Ranking Pink Floyd’s 10 Longest Songs

Any look again at Pink Floyd’s longest songs finally ends up as one thing of a love letter to the misplaced musical partnership of David Gilmour and Richard Wright, the latter of whom died in 2008.

Pink Floyd’s songs tended to change into shorter and extra novelistic as their erstwhile bandmate Roger Waters’ affect grew. Earlier, for much longer tracks usually was a showcase of Gilmour and Wright’s fashion, gumption and kinship. These daring explorations stretched into Gilmour’s post-band solo albums and excursions. Curiously, nonetheless, Gilmour has at all times insisted that Pink Floyd wasn’t a prog band.

“We did not speak about fashion, and I’ve by no means talked about progressive rock, or thought that we have been – no matter – progressive rock,” Gilmour argued in 2025. “To me, progressive rock could be very, very severe gamers who can actually do their stuff. I feel we have been doing it lengthy earlier than the time period progressive rock, and I feel I used to be most likely a grumpy previous man in my 20s. You realize, form of, ‘Nah, that is not us.'”

READ MORE: Rating Each Pink Floyd Stay Album

The next rating of Pink Floyd’s 10 longest songs stretches from 1968’s A Saucerful of Secrets and techniques, the group’s first album with Gilmour as unique frontman Syd Barrett exited the lineup, by means of 1977’s Animals when Pink Floyd’s albums have been turning into automobiles for Waters’ outsized ideas. By then, Wright was already shedding artistic sway. After another album, 1979’s The Wall, Waters pushed out his fellow co-founding member.

Remembering Pink Floyd’s Longest Songs

In fact, Pink Floyd launched some notable songs that merely weren’t prolonged sufficient to make this record. They embrace the band-written instrumental “Interstellar Overdrive” (9:41) from 1967’s The Piper on the Gates of Daybreak, the dwell model of “Set the Controls for the Coronary heart of the Solar” (9:21) from 1969’s Ummagumma, “Sorrow” (8:47) from 1987’s A Momentary Lapse of Purpose and “Excessive Hopes” (8:31) from 1994’s The Division Bell.

Then there’s “Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast,” from 1970’s Atom Coronary heart Mom. Regardless of stretching out over 13 minutes with three actions (“Rise and Shine,” “Sunny Facet Up” and “Morning Glory”), alas, this isn’t a tune. Roadie Alan Kinds actually simply cooks a morning meal.

Highlights of Pink Floyd’s Traditional Period

Wright would not come again till Waters himself had cut up from Pink Floyd, reuniting with Gilmour and Nick Mason after they jumpstarted the group once more for A Momentary Lapse of Purpose. Wright additionally appeared on Pink Floyd’s The Division Bell and 2014’s posthumous Limitless River, in addition to a pair of Gilmour’s dwell initiatives (2007’s Bear in mind That Night time and 2008’s Stay in Gdansk) earlier than he died at age 65 after a bout with lung most cancers.

The majority of Gilmour and Wright’s musical legacy, nonetheless, will at all times be the songs from Pink Floyd’s traditional period over roughly a decade between the late-’60s by means of the late-’70s. And lots of of these moments got here on some very lengthy songs. Here is a ranked take a look at the ten finest:

No. 10. “Sysyphus (Components 1-IV)”
From: Ummagumma (1969)
Time: 13:32

Pink Floyd wasn’t fast to find a route after Syd Barrett’s sudden departure. On their second recording with out him, they settled on the thought of presenting a bunch of solo materials — and that solely served for example the idea of a sum being nonetheless far larger than its components. David Gilmour later admitted he “simply bulls—ted” by means of his piece. As Richard Wright’s meandering four-part 13-and-a-half-minute “Sysyphus” definitely exhibits, all of them did.

No. 9. “Atom Coronary heart Mom”
From: Atom Coronary heart Mom (1970)
Time: 23:44

This still-transitional LP included collaborations with a brass part and choir, paired with Pink Floyd’s weirdest improvisational second, the musique concrete experiment “Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast.” As with the previous Ummagumma, Atom Coronary heart Mom additionally ended with a sequence of solo compositions. It was a decidedly unfocused period finest summed up by an unwieldy six-part title monitor that took up all of facet one. Nick Mason and Roger Waters performed the whole 23-minute rhythm determine in a single sitting, whereas the remainder of Pink Floyd and orchestral arranger Ron Geesin pasted all method of sounds on high.

Titled Actions:
I. “Father’s Shout” (2:50)
II. “Breast Milky” (2:33)
III. “Mom Fore” (4:50)
IV. “Funky Dung” (5:15)
V. “Thoughts Your Throats Please” (2:30)
VI. “Remergence” (5:46)

No. 10. “The Slender Approach (Components I-III)”
From: Ummagumma (1969)
Time: 12:14

Gilmour’s “The Slender Approach, Components 1-3” indulges in a number of the bizarre studio gimmickry and out-there glissandos that helped solidify Pink Floyd’s place amongst so-called area rockers – an thought underscored elsewhere with songs like “Set the Controls for the Coronary heart of the Solar” and, later, with The Darkish Facet of the Moon. “The area factor was a joke,” Waters countered in Rolling Stone. “None of these items have been about outer area. They have been about internal area. That is all it is ever been about – human beings and their insides, whether or not it was Syd’s writing or mine. They have been each about the identical factor.”

No. 7. “Sheep”
From: Animals (1977)
Time: 10:20

Waters discovered lyrical inspiration for this narrative from a violent 1976 confrontation between the police and youth within the Notting Hill neighborhood of west London. Initially a largely instrumental monitor titled “Raving and Drooling,” “Sheep” was retooled to supply “my sense of what was to come back down … with the riots in England,” he as soon as stated. Waters later advised Mojo that “‘Sheep’ does have that concept of revolution, of individuals being led to slaughter.” Issues have been additionally altering in Pink Floyd as Waters stepped to the fore, however there was nonetheless area for a glistening flip by Wright that ultimately turns into fully entangled with Gilmour.

No. 6. “A Saucerful of Secrets and techniques”
From: A Saucerful of Secrets and techniques (1968)
Time: 11:57

A pivotal second. Gilmour arrives as Waters takes his preliminary tentative steps towards longer-form composition. The primary two segments are stated to mirror a pitched battle, whereas the third offers with conflict’s aftermath and the ultimate half finds area to mourn the useless. In the meantime, Gilmour is already revealing an totally uninhibited creativeness, inserting his guitar on the ground after which utilizing an unscrewed mic stand bracket as a form of e-bow. “‘A Saucerful of Secrets and techniques’ … gave us our route ahead,” Gilmour advised Guitar World. “If you happen to take ‘A Saucerful of Secrets and techniques,’ ‘Atom Coronary heart Mom’ and ‘Echoes’ – all lead logically to Darkish Facet of the Moon.”

Titled Actions:
I. “One thing Else” (3:57)
II. “Syncopated Pandemonium” (3:07)
III. “Storm Sign” (1:34)
IV. “Celestial Voices” (3:19)

No. 5. “Pigs (Three Completely different Ones)”
From: Animals (1977)
Time: 11:28

Roger Waters used this album to refocus Animal Farm-style criticisms of Stalinism towards capitalism, with pigs as ruthless ideologues, canine as grasping predators and sheep as senseless followers. No less than one of many pigs represented a self-appointed member of the U.Okay. mortality police on the time, whereas many felt the others represented varied politicians. Both method, Pink Floyd was reworking from a collective effort right into a automobile for Waters’ narratives, with Animals because the fulcrum. The tune pushes previous its heavy material with a surging bass line performed not by Waters however by David Gilmour, who additionally provides gravelly talk-box.

No. 4. “Shine On You Loopy Diamond (Components VI–IX)”
From: Want You Had been Right here (1975)
Time: 12:24

The conclusion of a nine-part composition is not fairly as targeted as the primary, and Richard Wright takes full benefit of the area. The topic of the tune, troubled former frontman Syd Barrett, finally ends up taking a backseat to his prolonged activates the mini-Moog. “With out his quiet contact,” Gilmour later admitted, “the album Want You Had been Right here wouldn’t fairly have labored.” Alongside the best way, Wright provides a Solina String Ensemble Synthesizer and Hohner Clavinet as Gilmour extends slide explorations from the title monitor – and Pink Floyd’s final really collaborative mission is made full.

No. 3. “Echoes”
From: Meddle (1971)
Time: 23:30

After a number of years of merely noodling round, Pink Floyd lastly constructed a 23-minute triumph of a tune that is merely full of instrumental wonders. Not least of them is Wright’s surging organ solo, which was stated to have been impressed by the Seaside Boys’ “Good Vibrations.” “Echoes” additionally stands as a testomony to the unusual magic that occurred when Wright and Gilmour shared a microphone. “The mix of his and my voices and our musical telepathy,” Gilmour stated throughout a eulogy for Wright, “reached their first main flowering in 1971 on ‘Echoes.'”

No. 2. “Canines”
From: Animals (1977)
Time: 17:04

Like “Sheep,” “Canines” was up to date from an current tune. They’d even performed “You have Received to Be Loopy” in live performance earlier than setting it apart to give attention to Want You Had been Right here. Again then, it merely had too many phrases and was often performed too quick. Modifications to that strategy added new portent to tune that ends with the picture of a metaphorical stone dragging down a gluttonous businessman. Working for the primary time in their very own studio, slightly than in a extra structured setting like Abbey Highway, Pink Floyd was additionally free so as to add a number of nifty touches. As an illustration, barking canines on this monitor morph right into a keyboard solo by Wright.

No. 1. “Shine On You Loopy Diamond (Components I–V)”
From: Want You Had been Right here (1975)
Time: 13:33

Gilmour performed this tune’s opening 4 notes throughout a rehearsal, catching Waters’ consideration. The phrase “had the sensation of one thing calling, some night time creature if you happen to like, calling in a lonely form of method out of the darkness,” Gilmour later remembered. They maybe inevitably considered Barrett, who’d been a childhood buddy of Gilmour’s earlier than initially main Pink Floyd. The primary tune began for this LP would change into the final accomplished, because the group continued tinkering with their long-form masterpiece. That led to moments of miniature genius like saxist Dick Parry exchanging a baritone for a tenor because the time signature switched.

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