Published Lupus Music Ltd. Length 4:59 | Recorded 2 May 1969 Label Harvest Records | |
Released 25 October 1969 (UK)
10 November 1969 (US) Genre Musique concrète, avant-garde | ||
"Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict" is a track written and performed by Roger Waters from the two-part 1969 Pink Floyd album, Ummagumma.
Contents
Sounds and recording
The track consists of several minutes of noises resembling rodents and birds simulated by Waters' voice and other techniques, such as tapping the microphone played at different speeds, followed by Waters providing a few stanzas of spoken word in an exaggerated Scottish burr.
The Picts were the indigenous people of what is now Scotland who merged with the Scots.
There is a hidden message in the song at about 4:32. If played at half speed, Waters can be heard to say, "That was pretty avant-garde, wasn't it?" ( sample ). Also, at the very end of the rant, Waters is heard to say, "Thank you."
A small sample of these effects can also be heard at about 4:48 on Waters' other track on Ummagumma, "Grantchester Meadows".
"It's not actually anything, it's a bit of concrete poetry. Those were sounds that I made, the voice and the hand slapping were all human generated - no musical instruments."
In popular culture
The title of the Man or Astro-man? song "Many Pieces of Large Fuzzy Mammals Gathered Together at a Rave and Schmoozing with a Brick" is based on this song.
A quotation in Karl Edward Wagner's Bloodstone (1975) pays tribute to the song: "several species of small furry animals gathered together in cave and grooving with a pict."