Pink Floyd Music Ltd.
Pink Floyd‘s second album, Saucerful of Secrets, was released 50 years ago today in the U.S. The seven-track collection arrived at a time of upheaval for the band: It’s the group’s last album to feature original frontman Syd Barrett, and the first featuring his replacement, singer/guitarist David Gilmour.
Drummer Nick Mason tells ABC Radio Saucerful of Secrets is among his favorite Pink Floyd records, “because I think it’s a wonderful sort of transition album.”
The record includes the epic, multi-part title track, which, Mason maintains, “indicated the way we were going to go in some ways.” It also features the eerie psychedelic gem “Jugband Band,” the only song Barrett contributed to the project.
Mason says he considers “Jugband Band” to be “a goodbye to Syd and, for me, very moving and…very strong.”
Barrett wrote and sang most of the material on Pink Floyd’s debut album, 1967’s The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, but drug and mental health issues led to his exit from the band during the making of Saucerful.
The album also features “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun,” which Mason says is the “first really great song” by bassist/singer Roger Waters, who would become Pink Floyd’s main songwriter.
As for his favorite song on Saucerful of Secrets, Nick chooses the title track.
“I think there are so many ideas contained in that one track, and [I like] the way it’s cross-faded together and moves from one section to another,” Mason says. “There are elements there that went onto Meddle, and eventually onto [The] Dark Side [of the Moon].”
Mason has been celebrating his appreciation for Saucerful of Secrets in his new Pink Floyd tribute group that’s named after the album.
Here’s the Saucerful of Secrets track list:
“Let There Be More Light”
“Remember a Day”
“Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun”
“Corporal Clegg”
“A Saucerful of Secrets”
–I. “Something Else”
–II. “Syncopated Pandemonium”
–III. “Storm Signal”
–IV. “Celestial Voices”
“See-Saw”
“Jugband Blues”
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