Remember a Day

 

If "Name the five people who have been members of Pink Floyd" ever comes up at pub-quiz night, a lot of people are going to get stuck on keyboardist Rick Wright (or maybe drummer Nick Mason). 

Rick was a quiet guy in the band, but, particularly way back in the psychedelic days, he'd not only write a song, but he'd handle the lead vocal as well. "Remember a Day," from the A Saucerful of Secrets album is maybe the finest example of that.

It's a joyful psych-pop song that has, well, absolutely nothing to do latter-day Floyd, and so, yup, not a damn thing about bricks in the wall, farm beasts, division bells (whatever those are) or final cuts. And they only ever played it live once, as an encore in 1968.

Rick would have been 78 today, but he left the world too young, in September 2008. At the time, David Gilmour and his band were scheduled to play Jools Holland's English TV show, and the plans were to perform Gilmour solo songs. But Wright's death sparked a sudden adjustment in the set, and, instead, Gilmour and his band did a reverential, gorgeous, perfect version of "Remember a Day" to bid farewell to their friend. It's here, and also in that video that's embedded at the top of this post.

Turn it up. It's worth the ride.

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My own Pink Floyd stories are, honestly, pretty minimal. I loved them from the outset of my mid-'70s high-school classic-rock days. When we had to do a presentation in high-school German class (in German) about something in art or music, I chose Syd Barrett and the early days of Pink Floyd. Despite my overarching preference for loud, fast, punky music, I still, in 2021, like almost everything Pink Floyd did through the Animals album, and...  not much after that. 

As for live shows, I should have seen Pink Floyd on the Animals tour in 1977. They played Philly and the setlist was fairly spectacular: all of Animals, then all of the Wish You Were Here album, and then a couple encore songs from Dark Side of the Moon. But no. My family scheduled a vacation, and, at 14 years old, I was not free to skip that vacation. The Floyd played without me.

My next chance was the Wall run of shows at Nassau Coliseum on Long Island in 1980, and I wasn't going to miss out. I remember hearing an announcement on the radio that tickets had gone on sale out of nowhere, and, realizing that every car in the house was at that moment being driven by someone else, I ran the four miles to my local Sears, where the nearest Ticketmaster machine was. Tickets purchased. I was sweaty, but I was in.

That show was... exactly what you'd expect? It was The Wall start-to-finish. There was no encore, because there was shit all over the stage when they finished. "Shit" = the wall itself, in pieces. It was more theater than rock concert.

My only other time seeing Pink Floyd was at JFK Stadium in Philly in 1987. It was the Momentary Lapse of Reason tour, supporting that forgettable album, without Roger Waters. As you can see from the setlist, when they weren't playing ten songs worth of dreck from that record, some high-quality, albeit mostly predictable, material was played. It was... good, sometimes great. The setting, in a 100,000 seat football stadium that was close to falling apart, was not a big help to my memories of that night. "Shine on You Crazy Diamond Parts I-V" was, truly, a hell of a closer though.

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Thanks, Rick Wright, for a lovely song, and thanks to Mr. Gilmour for such a sweet tribute.