THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,949) Pink Floyd — “Remember a Day”
Pink Floyd (see #13, 38, 260) keyboardist Rick Wright wrote and sung this towering ode to childhood lost, a ‘68 U.S. B-side (to “Let There Be More Light”) and track off of the band’s second LP Saucerful of Secrets. It is fitting that two of the three Floyd songs I have previously featured, “Paintbox” (see # 13) and “Summer ’68” (see #38), were Wright songs. He was an underappreciated genius.
“‘Remember’ features, quite uniquely, Rick on the Farfisa organ and Syd Barrett playing slide guitar on his Telecaster. The song . . . reminisces lost time, and speaks of the innocence of childhood.” (Atshay Pattabi, https://thedelicatesoundofthunder.wordpress.com/2015/03/30/remember-a-day/) “That overwrought sound, with whispered voices and odd percussion, and Syd[ Barrett’s (see #87, 315, 922)] druggy slide guitar—the textures and time changes—bespoke a sound of child’s reverie”. (Donald Brown, https://browndmt.blogspot.com/2014/07/dbs-song-of-day-day-209-remember-day.html?m=1)
Uncle Custard tells us:
“Remember a Day” . . . [was] recorded on 5 September 1967 (one month after the release of [The Piper at the Gates of Dawn]). Syd plays some beautiful slide guitar . . . which was virtually complete, but apparently needed to be touched up a little bit for release, with Dave Gilmour probably doing a couple of very minor overdubs . . . . When [Wright] wrote it he was about to turn 22 — and yet it is a plaintive yearning for the days of childhood, when everything seemed so simple and there was enough time to “Dream yourself away.” Perhaps the pressures of success forced the young members of the group to grow up sooner than they would have liked . . . .
I must note that Jim Miller called the song “inoffensive, but featur[ing] some rather miserable bottleneck guitar, second rate piano, and empty-sounding acoustic guitar work” in the October 26, 1968, issue of Rolling Stone. (https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/a-saucerful-of-secrets-184964/) To put that in context, he disliked Saucerful of Secrets in its entirety and wrote that Roger “Waters (who wrote a couple of dull tracks on the first album) is an uninteresting writer, vocalist, and bass player”!
Atshay Pattabi writes that:
[It] has been performed live only two times . . . at a show in 1968, and in September 2008 by David Gilmour on a broadcast of Later… with Jools Holland on BBC Two. Richard Wright was originally slated to perform with Gilmour at the show . . . but his battle with cancer had made him so ill and weak he had to cancel a couple of weeks before the performance. And sadly enough, Rick Wright died . . . about a week before the show. . . . It is obvious that Gilmour chose to perform this song as a (fitting) tribute to his long-time friend and musical partner. What is touching, though, is his use of the Telecaster and the slide, just like Syd does in the studio version. Now, Gilmour is a man who swears by his signature black Fender Stratocaster. And he has gone on record to speak of his disdain for slide guitars . . . . For him to perform a little known Rick Wright song exactly the way Syd did in the original is the best possible tribute he could have bestowed upon both Rick and Syd . . . . Gilmour is almost always a very composed man when he talks and when he performs; the bends in his solos may drive even the most stone-hearted of listeners into a musical daze, but he remains unstirred . . . . But at this particular performance . . . he seems to be giving all he has to keep himself from losing it. . . . Rick Wright’s ethereal sound – that intangible element without which everything around crumbles to nothingness – was what defined the “Pink Floyd sound” and was the glue that held Pink Floyd together. . . . He was a man who was not unfamiliar with being taken for granted by the rest of the band. But he never seemed to have cared . . . .
https://thedelicatesoundofthunder.wordpress.com/2015/03/30/remember-a-day/
Well said.
Here is the 45 version:
Here it is on French TV:
Here is David Gilmour:
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