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Cirrus Minor (song)

"Cirrus Minor"
Song by Pink Floyd
from the album Soundtrack from the Film More
Published Lupus Music Co. Ltd
Released 13 June 1969 (UK)
9 August 1969 (US)
Recorded March 1969
Genre Psychedelic folk, ambient
Length 5:18
Label EMI Columbia (UK)
Tower (US)
Songwriter(s) Roger Waters
Producer(s) Pink Floyd
Soundtrack from the Film More track listing
13 tracks
Side one
  1. "Cirrus Minor"
  2. "The Nile Song"
  3. "Crying Song"
  4. "Up the Khyber"
  5. "Green Is the Colour"
  6. "Cymbaline"
  7. "Party Sequence"
Side two
  1. "Main Theme"
  2. "Ibiza Bar"
  3. "More Blues"
  4. "Quicksilver"
  5. "A Spanish Piece"
  6. "Dramatic Theme"
Relics track listing
11 tracks
Side one
  1. "Arnold Layne"
  2. "Interstellar Overdrive"
  3. "See Emily Play"
  4. "Remember a Day"
  5. "Paintbox"
  6. "Julia Dream"
Side two
  1. "Careful with That Axe, Eugene"
  2. "Cirrus Minor"
  3. "The Nile Song"
  4. "Biding My Time"
  5. "Bike"

"Cirrus Minor" is a song written and performed Pink Floyd. It is the first track on their 1969 album Soundtrack from the Film More. The song would later be released on the compilation album Relics.

The song is 5 minutes 18 seconds long. It was written by Roger Waters and performed by David Gilmour on vocals and guitar and Rick Wright on organ. The song has a hallucinogenic, pastoral quality, with prominent organ and bird sound effects, like those that later that year featured on the Ummagumma track "Grantchester Meadows". It was also included on Pink Floyd's compilation album Relics. The song features no drums, which creates a rather unusual feeling. The Hammond and Farfisa organ coda is similar to that found on the "Celestial Voices" section of "A Saucerful of Secrets". While the Hammond provides a stately foundation with an Em-Bm-D-A-G-D-B sequence, about 1/4 way into the coda Wright introduces the Farfisa which, run through a Binson Echorec platter echo, produces the swirly, trembly, echoey sound that hovers over the Hammond.

The opening birdsong is from a 1961 recording entitled "Dawn Chorus" and the single bird featured over the organ part is a nightingale also from 1961. Both featured on an HMV sound effects single (together with a recording of owls) but presumably the band just borrowed the originals from the EMI sound effects library as EMI owned HMV.

"Cirrus Minor" has an unusual chord sequence: E minor, E flat augmented, G major, C# minor 7, C major 7, C minor 7 and B 7. The chords are built around the chromatically descending bass line. The B 7, C major 7 and G major chords are the only chords which fit into the functional context of the E minor key. This chord sequence gives the song a very surreal atmosphere.


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