1 Overlooked Gem Song From Every Pink Floyd Album

Thank god for streaming services, Skip buttons, YouTube and whatever other modern methods exist for getting straight to the music you want. Back in the bath early Seventies, Floyd fans would have to put on side three of Ummagumma and then sit patiently through all four doomy, pretentious parts of Sysyphus.

These days we can easily skip all that and set the controls for the heart of Grantchester Meadows. What a lovely place that is to be, too! Roger Waters’ gentle pastoral ballad sees him accompany himself on acoustic guitar while a tape loop of skylarks singing provides a sort of primitive rhythm track. The sounds of a honking goose and a buzzing bee also add to the rural atmosphere.

The tracks low key nature might not appeal to fans of the band’s more bombastic moments and others may miss Dave Gilmour’s distinctive guitar but for those who care to look there’s much pleasure to be taken from Waters’ description of flashing kingfishers and “a river of green…sliding unseen beneath the trees.”

Waters’ second effort, Several Species Of Small Furry Animal Gathered Together In A Cave And Grooving With A Pict, is just as irritating as Sysyphus, making Granchester Meadows a delight buried in arguably Pink Floyd’s worst ever LP side.