Pink Floyd - Making sense of the Zabriskie Point sessions

How about a listen to "Love Scene Version 4"?

 

Yes! "Love Scene 4" is superb! (Especially the vibes-less mix, where Richard gets a chance to shine alone.)

 

Question about a particular "Love Scene Version":
Is the outtake from Zabriskie Point, known unofficially as Love Scene #2 (full mix) , and which doesn't seem to appear in any form in the Early Years Box Set, available anywhere, presumably unofficially, with the ( amusing!)"sex vocals" removed, so that the music alone can be enjoyed ?

 

I haven't heard that *exact* mix, but yes - try "Oenone" on A Total Zabriskie Point Of View. That seems to be the closest un-spoiled version.

 

My biggest problem with the ZP sessions is all the generic titles, sequentially numbered. I know a lot of the music, but no clue what it's called. I prefer the softer piano songs, and the cool country acoustic pieces.

 

Some of the material HAD specific titles, which the Early Years set ignored for some reason. These were the 'final' titles:

Love Scene Version 2 = Oenone
Love Scene Version 6 = Alan's Blues
Unknown Song = Rain In The Country
Aeroplane = Fingal's Cave (often misattributed to one of the 'Love Scene's)

I often see 'Country Song' referred to as "The Red Queen", but I have no idea if this was ever the official title.

 

Well, that’s really the reason why I started this thread in the first place.

 

As previously noted, all of the Early Years Zabriskie Point tracks are described as previously unreleased, but not all were "remixed in 2016".
Has any further information emerged about this?

 

Also I read that 'Rain In The Country' never was an official title, though I like it.

 

Seeing this thread get bumped yesterday led me to listen again to the "Devi/ation" disc of The Early Years on streaming during my commute to work. Got to say, I'm impressed by a lot of this Zabriskie material that never saw the light of day. I wonder how much longer some of the tracks go without the fade outs. Would love to see a standalone official release of the "best" of these sessions ("Explosion", "Take Off", "Crumbling Land", "Unknown Song take 1", the great long take that's out there of Wright's "Love Scene" with just him on solo piano unadorned by other instruments, etc.). Would really make for a great RSD release or just a nice addition to the overall PF canon.

 

I saw Zabriskie Point at the Bruin Theater in Westwood, CA when it first came out. I thought that it was the "weirdest" movie I had ever seen and never really understood it. The music collectively was pretty good in my opinion as it featured music I was really interested at the time, Jerry Garcia, John Fahey, Pink Floyd, etc.

It was still pretty early in Pink Floyd's career so I am not sure it really registered high on their priorities. Floyd fans will probably love it because the crave anything PF puts out, but to me their contribution was average and not really ground shaking. Some of it sounds like material from Umagumma rehashed.

 

Recently on another forum, it was suggested that the traffic noises on the unofficial track "Crumbling Land - extended version" were in fact not recorded in Rome, but were from an EMI sound effects tape, with "a longer segment of the same tape on the album LONDON: Its Sound and Its People, Capitol T 10150, released in 1958". Has anyone come across a source for this album? Or, any sources for the sound effects used by Pink Floyd, generally, whether it be relative to the 'Early Years' or latter years?

 

If anyone's interested, it's on YouTube, split into 6 videos. I heard some of the extended-version of Crumbling Land sound effects on the 'Bells Of Yorkminster' video, and some of the On The Run (DSOTM) announcement on the 'More London Sounds' video.

 

A lot of the effects they used were from the EMI tape library of sound effects, the birdsong in "Cirrus Minor" is one example

 

I would love to see an official CD of the complete Pink Floyd sessions from this soundtrack. It is definitely a highlight of their early career and definitely better than the studio sessions from Ummagumma.
I find it very chill out type music which is very soothing and some brilliant moments. A true group effort

 

Pink Floyd (@pinkfloyd) | Twitter reflects that it's 50 years just passed since the soundtrack to the Zabriskie Point film was released.
While we're still enjoying the challenge of "making sense of the Zabriskie Point Sessions", we can mark the anniversary by listening to some of the official and unofficial tracks!

 

I'd still love to see a Record Store Day release of the Floyd's Zabriskie material. Seems unlikely because of the movie rights however.

 

Between the expanded zabriske and the Early Years... a lot of
it is out there officially.

 

It's still in a disjointed form, never issued complete. Even the Early Years stuff had a ton of fades just when some of the tracks seemed to get cooking.

 

I know we are essentially rehashing the same information, but I've been going through this all recently in prep for my own ZP reconstruction upgrade, and found a better way to organize this data.

Pink Floyd essentially made the same (or variations of the same) music for seven different scenes (and in the case of one of the scenes, five distinct musical ideas). afaik, Here's what is out there, and where to find them, arranged by scene, in film order. Note that the bootlegged "Full Mixes" seem to be rips of the master tapes of the the final takes, made on the sly during remastering of the film. Bootleggers called them "Full Mixes" because the mixes seem to have every track fully mixed in simultaneously, including sound elements otherwise mixed out; while it is informative on how the band created the songs, it's also a very cluttered mix! Instrumental mistakes can be heard, that otherwise would have been mixed out.

BLUE = officially released
RED = unofficial, bootlegs only (Omayyad, A Journey Through Time & Space, A Total Zabriskie POV, etc)

1) Opening Credits

• Heart Beat Pig Meat (3:12) - ZP official soundtrack
• Heart Beat Pig Meat (2:49) - alternate mix as heard in the film; slightly edited with some sound elements mixed differently.

2) Daria's Driving Themes

• Country Song (4:41) - ZP official soundtrack bonus disc
• Country Song (Full Mix) (5:57) - contains opening chatter and longer, natural ending
• Auto Scene 2 (1:13) - Early Years 1970
• Auto Scene 2 (1:18) - same as above but with count-in and a final harpsichord sweep
• Auto Scene 3 (1:33) - Early Years 1970
• Looking At Map (1:57) - Early Years 1970
• Looking At Map (Full Mix) (2:12) - natural ending instead of fade-out as above, includes piano mistake

3) The Riot Scene

• The Violent Sequence (1:40) - Early Years 1970 as "The Riot Scene"

*Note that this is a different recording as the demo found on the Dark Side of the Moon box set, as observed by differences in tempo, sound quality, and of course Roger's bass. Based on the other shorter selections on Early Years (which fade not long before a natural, abrupt ending) one can assume the actual version recorded during these sessions was also very short and probably did not exceed two minutes.

4) Take Off Scene

• Fingal's Cave (2:18) - Early Years 1970 as "Aeroplane"
• Fingal's Cave (1:54) - similar as above but missing the reversed piano chord intro
• Take Off 1 (1:20) - Early Years 1970
• Take Off 2 (1:12) - Early Years 1970
• Take Off 2 (1:11) - Alternate mix from above but with sloppy ending

5) The Highway Scene

• Crumbling Land (4:16) - ZP official soundtrack
• Crumbling Land (Full Mix A) (4:09) - Early Years 1970 as "Crumbling Land (Take 1)"
• Crumbling Land (Full Mix B) (5:13) - same mix as above but with opening chatter and longer, natural ending
• On The Highway (1:16) - Early Years 1970, what was actually used in the film (crossfaded from "Take Off 2")

6) The Love Scene

• Love Scene 1 (7:51) - organ/guitar/vibes/cymbal version
  
• Love Scene 1 (3:26) - Early Years 1970, edited and remixed version of above

After careful A/Bing, it's my conclusion that the Early Years "Love Scene Version 1" is the same as the 7:51 version with the full band, but it was heavily edited and remixed to exclude some elements, making it seem very different.

• Love Scene 2 (organ and guitar) (6:37) - organ and guitar version
• Love Scene 2 (1:56) - Early Years 1970, edited version of above

The second attempt as a Love Scene, it was similar to the previous but stripped down to just the organ and guitar. The Version 2 that appears on Early Years is actually a heavily-edited version of the 6:37 version; this can be heard in the last 20 seconds of both if they are A/Bed.

• Love Scene 3 - Oenone (6:51)
  
• Love Scene 3 - Oenone (Full Mix) (6:56)

Third attempt at a Love Scene was apparently the band's master, as the band thought it warranted a vocal overdub of erotic sounds. The director disagreed, and Pink Floyd abandoned the Sleep/Quiksilver spacey atmosphere for various other musical approaches to a Love Scene. The final mix of Oenone (as heard on the Omayyad bootleg) strips many of the sound elements down and only introduces certain things at different points in time, creating a structure. The Full Mix has all elements playing simultaneously.

• Love Scene 4 (piano mix) (6:46) - ZP official soundtrack bonus disc
• Love Scene 4 (piano and vibes mix) (6:55) - piano track as above but with vibes overdub
• Love Scene 4 (piano and vibes mix) (2:16) - Early Years 1970, edited version of above take

Fourth attempt at a Love Scene, it was officially released as a solo piano version, but also included vibes, as heard on bootlegs. Early Years uses a heavily edited version of the piano/vibes mix.

• Love Scene 5 (vibes) (6:40) - Early Years 1970
• Love Scene 5 (vibes) (6:44) - alternate "dryer" mix as above

Fifth attempt as a Love song was a double tracked vibe piece.

• Love Scene 6 - Alan's Blues (7:29) - ZP official soundtrack bonus disc
• Love Scene 6 - Alan's Blues (Full Mix) (7:27) - similar as above but alternate mix (dry drums, guitar & piano channel swapped)

Sixth attempt at a Love Scene was a generic blues jam, what Pink Floyd had been known to occasionally burst into at the time; official title is "Alan's Blues".

• Love Scene 7 - Rain in the Country (6:03) - ZP official soundtrack bonus disc and Early Years 1970 as "Unknown Song"
• Love Scene 7 - Rain in the Country (Full Mix) (7:00) - longer than above, with piano and bongos otherwise mixed out
• Love Scene 7 - Rain in the Country (Alternate Take) (5:03) - Early Years 1970

Seventh attempt at a Love Scene was an acoustic-driven track. Somehow the official title became "Rain in the Country", although it's credited as "Unknown Song".

7) The Explosion Scene

• Come In Number 51, Your Time Is Up (5:02) - ZP official soundtrack
• Explosion (5:47) - Early years 1970

 

Amazing work. Thanks!

 

Fantastic - thanks!
Looking forward to your 'ZP reconstruction upgrade' - on your website?
Cheers.

 

Which one of these is the lovely Rick Wright solo piano piece that's been circulating online for decades? That's the best one, IMO. I don't care for any of the takes that have the vibes, and was disappointed to not hear the solo version included on The Early Years, as it's a great showcase for Rick.

 

It's Love Scene 4 (piano mix) from the official ZP soundtrack bonus disc.

 

Very nicely structured, thanks for this!