"Welcome to the Machine" is the second song on Pink Floyd's 1975 album Wish You Were Here. It features heavily processed synthesizers and acoustic guitars, as well as a wide range of tape effects. Both the music and the lyrics were written by bassist Roger Waters.
Recording
The track was built upon a basic throbbing sound made by an EMS VCS 3 followed by a one-repeat echo which Waters would have played originally on bass guitar. On the original LP, the song segued from the first 5 parts of the suite "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" and closed the first side. On the CD pressings, especially the 1997 and 2000 remastered issues, it segues to "Have a Cigar". This segueing is a few seconds longer on the US version than the UK version. David Gilmour admitted that he had trouble singing one line of the song, saying, "It was a line I just couldn't reach, so we dropped the tape down half a semitone." He sang the part at a slightly lower pitch, then the tape speed was raised back to normal.
Time signatures
Like many Pink Floyd songs, "Welcome to the Machine" features some variations in its meter and time signatures. Each bass "throb" of the VCS synthesizer is notated as a quarter note in the sheet music, and each note switches from one side of the stereo spread to the next. Although the introduction of the song does not actually change time signatures, it does sustain each chord for three measures, rather than two or four, resulting in a nine-bar intro where an even number of bars might be expected. The verses and choruses are largely in 4/4, or "common time". However, on the line"It's all right, we know where you've been", a measure of 7/4 is inserted, shortening the sequence, and causing the left-right stereo panning to be reversed for quite some time. An instrumental section begins, with the acoustic guitar adding variations in its strum pattern, until it switches to 3/4 for a length of time, when a 12-string acoustic riff is introduced, ascending up the E minor scale until the chord changes to C major seventh. Finally, the instrumental section ends, and the second verse begins. With the lyric, "It's all right, we told you what to dream", once again a measure of 7/4 is inserted, and the stereo panning is finally returned to normal. Incidentally, these two phrases beginning with "It's all right..." are the only parts to feature any chord other than some form of E minor or C major—these phrases go to an A bass in the first verse, and in the second verse, the acoustic guitar articulates the A as a major chord, with its C# in contradiction of the frequent C chords. The song remains in 4/4 from this point forward.
Music video
created a music video, initially a backdrop film for when the band played the track on its 1977 In the Flesh tour. The fanciful video begins with what appears to be a giant mechanical Axolotl. The creature slowly lumbers across an apocalyptic cityscape. The scene then shifts to show emaciated rats leaping around corpse-laden steel girders. Gleaming industrial smokestacks soon fade in, and disturbingly crack and ooze blood. A view of a barren desert is then immediately shown. In the background a small tower grows out of this desert, but then transforms into a screaming monster, which stops to pant for a few seconds before viciously decapitating an unsuspecting man in the foreground. His head then very slowly decays to a damaged skull as the sun sets. Finally, an ocean of blood washes away this scene, and the waves turn into thousands of hands waving in rhythm to the music. All of the surrounding buildings are swept away; except one. Despite being pulled at by the bloody masses, it survives and, synchronising with the sound effects at the end of the track, flies up and away, high above the clouds to where it fits snugly into a hole inside a gargantuan floating ovoid structure.
The song was performed for the first time on Pink Floyd's 1977 In the Flesh tour. Gilmour and Waters shared lead vocals, although in initial performances, Gilmour sang on his own with some backing vocals by Waters. Also for the 1977 live performances, David Gilmour played his acoustic guitar parts on his Black Strat, Waters played an Ovation acoustic guitar, Snowy White played bass guitar, Nick Mason played his tympani parts on his drum kit with mallets, and Rick Wright handled the Mini-Moog synths and VCS3 while Dick Parry played the string synths off-stage. The live renditions of the song were complex because music had to be synchronised with the backdrop film and its sound effects. As a result, the band had to wear headphones and listen to a click-track which, in turn, meant that there was very little room left for improvisation. Pink Floyd would play the song again on their A Momentary Lapse of Reason Tour where Tim Renwick played lead guitar, while Gilmour played a 12-string acoustic guitar. These renditions were not synchronised to the film. The song was performed by Roger Waters during his 1984-85 Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking Tour, on the 1987 Radio K.A.O.S. Tour, with Mel Collins as saxophone soloist. All of these performances were perfectly synchronised to the film. These live versions deviated significantly from the album version. It was also played on the 1999–2002 In the Flesh tour and appears on the In the Flesh concert DVD and CD. Waters also performed the song on his Us + Them Tour, in a version which resembles the album version, in which the music is yet again synchronised perfectly with the screen video.
Influence
The Pink Floyd tribute band the Machine are named after this song, and they often use it as their opening number. Tim Footman used the song title for his book, Welcome to the Machine: OK Computer and the Death of the Classic Album. Footman writes about how the Radiohead album OK Computer shares many musical and thematic elements with Pink Floyd's mid-70s oeuvre, although members of Radiohead have resisted the comparison.
Quotes
Quotes by David Gilmour, taken from the Wish You Were Here songbook.
