I’ve pretty much always enjoyed live shows and live recordings over studio albums, which can often sound too stylised and over-engineered to my ears. Just ask yourself whether there would ever have been such a following for the Grateful Dead if all we had were the studio recordings. It’s really a case of ‘you had to be there’.
However, for Song Lyric Sunday this week, for which Jim is seeking a track from a live album, I’m going with the opening track from what may have been the first live album I ever acquired – the first record of Pink Floyd’s 1969 double album ‘Ummagumma’. I distinctly remember being blown away the first time I heard this…
Lime and limpid green
A second scene
A fight between the blue you once knew
Floating down
The sound resounds
Around the icy waters underground
Jupiter and Saturn, Oberon, Miranda and Titania
Neptune, Titan
Stars can frighten
Blinding signs flap
Flicker, flicker, flicker blam
Pow, pow
Stairway scare
Dan Dare
Who’s there?
Lime and limpid green, the sound resounds
The icy waters under
Lime and limpid green, the sound resounds
The icy waters underground
Written by Roger (‘Syd’) Barrett
What an eclectic choice. I had never heard this done live.
The unique psychedelic sound that they produced for this song, along with its evocative lyrics about space, makes it one of the best space rock songs ever.
Right up there with ‘Set The Controls…’
Thanks for mentioning that as now I am listening to it.
Great track. It’s always been a live favourite for Pink Floyd fans.
Indeed. They opened with it when I saw them at Earls Court back in 1994.