAGE!), here are the lyrics of Free Four in the film version:

(fades in ...)
Are the deeds of a man in his prime
You shuffle in the gloom of a sick room
And talk to yourself as you die

And life is a short warm moment
And death is a long cold rest (*)
You get your chance to try
In the twinkling of an eye
In eighty years with luck
Or even less

So take my advice
And cut yourself a slice
And try not to make it too big
'Cos things are hard to grow
And I can tell you
'Cos I know
It's better not to make yourself sick.
(This is roughly the same tune as "So all aboard for the American tour... you may find it hard to get off")

(jumps horribly to the following...)

He was buried like a mole in a foxhole
And everyone's still on the run
And who is the master of foxhounds
And who says the hunt has begun? (*)
And who calls the tune in the courtroom (*)
And who beats the funeral drum? (*)

The memories of a man in his old age
Are the deeds of a man in his prime
You shuffle in the gloom of a sick room
... (fades out)

(*) are sung differently from the OBC album.

[Note that the film has dialogue over the top of the music, and this version isn't available without the dialogue, at least not that we know of.]