The Squire Presents

This is another what-if album I put together because of the mock up sleeve that was on the website https://idesignalbumcovers.tumblr.com. ‘The Man & The Journey’ was a suite of music the band performed during their tour of 1969. The songs in this concert included some that had already been released, some that would appear on some future releases (like ‘Ummagumma’, ‘More’ & ‘Relics’), and some would stay unreleased. Even though a live album was considered at the time, it didn’t happen due to the overlap of material with ‘Ummagumma’. One of the shows from the tour was widely bootlegged as it was take from a show played in Amsterdam, but it was missing some of the material. 

An almost complete show was eventually released in 2016 on ‘The Early Years 1965-1972’ box set. It was almost complete because in the set list, there was a performance called Teatime which was positioned between Work and Afternoon. It was removed because it was during this time that the band would not play anything but instead be served with cups of tea. This was essentially 3 mins and 36 of near silence. The estate of John Cage would most probably sue. 

The loose concept of the album is that the first disc follows the man during his everyday life, but the second disc is the journey. What this journey is and where it goes is unclear. However, what is clear is that this was the beginning of Pink Floyd as a band that would produce music based on a theme which would be developed over the next few years until it culminated in the release of Dark Side of the Moon. 

If it had actually been released in 1969 as suggested, it would have worked as a double vinyl album because the timings of the sides actually match up quite closely. The timing was also helped with Teatime being removed. On reflection, it is a shame that this wasn’t released in place of ‘Ummagumma’ because even though it is a definite period piece, The Man & The Journey works better as a piece of music and as an album. ‘Ummagumma’ may have its fans but I am not one of them. 

Side A

1. Daybreak (Grantchester Meadows)
2. Work
3. Afternoon (Biding My Time)

Side B

1. Doing It
2. Sleeping
3. Nightmare (Cymbaline)
4. Labyrinth

Side C

1. The Beginning (Green Is the Colour)
2. Beset by Creatures of the Deep (Careful with That Axe, Eugene)
3. The Narrow Way, Part 3
4. The Pink Jungle (Pow R. Toc H.) 

Side D

1. The Labyrinths of Auximines
2. Footsteps/Doors
3. Behold the Temple of Light
4. The End of the Beginning (A Saucerful of Secrets)

When Pink Floyd released their debut album ‘Piper At The Gates Of Dawn’, there was one driving force behind it. That was original guitar player/vocalist Syd Barrett. However, but the time they were ready to record their second, Barrett’s days in the band were numbered. His behaviour had becoming more erratic throughout 1967 to the point where he was detuning his guitar on stage. His material which once managed to break the Top Ten in the UK Singles chart was now failing to make the grade. By the time of ‘Apple & Oranges’, the last single he wrote for the band, their days as a chart band were gone and it would remain that way for another twelve years. The fact that they did not realise many singles in the UK in those twelve years might have played a part in that also. Anyway, as his ability to perform live diminished, Dave Gilmour, an old friend of Barrett’s was brought in as cover. The band thought that as Barrett had been responsible for most of the bands material up until this point, they would keep him on as a writer and non touring member along the lines of Brian Wilson from The Beach Boys. 

This situation did not last long and by the end of January 1968, Barrett was no longer in the band. Even though he contributed to the playing on a couple of songs as a player, only one of the songs he had written for the group was used on the album that would be known as ‘A Saucerful Of Secrets’. ‘Jugband Blues’ was not like the joyous songs that had been included on the debut album but many have seen it as a self diagnosis of what he perceived was happening to him. Was it schizophrenia, a wry sense of humour, too many drugs, the fact that he longer wanted to be a star or a combination of all of them. Barrett had recorded a number of other songs but these would not seen an official release until 2016 and the Early Years box set. So, what if the second Pink Floyd album had sounded like it if it had used more of the material the band had recorded with Syd Barrett?

I’ll start by looking at the one track that did not make the cut. I did not want to use Saucerful of Secrets as it is the only the third section that I can actually listen to repeatedly. Wikipedia has that part listed as Celestial Voices and it is beautiful. It is shame that the rest of it was a load of psychedelic noodling that in any other era would have been seen as self indulgent. Seeing as this is quite a long song, that leaves plenty of room to fill on this LP. More on that later. Side A is the same as the album that was actually released. I did play around with this, moving songs around and trying to place the songs in a different order but it just didn’t work. 

It is Side B that is very different from the album that was ultimately released. It starts off with ‘See-Saw’ was listed on the recording sheet as ‘The Most Boring Song I’ve Ever Heard Bar Two’. It its not the most memorably of songs but it is not terrible. I would love to know what the two songs the band thought were more boring than this though. I have followed this with one of the unreleased Barrett songs that was officially released in 2016. ‘Vegetable Man’ is not an easy listen and the lyrics show Barrett looking in on himself. This and the other unreleased Barrett number, ‘Scream Thy Last Scream’ were considered as the A and B side of a single, in lieu of anything else in the can. This, as we know did not come to pass and I suspect that it would not have returned the band to the top of the single chart. The band did perform these songs on a BBC session in December 1967. 

‘Painbox’ was originally released as the B-Side of the Apple & Oranges single, and is one of a number of songs that band recorded that show the Barrett influence whilst not being written by him. ‘Jugband Blues’ is another song with lyrics that could be said to be Barrett looking in on himself and I almost finished this album in the same way it did on the original LP did. However, I decided to throw a little bonus in there, because otherwise my sides would not match up time wise. That track is an instrumental that has been bootlegged under the name as Sunshine, but supposedly the track is officially known as ‘Experiment’. Even though this track is meant to be 15 minutes long, only the first 90 seconds have escaped the studio. The track does sound a little rough, it fits into the sound of the album. I put a fade in and out and added some echo to the first 20 seconds.

The original Saucerful of Secrets was possibly the most democratic album the band ever made. Each of the five members take a lead vocal and this is the only album where Keyboardist Rick Wright vocal performances outnumber everyone else.  I have used the same artwork as Saucerful of Secrets but I took out the original photo to include one with all five Floyd members in it. 

Side A

1. Let There Be More Light
2. Remember A Day
3. Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun
4. Corporal Clegg

Side B

1. See-Saw
2. Vegetable Man
3. Paintbox
4. Scream Thy Last Scream
5. Jugband Blues
6. Experiment

A Spotify playlist could not be created for this play list due to one or more songs not being available on that platform. 

Now, normally I create a playlist and then try to put together a piece of artwork to go along with it. With this what-if album, this was the complete opposite in that I had the piece of artwork and wondered how I could find a playlist to go with it.

Now, this piece of artwork was is another one taken from the site https://idesignalbumcovers.tumblr.com and is for an album that would have been an overview of American popular music throughout the 20th Century. This was meant to be a follow on from the band’s previous album, ‘The Notorious Byrd Brothers’ which had already laid the template by expanding the genres of music the band was looking to incorporate into their repertoire. The ‘Notorious Byrd Brothers’ was an end of an era album though as drummer Michael Clarke and guitar player David Crosby had been fired before the record had been released. Pulling in new drummer in the from of ex-Rising Sons member Kevin Kelley, the band thought that they needed a jazz pianist to achieve the sound they required for their 20th Century album. In came Gram Parsons who did not waste anytime in turning this project into the album he wanted to make which would be released under the name ‘Sweetheart Of The Rodeo’. This is considered to be one of the first country rock albums and would be an influence on many bands that came after this. The 20th Century album was never revisited and as far as I can tell, not one recording session took place. 

So, why use this cover when no material was recorded for it? Well, it is a really good cover and it is a shame that it does not have a what-if album to go with it. I took inspiration from the sleeve itself and wondered if I could produce an album that followed a space theme. Not quite, but with some songs thrown in that have a flying theme (and Mind Gardens as it could be argued that the song is about travelling through inner space), there was enough material recorded between 1965 and 1967 to get an album of sorts. Most of the songs on this record were written or co-written by Jim McGuinn who was fascinated by aeronautics, so much so that he started using the name of Roger instead of Jim. Roger being used by pilots as part of the signalling protocol to say that the last message has been received satisfactorily. Like many of the what-if records I put together, this one would never have come out as the songs had already been used on other records but it did mean that that wonderful piece of artwork found a home. 

Side A

1. Artificial Energy – The Notorious Byrd Brothers
2. C.T.A.-102 – Younger Than Yesterday
3. 5D (Fifth Dimension) – 5th Dimension
4. Stranger in a Strange Land (Vocals by Blackburn & Snow) *(See Below)
5. Eight Miles High – 5th Dimension

Side B

1. The Airport Song – Preflyte
2. Mr. Spaceman – 5th Dimension
3. Mind Gardens (Alternative Version) – Younger Than Yesterday
4. Space Odyssey – The Notorious Byrd Brothers
5. 2-4-2 Fox Trot (The Lear Jet Song) – 5th Dimension

* The Byrds did not finish their version of ‘Stranger In A Strange Land’ and the instrumental backing track was released on the 1996 reissue of the ‘Turn! Turn! Turn!’ album. However, in 1966, the duo of Blackburn & Snow recorded their own version of the song with vocals included. Paul from the Albums That Should Exist website took the vocals from the Blackburn & Snow recording and added them to the Byrds backing track. To find out more, follow the link. 

http://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2018/05/blackburn-and-snow-with-byrds-stranger.html

It is because of this mash up that this playlist is not available on Spotify. Not much of a surprise really. 

It is always nice to come across a gem of a film that I knew nothing about beforehand. One of those which I saw over the Christmas period was Boss Level. It doesn’t have the most original of premise in that the hero of the film must relive the same day over and over again until he figures out what he needs to do to end this event from repeating itself. However, the action, acting and kick arse soundtrack made this 100 minutes of my time that I did not feel was wasted. Time being the operative word here because the majority of the songs on this soundtrack are concerned with it. 

Even though a soundtrack album was released for the music, this was the incidental music by Clinton Shorter. There wasn’t one for the songs that were used throughout the movie so I thought I would put one together. This includes nineteen of the twenty songs included in the film. The only one missing is ‘Sixties Airport Lounge’ by John Plowright which does not seem to be available anywhere. There were enough songs for a short double album so so here it is, the soundtrack to Boss Level.

Side 1

1. Working For MCA – Lynyrd Skynyrd
2. Alcohol Part 1 – Robert Jay
3. Mean Little Mama – Roy Orbison
4. Time Has Come Today – The Chambers Brothers
5. Baby I Don’t Care – Carl Mann

Side B

1. Burn Rubber On Me (Why You Wanna Hurt Me) – The Gap Band
2. Got My Mojo Workin’ – Billy Adams
3. Slow Down – Jack Earls
4. Foreplay/Longtime – Boston

Side C

1. Fine Time – Genie Brooks
2. Fix Me – Black Flag
3. Destroy Everything – The Helltones 
4. That’s Why I Love To Call His Name – Village Singers
5. Picking Tea Leaves & Catching Butterflies – Lily Chao
6. South American Getaway – Burt Bacharach

Side D

1. Turn Back The Hands Of Time – Tyronne Davies
2. I Want To Love You Baby – Peggy Scott & Jo Jo Benson
3. Victim Of Circumstance – Mike & The Censations
4. Day After Day – Badfinger
5. How Much Can A Man Take? – Big John Hamilton
6. Only Time Will Tell – Clarence Ashe

The artwork is taken from an image used to publish the film with some background added. 

On 15th January 1994, Harry Nilsson passed away. With this in mind, I had a think about about how I could celebrate the life of the great man, especially as I have already posted a good deal of Nilsson related material of late. Well, this is what I came up with.

Nilsson wasn’t just a great singer, he was also an innovative songwriter who could work in many genres. Nilsson was also that prolific with only the ‘Skidoo’ Soundtrack, ‘The Point’, ‘Duit On Mon Dei’ and ‘Knnillssonn’ albums having no cover versions on them. It could be argued that the songs Nilsson is best known for were both covers; ‘Without You’ and ‘Everybody’s Talkin’. He even produced an album that was a show case for another songwriter in the then up and coming Randy Newman. I therefore thought that it would be an interesting exercise to put together a What-If release containing all of the covers that Nilsson recorded whilst on the RCA label.

I decided not to include any songs from ‘Nilsson Sings Newman’, as this was designed to be an album completely made up of covers. The same with ‘A Little Touch Of Schmilsson In The Night’. This was a standards album and therefore designed to be made up of from the Great American Songbook, none of which Nilsson wrote. I also did not include covers from his pre-RCA days (as these have already been covered in previous posts), nor from ‘Flash Harry’. Including songs from those albums would have made this project too big and unwieldy. As it turns out, it is quite big enough as it is as it would have to be a three LP set and ‘Flash Harry’ was on a different label to everything else on this collection so we will go for the fact that a rights issues meant they weren’t included. 

On the version I made for myself, I included a couple of edits. There is a spoken outdo to ‘River Deep – Mountain High’ which has nothing to do with the song, but everything to do with how the parent album ‘Pandemonium Shadow Show’ starts. I also edited out the fluffed take of ‘Sweet Lorraine’ but kept in the second half of the song as it meant that the sides of that disc matched up more closely. ON Spotify though. these edits could not be made. Nilsson also covered ‘Ballin’ The Jack’ in 1970 and 1976, but I decided to include both as they are significantly different to each other. For the completist, I included an alternative version of ‘Everybody’s Talkin’ that was the closing track on the original soundtrack album of ‘Midnight Cowboy’.  The songs included from 1967 and 1968 were the mono version, as these would not have been as well known as their stereo equivalents. The Italian song ‘Leggenda’ is repeated here from the previous post, but it is a cover version so it needed to be included. 

Side A

1. She Sings Hymns Out Of Tune (Mono)
2. You Can’t Do That (Mono)
3. She’s Leaving Home (Mono)
4. There Will Never Be (Mono)
5. Freckles (Mono)
6. River Deep – Mountain High (Mono)
7. As I Wander Lonely (Mono)
8. Leggenda (Mono)
9. She’s Just Laughing At Me (Mono)

Side B

1. Everybody’s Talking (Mono)
2. Searchin’ 
3. Fairfax Rag
4. Mother Nature’s Son
5. Mr Bojangles
6. Simon Smith & The Amazing Dancing Bear
7. Ballin’ The Jack (1970 Version)
8. Blackbird
9. Lucille

Side C

1. Early In the Morning 
2. Let The Good Times Roll
3. Isolation
4. Without You
5. Walk Right Back
6. At My Front Door
7. Campo De Enchino

Side D

1. Save The Last Dance For Me
2. Many Rivers To Cross
3. Subterranean Homesick Blues
4. Loop De Loop
5. Rock Around The Clock
6. I’ll Take A Tango

Side E

1. Just One Look/Baby I’m Yours
2. That Is All
3. I Need You
4. Sail Away
5. Shuffle Off To Buffalo
6. Zombie Jamboree (Back To Back)
7. That Is All (Reprise)

Side F

1. Ballin’ The Jack (1976 Version)
2. A Thousand Miles Away
3. She Sits Down On Me
4. Sweet Lorraine
5. Ain’t It Kinda Wonderful
6. Everybody’s Talkin’ (Soundtrack Version)

The sleeve is adapted from Belle Ghoul’s release called ‘Songs By Other People’. The title was perfect. If only my computer skills were as good.