Simon's School of Rock - Wednesday, March 18th

This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replying the story in its archived form does not constitute a re-publiccation of the story.

Maybe it was the storm clouds, but something put me in a Pink Floyd mood tonight.  So, our lesson is about Pink Floyd's Have A Cigar.

Cigar is the closest thing to a middle finger that Floyd could give to the big music corporations they despised, who would squeeze all they could monatarily out of their artists.  Pink Floyd was angry with their record company, who demanded a successful follow-up to Dark Side of the Moon.  Roger Waters included every snake oil corporate cliche' he could in the lyrics, too. 

This was one of the last songs added to the album. The song is represented on the back cover in the image of a salesman standing in a desert offering Pink Floyd albums. The salesman had no body or soul, which is how they felt about their record company.

As an added factoid, folk singer Roy Harper is on lead vocals.

Tune in for another session of Simon's School of Rock, weeknights at 8 on 106.5 the Arch.