Was thinking about this tune the other day. One of my – and my brother Mark’s – all-time favorite Pink Floyd tunes. Goes back to Syd Barrett, Piper At The Gates of Dawn days, but our favorite version was always from the Ummagumma album. Always loved the spacy lyrics:

Lime and limpid green, a second scene
A fight between the blue you once knew.
Floating down, the sound resounds
Around the icy waters underground.
Jupiter and Saturn, Oberon, Miranda and Titania.
Neptune, Titan, Stars can frighten.

Lime and limpid green, a second scene
A fight between the blue you once knew.
Floating down, the sound resounds
Around the icy waters underground.
Jupiter and Saturn, Oberon, Miranda and Titania.
Neptune, Titan, Stars can frighten.

Blinding signs flap,
Flicker, flicker, flicker blam. Pow, pow.
Stairway scare, Dan Dare, who’s there?

Lime and limpid green, the sounds around
The icy waters under
Lime and limpid green, the sounds around
The icy waters underground.

Barack Obama’s final State of the Union speech should be so imaginative!

…but I digress.

So it was a great surprise to me when we saw the Floyd in Washington, D.C. during their 1994 Division Bell tour (the absolute best concert I will ever see) that I almost jumped out of my socks to hear it played as their opening song. Sadly, the Pulse DVD of that tour has them opening with Shine On You Crazy Diamond – not bad in and of itself, but a disappointment for sure, especially since it wasn’t included in any bonus track.

As usual, I’m afraid I’ll have to ask y’all to turn the volume up at this time. 🙂

Still, it is interesting to see how the song evolved between the original 1967 studio track and how it was performed live at that time (which is awesome!), the live version on Ummagumma, and as played on the Division Bell tour. And not to be missed is this version by David Gilmour and Rick Wright with Gilmour’s band recorded at Abbey Road studios sometime after that. All are mesmerizing in their own ways!