| "Have a Cigar" | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Cover for French and Italian editions |
||||||||||
| Single by Pink Floyd featuring Roy Harper | ||||||||||
| from the album Wish You Were Here | ||||||||||
| B-side | Welcome to the Machine
(US single) Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts I-V) (Italian and French singles) |
|||||||||
| Released | 1975 | |||||||||
| Format | 7" | |||||||||
| Recorded | January - July 1975 Abbey Road Studios, London |
|||||||||
| Genre | Progressive rock, hard rock, art rock | |||||||||
| Length | 5:08 | |||||||||
| Label | Harvest, EMI (UK) Columbia, Capitol (US) | |||||||||
| Writer(s) | Roger Waters | |||||||||
| Producer | Pink Floyd | |||||||||
| Pink Floyd featuring Roy Harper singles chronology | ||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
"Have a Cigar" is the third track on Pink Floyd's 1975 album Wish You Were Here. It follows "Welcome to the Machine" and on the original LP opened side two.
Contents |
The song's music and lyrics were written by Roger Waters in critique of hypocrisy and greed within the music business. The music itself is more straightforwardly rock-oriented than the rest of the album, beginning with a churning riff played on electric guitar and bass. The track is filled out with additional guitar, electric piano and synthesizer parts to create a rock texture.
"Have a Cigar" concludes with a guitar solo, which is interrupted by a synthesizer filter-sweep sound effect as the music reduces in volume to tinny, AM radio-like levels. Finally, the song ends with the sound of a radio being dialed off-station; this effect is used as a transition to the following song, the album's title track, "Wish You Were Here".
On the original recording, the song's lead vocals are performed by an acquaintance of the band, Roy Harper. Roger Waters intended to record the part himself, but had strained his voice while recording "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", and David Gilmour declined to sing. Harper was recording his album HQ in Studio 2 of Abbey Road at the same time as Pink Floyd were working in Studio 3; learning of the band's dilemma Harper offered to sing the lead. The song is one of only two songs by the band which is not sung by one of their permanent members (the other is "The Great Gig in the Sky").
Harper performed the song with the band on one occasion, the group's 1975 Knebworth Festival appearance, which occurred during the period Wish You Were Here was being recorded.
The song was played on the 1975 and 1977 Pink Floyd tours. The 1977 performances had Roger Waters on lead vocals with David Gilmour singing backing vocals. During the band's 1977 tour the guitar solos on the song were played by Snowy White.
Music and Lyrics by Roger Waters
| “ | A lot of people think 'I can't sing', including me a bit. I'm very unclear about what singing is. I know I find it hard to pitch, and I know the sound of my voice isn't very good in purely aesthetic terms, and Roy Harper was recording his own album in another EMI studio at the time, he's a mate, and we thought he could probably do a job on it. | ” |
|
—Roger Waters, October 1975, Interviewed by Nick Sedgewick in the 'Wish You Were Here songbook |
||
| “ | "Have a Cigar" was a whole track on which I used the guitar and keyboards at once. There are some extra guitars which I dubbed on later, but I did the basic guitar tracks at one time | ” |
|
—David Gilmour, October 1975, Interviewed by Gary Cooper in the Wish You Were Here songbook |
||
| “ | We did have people who would say to us "Which one's Pink" and stuff like that. There were an awful lot of people who thought Pink Floyd was the name of the lead singer and that was Pink himself and the band. That's how it all came about, it was quite genuine. | ” |
|
—David Gilmour, December 1992, In the Studio with Redbeard for "Making of Shine On" and "Making of Wish You Were Here" |
||
Pink Floyd: Wish You Were Here (Songbook. 1975 Pink Floyd Music Publishers Ltd., London, England, ISBN 0 7119 1029 4 [USA ISBN 0 8256 1079 6])
|
|
Wikis
Quiz
Map
Search
