"Interstellar Overdrive"
Song by Pink Floyd
from the album The Piper at the Gates of Dawn
Released	August 5, 1967
Recorded	February-June 1967
Genre	Psychedelic rock
Length	9:41
Label	Columbia/EMI (UK) Capitol (US)
Producer(s)	Norman Smith
The Piper at the Gates of Dawn track listing
Take Up Thy Stethoscope and Walk (6)	"Interstellar Overdrive" (7)	The Gnome (8)

"Interstellar Overdrive" is a psychedelic music composition by Pink Floyd, which appears on their 1967 debut album The Piper at the Gates of Dawn at almost ten minutes in length. An earlier, longer recording can be heard on the soundtrack to the film Tonite Let's All Make Love in London, which was released in the same year. Other versions of the track appear on various bootleg recordings. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (700x694, 95 KB)The album cover for the Pink Floyd album The Piper at the Gates of Dawn. ... A song is a relatively short musical composition for the human voice (commonly accompanied by other musical instruments), which features words (lyrics). ... Pink Floyd are an English rock band that earned recognition for their psychedelic rock music, and as they evolved, became widely known as pioneers of progressive rock music. ... The Piper at the Gates of Dawn is Pink Floyds debut album and the only one made under Syd Barretts leadership, although he made some contributions to the follow-up, A Saucerful of Secrets. ... August 5 is the 217th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (218th in leap years), with 148 days remaining. ... 1967 (MCMLXVII) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar (the link is to a full 1967 calendar). ... A music genre is a category (or genre) of pieces of music that share a certain style or basic musical language (van der Merwe 1989, p. ... Psychedelic rock is a style of rock music inspired by or attempting to replicate the mind-altering experiences brought on by drugs such as cannabis, psilocybin, mescaline, salvia divinorum, and especially LSD. There are also other forms of psychedelic music that started from the same roots and diverged from the... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Capitol Records is a major United States-based record label, owned by EMI. // The Capitol Records company was founded by the songwriter Johnny Mercer in 1942, with the financial help of movie producer Buddy DeSylva and the business acumen of Glenn Wallichs, (1910-1971) (owner of Music City, at the... In the music industry, a record producer (or music producer) has many roles, among them controlling the recording sessions, coaching and guiding the performers, and supervising the recording, mixing and mastering processes . ... Norman Smith is a musician and record producer. ... The Piper at the Gates of Dawn is Pink Floyds debut album and the only one made under Syd Barretts leadership, although he made some contributions to the follow-up, A Saucerful of Secrets. ... Take Up Thy Stethoscope and Walk is a song by British psychedelic rock band Pink Floyd, and appears on their debut album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (1967). ... The Gnome is a song by then psychedelic music, later progressive rock band Pink Floyd. ... Psychedelic music may refer to: Psychedelic rock, a subgenre of rock Psychedelic trance, a subgenre of trance Psychedelic folk, a subgenre of folk Psychedelic pop, a subgenre of pop Psychedelic soul, a subgenre of soul See also Acid breaks Acid house Acid jazz Acid punk Acid rap Acid rock Acid... Pink Floyd are an English rock band that earned recognition for their psychedelic rock music, and as they evolved, became widely known as pioneers of progressive rock music. ... 1967 (MCMLXVII) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar (the link is to a full 1967 calendar). ... The Piper at the Gates of Dawn is Pink Floyds debut album and the only one made under Syd Barretts leadership, although he made some contributions to the follow-up, A Saucerful of Secrets. ... Tonite Lets All Make Love in London is a 1967 semi-documentary film made by Peter Whitehead about the swinging London. It features live perfomance by Pink Floyd and footage of John Lennon, Mick Jagger, Vanessa Redgrave, Lee Marvin, Julie Christie, Allen Ginsburg, Eric Burdon, Michael Caine, and many... A bootleg recording is a audio or video recording of a performance that was not officially released by the artist or under other legal authority. ...

Like the Paul Butterfield Blues Band's slightly earlier song "East-West," "Interstellar Overdrive" was one of the very first psychedelic instrumental improvisations recorded by a rock band. It was seen as Pink Floyd's first foray into space rock (along with "Astronomy Domine"), although band members would later disparage this term. Despite its encapsulation of their concert repertoire under the leadership of guitarist and composer Syd Barrett, the long, improvisational, freeform structure of the piece is not particularly reflective of the group's recorded output. As drummer Nick Mason states in his book Inside Out: A Personal History of Pink Floyd, live versions of the song featured many "sections" that did not appear on the album, and would often last more than 20 minutes. During the band's days playing in residence at London underground clubs such as the UFO (Underground Freak Out), the song usually opened their show. It occupied other positions, including the encore, until it was retired from the band's setlist in 1970. the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, 1966 Paul Butterfield (December 17, 1942 - May 4, 1987) was an American blues musician, and one of the most innovative harmonica players of the electric blues Chicago-originated style. ... old logo current logo Eastwest Records was started in 1955 as a subsidiary label of Atlantic Records. ... An instrumental is, in contrast to a song, a musical composition or piece without lyrics or any other sort of vocal music; all of the music is produced by musical instruments. ... Philosophically, improvisation often focuses on bringing ones personal awareness into the moment, and on developing a profound understanding for the action one is doing. ... Rock group (or later rock band) is a generic name to describe a group of musicians specializing in a particular form of electronically amplified music. ... For space rocks, see asteroid. ... Astronomy Domine is a song by British Psychedelic rock band Pink Floyd. ... Roger Keith Syd Barrett (January 6, 1946 – July 7, 2006) was an English singer, songwriter, guitarist, and artist. ... Nicholas Berkeley (Nick) Mason (born January 27, 1944 in Birmingham, England) is a musician and the drummer for Pink Floyd. ... London (pronounced ) is the capital city of the United Kingdom and the largest city of England (strangely, England has no constitutional existence within the United Kingdom, and therefore cannot be said to have a capital). ... The UFO Club was a famous but shortlived club in London during the 1960s, venue of performances by many of the top bands of the day. ... 1970 (MCMLXX) was a common year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 1970 calendar). ...

Composition

The opening hook of the piece is a distorted, descending guitar riff played in unison by the band. This riff eventually segues into improvisation, including modal noodlings, percussive flourishes on the Farfisa organ, and quiet interludes. The song gradually becomes almost structureless and tempo-less, punctuated only by strange guitar noises. Eventually, however, the entire band restates the main theme, which is repeated with decreasing tempo and more deliberate intensity until it finally concludes. A hook is a musical idea, a passage or phrase, that is believed to be catchy and helps the song stand out, it is, meant to catch the ear of the listener (Covach 2005, p. ... The Resource Interchange File Format (RIFF) is a generic meta-format for storing data in tagged chunks. ... In music, a mode is an ordered series of musical intervals, which, along with the key or tonic, define the pitches. ... Farfisa is a brand name for a series of electronic organs and later multitimbral keyboards, made in Potenza Picena in the Marche region of Italy. ...

This riff, incidentally, originated when early Pink Floyd manager Peter Jenner was trying to hum a song he couldn't remember the name of (most commonly identified as Love's cover of "My Little Red Book"). Barrett followed Jenner's humming with his guitar and used it as the basis for the principal melody of "Interstellar Overdrive." Peter Jenner is a British manager of rock bands and acts, and a record producer. ... Love was an American rock group of the late 1960s and early 1970s. ...

Alternate Versions

The studio recording on The Piper at the Gates of Dawn is the one that most listeners are familiar with, yet several other versions survive from both the recording studio and the stage. The earlier, 16-minute rendition (recorded for Tonite Let's All Make Love in Londonin January 1967) may actually be superior in its more kinetic approach to the early sections, though it is perhaps more tedious and drawn-out as a whole. This version is available on the album London 1966/1967 (Snapper SMACD924X). London 1966/1967 is an album by the Psychedelic rock band Pink Floyd. ...

There is also a plethora of bootleg live recordings, with and without Barrett in the band, which show that they often improvised upon and changed the arrangement with each passing performance. One BBC radio broadcast, for example, is arguably superior to the studio version, introducing a wholly new middle section in which the keyboard melody dramatically rises and the guitars are pick-scraped for an almost "demonic" effect. The finale in performances from 1969 and 1970 features David Gilmour playing a metal bar slide across his guitar at the end of the piece, in a slower tempo than Barrett's frenetic slide work. The British Broadcasting Corporation, invariably known as the BBC (and also informally known as the Beeb or Auntie) is the largest broadcasting corporation in the world, employing 26,000 staff in the UK alone and with a budget of £4 billion. ... 1969 (MCMLXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1969 calendar). ... 1970 (MCMLXX) was a common year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 1970 calendar). ... David Jon Gilmour CBE (born March 6, 1946) is a guitarist, singer, and songwriter best known as a member of the band Pink Floyd. ...

An especially powerful version of "Interstellar Overdrive" was rumoured to have been cut from the Ummagumma live album. Tapes of this performance may still exist. "Interstellar Overdrive" has been covered by many artists, including Particle, Hawkwind, Camper Van Beethoven, The Melvins, Pearl Jam and The Mars Volta. Ummagumma is a progressive and psychedelic double album by Pink Floyd released in 1969. ... A live album is a musical recording containing recorded concert performances. ... A particle is Look up Particle in Wiktionary, the free dictionary In particle physics, a basic unit of matter or energy. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Camper Van Beethoven was founded in 1983 in Santa Cruz, California as an alternative rock, new wave music, and punk rock group. ... The Melvins are an American rock band that usually perform as a trio. ... Pearl Jam is an American rock band formed in Seattle, Washington, and is considered one of the most influential bands of the 1990s. ... The Mars Volta is an American rock group founded by Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez. ...

Trivia

• Recorded on March 16, 1967, with overdubs in June of that year, the Piper version also appears on the official compilation albums, Relics and A Nice Pair.
• Roger Waters once told Barrett that the song's riff reminded him of the theme tune from Steptoe and Son.
• John Frusciante mentioned in a recent interview given to radio station The End in Seattle, that the Red Hot Chili Peppers led off their performance with Interstellar Overdrive on the night Syd Barrett died.
• The Mars Volta have recently been incorporating a cover of the song in their live shows.[1]
• The Amiga demo "Aerial" by the demo group M4nkind has a cover version of Interstellar Overdrive as the soundtrack.
• Professional wrestling stable Generation Next used the cover version by The Melvins as their theme song.

March 16 is the 75th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (76th in leap years). ... Relics is the name of several albums, including: 1971 Relics by Pink Floyd 1981 Relics by DMZ 1988 Relics by Painted Willie This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... A Nice Pair is a compilation album by Pink Floyd. ... George Roger Waters (born September 6, 1943) is an English rock musician; singer, guitarist, bassist, songwriter, and composer. ... Steptoe and Son is a British sitcom written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson about two rag and bone men living in Oil Drum Lane, a fictional street in Shepherds Bush, London. ... John Anthony Frusciante (IPA pronunciation: ) (born March 5, 1970) is the guitarist of the Californian band Red Hot Chili Peppers, with whom he has performed on five studio recordings (Mothers Milk, Blood Sugar Sex Magik, Californication, By the Way and Stadium Arcadium). ... KNDD, also known as 107. ... The Mars Volta is an American rock group founded by Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez. ... The original Amiga 1000 (1985) with Commodore 1080 monitor The Amiga is a family of home/personal computers originally developed by Amiga Corporation as an advanced home entertainment and productivity machine. ... A demo is a non-interactive multimedia presentation made within the computer subculture known as the demoscene. ... Professional wrestling is a form of performance art in which the performers act out a scripted wrestling match. ... In professional wrestling, a stable is a group of wrestlers within a promotion who have a common element -- friendships, either real or storyline, a manager who manages all of them, or a common storyline, which puts them together as a unit (recent examples include Evolution, La Résistance, The Cabinet... Generation Next was a professional wrestling stable in the Ring of Honor promotion, which was formed by Alex Shelley on May 22, 2004. ... The Melvins are an American rock band that usually perform as a trio. ... Music in professional wrestling serves a variety of purposes. ...

Personnel

• Syd Barrett - Guitar
• Richard Wright - Keyboards
• Roger Waters - Bass
• Nick Mason - Drums and Percussion

Roger Keith Syd Barrett (January 6, 1946 – July 7, 2006) was an English singer, songwriter, guitarist, and artist. ... Richard Wright is the name of several people, including: Richard Wright, African-American author Richard B. Wright, Canadian author Richard Wright, keyboard player with Pink Floyd Richard Wright, England football goalkeeper Richard Wright, American politician This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might... George Roger Waters (born September 6, 1943) is an English rock musician; singer, guitarist, bassist, songwriter, and composer. ... Nicholas Berkeley (Nick) Mason (born January 27, 1944 in Birmingham, England) is a musician and the drummer for Pink Floyd. ...

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