A Saucerful of Secrets

Pink Floyd Second Album

May 16, 2009

The second album of Pink Floyd was not commercially successful in its time, and is not a favorite album for Floydians; however, it still has some signs of creativity.

After the noticeable success of their debut album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, Pink Floyd released their second album, A Saucerful of Secrets in 1968. Contrary to the first album, it was not successful to attract the attention of audience and journalists; because the album was a mixture of different premature styles.

Syd Barrett Departure

As a matter of fact, A Saucerful of Secrets was not based on a solid musical ground, as there was no unity among the band members to compose their next album. Syd Barrett departure paved the path for the dominance of the Roger Waters’ style; but the album was indeed in a transitional stage of this transform.

Although there is only one track officially written by Syd Barrett (i.e. Jugband Blues), the footprints of his naïve style is visible in other tracks like Remember a Day, and See-Saw.

First, Syd Barrett was still in the band partially, and had his influence on the musical composition. Second, his successor, David Gilmour, was still under the influence of Syd Barrett in guitar playing. As a result, there was a kind of instability in the songwriting. Another failure was the lack of uniformity in the whole album, as the tracks were independently based on different styles; and it was more like a compilation collection rather than an original album.

Such diversity of the musical styles was indeed an advantage for The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, but there were some joint elements in all tracks connecting the whole album structure. However, it was not the case in A Saucerful of Secrets.

Roger Waters’ Style

The Syd Barrett departure did not reduce the psychedelic elements in Pink Floyd music; instead Roger Waters brought new elements of progressive and space rock too. This situation made Pink Floyd as a home of creativity in rock music; though this advancement was still premature in A Saucerful of Secrets.

The odd track, Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun, was based on the characteristic style of Roger Waters in 1960s. Although it is a part of the heterogeneous collection of A Saucerful of Secrets, well fit in the overall structure of a later album Ummagumma, which was totally based on the Roger Waters’ style.

Interesting Features of the Album

The less success of the album was partially due to the fact that the progressive elements utilized in the album were ahead of the release time; and the album found a better visibly when such progressive style became popular (particularly in hard rock and metal music). Definitely, part of this visibility is due to the Floydian interests in classical works of Pink Floyd.

Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun is a characteristic example of psychedelic-progressive-space triangle. Although the Roger Waters characteristic screams were absence in this primary version of the song, the dominant presence of drums and keyboard in such a slow rhythm was brilliant.

It was a successful track in their live performances until 1973 (when the style of Pink Floyd was significantly changed after the legendary album, The Dark Side of the Moon), and also later live performances of Roger Waters. It was also covered with several bands including metal bands.

Corporal Clegg was the first song in which Roger Waters addressed his feelings about war, relating to his father death in the World War II. Surprisingly, it is the first and one of the few tracks in which Floyd fans can hear the vocal of Nick Mason.

The instrumental title track was a new version of the style introduced in Interstellar Overdrive (from The Piper at the Gates of Dawn). Although it was not generally as well as Interstellar Overdrive and the first half of the track is somehow a collection of sounds (some listeners feel it noisy), it became an influential template for this kind of instrumental music.

A Saucerful of Secrets Tracks List

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