Pink Floyd - Ibiza Bar (1969)

As far as Pink Floyd’s discography goes, there may not have been a more diverse effort than their third studio album, More. Released in 1969, More was a soundtrack for the eponymous movie released that same year. The soundtrack, composed entirely by Pink Floyd, ranged from acoustic folk songs to heavy grunge and psychedelia. And because it was meant to be played over the film, more than half of its tracks were instrumentals. More was the first album to be released by the band without their original front-man Syd Barrett. As such, the album is often viewed as the birth of what would later become the iconic Pink Floyd style and sound.

Written by Roger Waters, the song below is primarily known as being the ninth track on the More album. However, before the More album was released in June 1969, the song was first released as the B-Side to a March 1969 single, backing Floyd’s other hard rocker, “The Nile Song,” as its A-Side.



Pink Floyd - Ibiza Bar (1969)

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Lyrics:

I'm so afraid of mistakes that I've made
Shaking every time that I awake
I feel like a cardboard cut-out man
So build me a time
When the characters rhyme
And the storyline is kind

I've aged and aged since the first page
I've lived every line that you wrote
Take me down, take me down
From the shelf above your head
And build me a time
When the characters rhyme
And the storyline is kind

I live where I'm left
On the shelf like the rest
And the epilogue reads like a sad song
Please, pick up your camera
And use me again
And build me a time
When the characters rhyme
And the storyline is kind

Yeah!

The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band - Eighteen Is Over the Hill (1968)

It’s often been written that this band’s “leader,” Bob Markley, was only a member of the band because he was chasing the money, girls, and the celebrity status that came along with being in a popular band. According to rock historians and his bandmates, Markley wasn’t much of a musician and could hardly play a note. But luckily for him, he could at times be quite poetic and thus contributed his fair share to what would amount to very appealing music.

The song heard below was released on the band’s fourth album, Volume 3: A Child’s Guide to Good and Evil. If you’re bewildered about their albums’ naming conventions, you can find some insight on one of our previous posts. The album is widely considered one of the best to be put out by the band, but the song heard below doesn’t quite reinforce Markley’s ability to sometimes be poetic. Where the song really shines is in its melody and complex studio techniques.

The cover art for the album was created by renowned artist John Van Hamersveld, who most notably designed covers of albums for The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, among others. Although the album is now considered an accomplished psychedelic record, it sold poorly upon its initial release and failed to chart nationally.

The song heard below is what I consider to be the highlight of the album. The lyrics were written by Markley and the music was written by his bandmate Ron Morgan.



The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band - Eighteen Is Over the Hill (1968)

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Lyrics:

Antique white lace
A plastic face
A tinfoil place
An empty space
You are so hung up on yourself
And nothing else

I like too much the rain
The power of my brain
The sunshine
And the open road
Ahead of me

Laughing because
It’s right to laugh
Dress up at night
In the right dress
You can’t change me
Into something
That I’m not

I like too much the rain
The power of my brain
The sunshine
And the open road
Ahead of me

I’ll hear your line
Some other time
When miming
Performance rhyme
The way you feel
It is so phony
And unreal

I like too much the rain
The power of my brain
The sunshine
And the open road
Ahead of me

I like too much the rain
The power of my brain
The sunshine
And the open road
Ahead of me