Pink Floyd A Momentary Lapse Of Reason Songs

Working With the A Momentary Lapse of Reason Material

The 1987 album came out during a period where Pink Floyd was functionally David Gilmour trying to keep something alive after the Waters departure. It has nine tracks, runs about forty-eight minutes, and the songwriting credits are split between Gilmour and his then-wife Ginger Baker's touring bandmate Jon Carin on most cuts, with a couple of co-writes from Bob Ezrin. If you are digging into the actual song structures and looking to transcribe or re-record any of the Pink Floyd A Momentary Lapse Of Reason Songs, you need to understand that this is not a dense progressive rock record like The Wall or Animals. The chord progressions are straightforward, often built on open-string guitar voicings and synth pad layers. That simplicity is what makes it approachable for cover purposes, but it is also what makes it easy to get wrong if you rush through it. Let me walk through the ones that matter most if you are doing any serious analysis or reproduction work. Keep in Touch opens the album and sits around 54 BPM in B minor. The main riff is played on an acoustic guitar with a capo on the second fret, and the clean electric guitar doubles a harmony an octave higher. The tricky part is the bridge section where the time signature shifts to 6/8 briefly before dropping back. I spent about two days just trying to get the timing right on that transition when I was building a demo version for a client who wanted a live cover band arrangement. What I found was that the original mix compresses the kick drum heavily, making the feel almost draggy on a first listen. Once I pulled the kick drum frequency out of a reference tape, the groove became much clearer and I could lock the arrangement properly.

Learning to Fly is in E major, 4/4, approximately 72 BPM. The synthesizer bass line is played on a Roland JP-8000 patch that Gilmour favored during this era. The guitar solo uses a Fender Stratocaster through a Vox AC30 with minimal effects, mostly just a touch of compression and plate reverb. One detail people miss is that the verse melody has a suspended fourth resolution that resolves on the downbeat of the next bar. If you play it with a straight major third, it sounds flat. The synth part also has a subtle portamento glide between notes that is easy to overlook but essential to the feel. On the Turning Away is a slower ballad in A major, around 68 BPM. The piano part is layered underneath the vocal melody, and the vocal range spans about a tenth. This is one of the harder songs to sing because of the sustained high notes in the chorus. For guitar work, the intro uses a slide on the third string with a Dobro-style tone. I ran into an issue where the tab I found online had the slide moving a semitone too low. The correct fingering has the slide starting at the seventh fret and moving to the ninth, not the sixth to the eighth as several popular sites claimed. Checking against the studio master corrected this immediately. One of These Days appears as a short instrumental closer on the deluxe editions but the original LP version replaces it with Separate Ways. Separate Ways is in D major and relies heavily on arpeggiated guitar figures. The chord progression cycles through Dmaj7 to Bm7 to Gadd9, which gives it that melancholic quality. The bass line walks chromatically in the second verse, which is a nice touch if you are trying to capture the full harmonic movement.

Sysyphus Part 1 and 2 are instrumental pieces with more atmospheric textures. They use delay trails and feedback loops as structural elements rather than traditional instruments. Transcribing these requires careful listening because the guitar parts are buried in the mix and interwoven with keyboard layers. I typically slow the tracks down to 75 percent speed using Audacity or Ableton's vari-speed function to catch the note entries accurately. Who Wants to Live Forever is not actually on this album. Do not confuse it. Some streaming platforms mislabel tracks. The actual closing track is Run Like Hell, which was originally on The Wall but re-recorded here with a different arrangement. The tempo is slightly slower and the bass line is more prominent.

Production Details That Matter for Cover Versions

The album was produced by Gilmour and Bob Ezrin. The recording took place at Astoria in London and The Power Station in New York. Guitar tones were a mix of a 1964 Fender Stratocaster and a custom-built Telecaster. The pedal steel on One of These Days is played by Andy Bown, not a synthesizer as some assume. If you are building a home studio version, the biggest challenge is the layered keyboard textures. Jon Carin handled all of those, and they occupy a wide frequency range. A good workaround is to prioritize the bass synthesizer line first, then add the pad sounds, then the melodic synth hooks. If you try to do it in reverse order, the bass will get lost in the mix and you will spend hours chasing it. The drum sound on this album is notably dry compared to earlier Pink Floyd records. Nick Mason's kit was recorded with minimal room mics, giving it a close, punchy quality. When recreating this, I recommend keeping your overhead mics low in the mix and focusing on the snare and kick drum proximity effect.

Where to Find Reliable Transcriptions and References

Most fan sites have decent tabs for the major tracks, but the accuracy varies. The official Songbook edition published by Warner/Chappell is the most reliable source if you need complete notation. For quick reference, the AllMusic track breakdowns are solid for chord names and keys. I use a combination of the published sheet music for accuracy and a well-mastered stereo mix for timing reference, since some online tabs get the measure counts wrong on the longer tracks. Streaming the album on Spotify or Apple Music gives you the standard album version. The 2010 remaster is noticeably brighter and the guitar tones sit higher in the mix, which can help when isolating parts. The original 1987 mix has more compression and a darker overall tone. If you are trying to hear individual instrument layers, the remaster is generally more useful. I should note a limitation here: this album does not have the kind of complex time signatures or odd-meter sections that make transcription straightforward. Some tracks are genuinely repetitive, and that repetition is by design. If you are looking for deep harmonic movement, Shine On You Crazy Diamond from the earlier albums is a better reference point. A Momentary Lapse of Reason is more about mood and atmosphere than technical complexity, and trying to force that complexity into your own arrangement usually sounds worse than the original.

Pink Floyd A Momentary Lapse Of Reason Songs

The complete track listing for anyone who needs a quick reference: Keep in Touch, Learning to Fly, On the Turning Away, Slip Through the Fingers, Yet Another Girl, Planet Dust, Sorrow, Louder Than Words, and Run Like Hell. The deluxe edition adds Sideshow, Blues > Booty Jungle > Slime, and a few other tracks from the sessions. The blues instrumental Slime is particularly difficult to transcribe because Gilmour uses a lot of bending and microtonal shifts that standard notation cannot capture accurately. Best to learn it by ear in that case. If you want the official recordings, they are available through the standard music services and physical media. There is no free legal download option for the album. Fan uploads on file-sharing sites exist, but the quality is inconsistent and often sourced from poor vinyl transfers or compressed mp3 rips. For serious work, invest in the CD or the high-resolution remaster.