In early 1969 Pink Floyd was invited to compose a full length musical soundtrack for a movie and they jumped at the chance. They had already done a soundtrack for the movie 'Tonight! Let's All Make Love in London' in 1967, a soundtrack, 16 minutes of 'Interstellar Overdrive' for the movie 'San Francisco' in 1968, as well as a soundtrack for 'The Committee', also in 1968, which included an early version of 'Careful with That Axe, Eugene', and the band was eager to do anything in terms of film. 'More' became their first, and later 'Obscured by Clouds', for director Barbet Schroeder.

Pink Floyd put music to a plot centered around drug-taking hippies in Ibiza. The film was not a huge success, and has only briefly been available on video, except in France. The movie 'More' debuted at the 22nd International Film Festival in Cannes, France on May 13, 1969. The U.S. premier was on August 4, 1969 in New York.

The plot of the movie is about Stefan, a German student who arrives in Paris and meets a beautiful girl who is into drugs. She persuades him to smoke grass, sniff coke, drop acid and inject heroin. After falling in love with her, Stefan gets addicted to heroin and eventually dies of an overdose in a dark alley.

Because EMI viewed the album as a special project, 'More' also allowed the band a freer artistic rein, and a higher royalty, than its predecessors. It was Pink Floyd's first major opportunity to demonstrate that they could produce their own recordings, without the constraints imposed by Norman Smith at Abbey Road.

The 'More' sleeve has a simple, solarised still from the film, "designed" by Hipgnosis. The full wording on the sleeve reads 'Soundtrack from the film MORE played and composed by Pink Floyd.'

The song 'Seabirds', heard as background music during a party scene, also featured Nick Mason's [then] wife Lindy, playing the penny whistle. 'Seabirds' along with 'Hollywood' did not make it onto the soundtrack release, but 'Seabirds' was later featured in 'The Pink Floyd Songbook' (Lupus Music/Music Sales, 1976). A cover version was made by Langford and Kerr on 'Moving Soundtracks Vol.1'.

SEABIRDS
Pink Floyd 1969
Lyrics/Music: Waters

Mighty waves come crashing down
The spray is lashing high into the eagle's eye
Shrieking as it cuts the devil wind
is calling sailors to the deep

But I can hear the sound of seabirds in my ear
Surf is high an' the sea is awash
An' a haze of candy floss, glitter and beads
Rock that we sat on and watched in the sun

That was hot to touch
And the sea was emerald green
I can hear the sound of seabirds in my ear
And I can see you smile

Surf comes rushing up the beach
Now will it reach the castle wall and will it fall
Catfish dappled silver flashing
Dogfish puffing bubbles in my deep

'More' consists of sixteen tracks which were written and recorded in 5 sessions over 8 days at Abbey Road Studios, March 1969. Inbetween the recording sessions, the band played 9 shows all around England (not just in London).

The 'More' video was released in 1991.

Dr. Strange is the second comic character to be in a PF song with Dan Dare from 'Astronomy Domine' being the first one. Dr. Strange is also featured on the ASOS album cover.

'Cirrus Minor' and 'The Nile Song' are also on 'Relics'. These are the only 2 songs from this album to be featured on another PF album.

'Cirrus Minor', reportedly a metaphor by Waters, for a drug experience.

'Green is the Color' was reworked from the first part of 'The Journey' entitled The 'Beginning', it was later segued into "Careful With That Axe, Eugene".

'Green is the Colour' was played as part of 'The Journey' as 'The Beginning. It began 'The Journey' which was about various hardships that one may encounter in a lifetime. It was later segued into 'Careful With That Axe, Eugene'.

'Cymbaline' was part of 'The Man' piece as 'Sleeping & Nightmare'.

'Up The Khyber' refers to the hippies association with The Khyber Pass, which links Pakistan with Afghanistan.

'The Nile Song' was released as a single in Europe, (but not in the UK) Japan and New Zealand.

'Quicksilver', an instrumental, also formed the basis of 'Sleeping' part of 'The Man'.

'More Blues' played as an encore from time to time, from March '70 to Dec. '70, and various times between 1971 to 1972, with the final one in July '77. (spitting incident)

'A Spanish Piece,' was written and sung by David Gilmour, his first solo credit with the band.

Roger Waters regretted that they did not do the score for '2001, A Space Odyssey', yet the band's ability to create lavish cosmic sound would lead to the BBC and several other major European TV stations to invite them to compose music for their coverage of the Apollo 11 moon landings. The publicity gained was staggering as countless TV viewers heard their music accompanying NASA's historic mission.

Quotes

"We would have done almost anything in terms of films. We wanted to have a go at it." -David Gilmour

"Films seem to be the answer for us at the moment. It would be nice to do a science-fiction movie...our music seems to be that way oriented." -Rick Wright

"...we wanted to break into big time movie scores so we said "okay" and he gave us six hundred quid each or something and off we trotted and we did it. Later we did "Obscured By Clouds" for the same guy." - David Gilmour

"You start in the studio without anything, and you work until you come up with stuff. You chuck things down and ask, 'How about something like this?'; Then you work on it a bit. It's not the same process as making your own music for yourself...much more hurried, and less care tends to be taken." -David Gilmour