Community hub
Recent from talks
Contribute something to knowledge base
Content stats: 0 posts, 0 articles, 0 media, 0 notes
Members stats: 0 subscribers, 0 contributors, 0 moderators, 0 supporters
Subscribers
Supporters
Contributors
Moderators
Hub AI
Astronomy Domine AI simulator
(@Astronomy Domine_simulator)
Hub AI
Astronomy Domine AI simulator
(@Astronomy Domine_simulator)
Astronomy Domine
"Astronomy Domine" (alternative "Astronomy Dominé") is a song by the English rock band Pink Floyd. The song, written and composed by the original vocalist/guitarist Syd Barrett, is the opening track on their debut album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (1967). The lead vocal was sung by Barrett and the keyboard player Richard Wright. Its working title was "Astronomy Dominé (An Astral Chant)". Domine (vocative of Dominus, Latin for "O Lord") is a word frequently used in Gregorian chants.
The song was seen as Pink Floyd's first foray into space rock (along with "Interstellar Overdrive"), although band members later disparaged this term.[citation needed] The song opens with the voice of one of their managers at the time, Peter Jenner, reading the names of planets, stars and galaxies through a megaphone. A barely audible line, "Pluto was not discovered till 1930", can be heard in the megaphonic mix. Barrett's Fender Esquire emerges and grows louder. At 0:19, a rapid beeping sound is heard. At 0:26, Nick Mason's drum fills begin and Barrett plays the introductory figure. Keyboard player Richard Wright's Farfisa organ is mixed into the background. Barrett's lyrics about space support the theme in the song, mentioning the planets Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune as well as Uranian moons Oberon, Miranda and Titania, and Saturn's moon Titan. Barrett and Wright provide lead vocals. Roger Waters' bass guitar line, Wright's Farfisa organ and Barrett's slide guitar then dominate, with Jenner's megaphone recitation re-emerging from the mix for a time.
The verse has an unusual chord progression, all in major chords: E, E♭, G, and A. The chorus is entirely chromatic, descending directly from A to D on guitar, bass guitar and falsetto singing, down one semitone every three beats. In the introduction, Barrett takes an ordinary open E major chord and moves the fretted notes down one semitone, resulting in an E♭ major chord superimposed onto an open E minor chord, fretting E♭ and B♭ notes along with the open E, G, B and high-E strings of the guitar; the G functions both as major third to the E♭ chord and minor third to the E chord. In the live version heard on Ummagumma (1969), the post-Barrett band, with David Gilmour on guitar, normalised the introduction into straight E and E♭ major chords, also normalising the timing of the introduction, but, in 1994, Gilmour began performing a version closer to the original (as heard on Pulse) that he carried into his solo career.
Barrett's Fender Esquire is played through a Binson echo machine, creating psychedelic delay effects. The track is the album’s only overt "space rock" song, though a group-composed, abstract instrumental was titled "Interstellar Overdrive". Waters, in an interview with Nick Sedgewick, described "Astronomy Dominé" as "the sum total" of Barrett's writing about space, "yet there's this whole fucking mystique about how he was the father of it all".
"Astronomy Domine" was a popular live piece, regularly included in the band's concerts. It is the first track on the live side of the album Ummagumma, released in 1969. This version reflects the band's more progressive style of that era. The song is extended by including the first verse twice, and the instrumental middle section, before becoming louder again by the last verse. The lead vocals are shared between Gilmour and Wright. While Wright sang the higher harmony in the studio version, Gilmour sang the higher harmony live. The Ummagumma live version can also be found replacing the studio version on the American release of A Nice Pair, a 1973 double album compiling the band's first two albums.
The last confirmed time the song was performed with Waters was on 20 June 1971 at the Palaeur in Rome, Italy, as an encore. When an audience member called out for it during the group's US tour later that year, Waters retorted they would never play the song again. It reappeared as the first song in some sets on the band's 1994 tour. A version from a concert in Miami appears as the B-side on the band's "Take It Back" single, and a version from one of the London concerts appears on the live album Pulse. Gilmour played the song at some of his appearances during his solo 2006 tour, again sharing the lead vocal with fellow Floyd member Wright. He said of playing the song live for the first time in over 20 years:
[I hear you've dusted off "Astronomy Dominé" for the shows.] Yes, and it needed a bit of dusting, I can tell you! I don't think we'd played it since 1968.
The track is the opening track for Pink Floyd's 2001 compilation album, Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd.
Astronomy Domine
"Astronomy Domine" (alternative "Astronomy Dominé") is a song by the English rock band Pink Floyd. The song, written and composed by the original vocalist/guitarist Syd Barrett, is the opening track on their debut album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (1967). The lead vocal was sung by Barrett and the keyboard player Richard Wright. Its working title was "Astronomy Dominé (An Astral Chant)". Domine (vocative of Dominus, Latin for "O Lord") is a word frequently used in Gregorian chants.
The song was seen as Pink Floyd's first foray into space rock (along with "Interstellar Overdrive"), although band members later disparaged this term.[citation needed] The song opens with the voice of one of their managers at the time, Peter Jenner, reading the names of planets, stars and galaxies through a megaphone. A barely audible line, "Pluto was not discovered till 1930", can be heard in the megaphonic mix. Barrett's Fender Esquire emerges and grows louder. At 0:19, a rapid beeping sound is heard. At 0:26, Nick Mason's drum fills begin and Barrett plays the introductory figure. Keyboard player Richard Wright's Farfisa organ is mixed into the background. Barrett's lyrics about space support the theme in the song, mentioning the planets Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune as well as Uranian moons Oberon, Miranda and Titania, and Saturn's moon Titan. Barrett and Wright provide lead vocals. Roger Waters' bass guitar line, Wright's Farfisa organ and Barrett's slide guitar then dominate, with Jenner's megaphone recitation re-emerging from the mix for a time.
The verse has an unusual chord progression, all in major chords: E, E♭, G, and A. The chorus is entirely chromatic, descending directly from A to D on guitar, bass guitar and falsetto singing, down one semitone every three beats. In the introduction, Barrett takes an ordinary open E major chord and moves the fretted notes down one semitone, resulting in an E♭ major chord superimposed onto an open E minor chord, fretting E♭ and B♭ notes along with the open E, G, B and high-E strings of the guitar; the G functions both as major third to the E♭ chord and minor third to the E chord. In the live version heard on Ummagumma (1969), the post-Barrett band, with David Gilmour on guitar, normalised the introduction into straight E and E♭ major chords, also normalising the timing of the introduction, but, in 1994, Gilmour began performing a version closer to the original (as heard on Pulse) that he carried into his solo career.
Barrett's Fender Esquire is played through a Binson echo machine, creating psychedelic delay effects. The track is the album’s only overt "space rock" song, though a group-composed, abstract instrumental was titled "Interstellar Overdrive". Waters, in an interview with Nick Sedgewick, described "Astronomy Dominé" as "the sum total" of Barrett's writing about space, "yet there's this whole fucking mystique about how he was the father of it all".
"Astronomy Domine" was a popular live piece, regularly included in the band's concerts. It is the first track on the live side of the album Ummagumma, released in 1969. This version reflects the band's more progressive style of that era. The song is extended by including the first verse twice, and the instrumental middle section, before becoming louder again by the last verse. The lead vocals are shared between Gilmour and Wright. While Wright sang the higher harmony in the studio version, Gilmour sang the higher harmony live. The Ummagumma live version can also be found replacing the studio version on the American release of A Nice Pair, a 1973 double album compiling the band's first two albums.
The last confirmed time the song was performed with Waters was on 20 June 1971 at the Palaeur in Rome, Italy, as an encore. When an audience member called out for it during the group's US tour later that year, Waters retorted they would never play the song again. It reappeared as the first song in some sets on the band's 1994 tour. A version from a concert in Miami appears as the B-side on the band's "Take It Back" single, and a version from one of the London concerts appears on the live album Pulse. Gilmour played the song at some of his appearances during his solo 2006 tour, again sharing the lead vocal with fellow Floyd member Wright. He said of playing the song live for the first time in over 20 years:
[I hear you've dusted off "Astronomy Dominé" for the shows.] Yes, and it needed a bit of dusting, I can tell you! I don't think we'd played it since 1968.
The track is the opening track for Pink Floyd's 2001 compilation album, Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd.