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"Welcome to the Machine" is the second song on Pink Floyd 's 1975 album '' Wish You Were Here ''. It is 7 Minute s and 31 Second s long. It is notable for its use of heavily processed synthesizers and Guitar s, as well as a wide and varied range of tape effects. The song explores the band's negativity towards the Music Industry and the whole of industrialized society. The song centers around an aspiring musician who is getting signed by a seedy executive to the music industry, "The Machine". The voice predicts all the boy's seemingly rebellious ideas ("You bought a guitar to punish your mom, you didn't like school, and you know you're nobody's fool") The boy's illusions of personal identity are further crushed with lines such as..."What did you dream, its alright we told you what to dream". The lyrics also allude to the band's disillusionment with the music industry as a money making machine rather than a forum of artistic expression. On the original LP , the song Segue d from the first 5 parts of the suite " Shine On You Crazy Diamond " and closed the first side. On the CD pressings, especially the 1997 and 2000 remastered issues, it segues (although very faintly) to " Have A Cigar " even though the segueing was a few seconds longer on the US version than the UK version. MUSIC VIDEO Gerald Scarfe created a powerful and disturbing Music Video (it initially was a backdrop film for when the band played the track on its 1977 In The Flesh tour), which displays a giant mechanical beast somewhere between Triceratops and Armadillo (possibly a reference to the sleeve of Emerson, Lake & Palmer 's '' Tarkus '', the cover of which also features an armadillo/machine hybrid, though it also resembles a Texas Horned Lizard somewhat) lumbering across an apocalyptic cityscape. Emaciated Rat s leap around corpse-laden steel girders, gleaming industrial smokestacks crack and Ooze Blood , and a tower grows out of this desert, transforms into a screaming monster and decapitates an unsuspecting man. His head then very slowly decays to a damaged Skull . Finally, an ocean of blood washes away this desolate wasteland, and the waves turn into thousands of hands waving in rhythm to the music (much like people at a rock concert). Despite being pulled at by the bloody masses, one building survives and, synchronised with the sound effects at the end of the track, flies up and away, high above the clouds to where it fits snugly into a hole inside a Gargantuan floating Ovoid structure. CREDITS Music and lyrics by Roger Waters
Recorded January to July 1975 at Abbey Road Studios , London . LIVE PERFORMANCES In live performances of the song on Pink Floyd's 1977 " In The Flesh " tour, Gilmour and Waters shared lead vocals, although in initial performances, Gilmour sang on his own with some backing vocals by Waters. Also for the 1977 live performances, David Gilmour played his acoustic guitar parts on his Fender Stratocaster . Floyd would play the track again on its 1987/88/89 A Momentary Lapse Of Reason /Another Lapse tours when Tim Renwick played lead guitar, while Gilmour played a 12-string acoustic guitar. TRIVIA
QUOTES "The only time we've ever used tape speed to help us with vocals was on one :– David Gilmour, 1975, WYWH Songbook EXTERNAL LINKS
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