6. Pink Floyd – Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in A Cave and Grooving With A Pict

If you grew up in the Philippines in the 80s, the first thing that will come to mind when you hear this song is the weekly TV show Pinoy Thriller. Automatically, you will start recalling the verse that comes after “Ano, ang nasa dako pa roon, bunga ng malikot na pag-iisip“.

SSOSFAGTIACAGWAP is one of the avant-garde songs (if you could call this one) in Pink Floyd’s Ummagumma, a double album consisting of a disc of live recordings and another of each member doing a suite of solo tracks. I discovered the song when I bought Pink Floyd’s The Works years after it was released. (I remember the plastic cover of the LP was already crumply and full of soot when I ripped it.)

This track stands out because it’s the only one with no music in it. Instead, it’s a cacophony of mimicked animal sounds and an archaic poem being read by a Pict (a member of an ancient people inhabiting northern Scotland in Roman times, fr. Oxford American Dictionary). Chief Pink Floyd songwriter, Roger Waters, penned this song and made all the sounds that you can hear. He also was the driving force behind the rock opera The Wall.

Here’s the rest of the poem and the spec video:

Aye an’ a bit of Mackeral settler rack and ruin
ran it doon by the haim, ‘ma place
well I slapped me and I slapped it doon in the side
and I cried, cried, cried.

The fear a fallen down taken never back the raize and then Craig Marion,
get out wi’ ye Claymore out mi pocket a’ ran doon, doon the middin stain
picking the fiery horde that was fallen around ma feet.
Never he cried, never shall it ye get me alive
ye rotten hound of the burnie crew. Well I snatched fer the blade O my
Claymore cut and thrust and I fell doon before him round his feet.

Aye! A roar he cried frae the bottom of his heart that I would nay fall
but as dead, dead as ‘a can be by his feet; de ya ken?

…and the wind cried Mary.

[In English] Thank you.