Hidden Message
Directly before the lyrical section, there is a hidden message. It is isolated on the left channel of the song. When heard normally, it appears to be nonsense. If played backwards, the following can be heard:
- -Hello, Luka ... Congratulations. You have just discovered the secret message. Please send your answer to Old Pink, care of the Funny Farm, Chalfont...
- -Roger! Carolyne's on the phone!
- -Okay.
Roger Waters congratulates either a girl named Luka, or 'hunters' (i.e. people who deliberately look for backward messages hidden in songs) for finding this message, and jokes that she (or they) can send her (or their) answer to "Old Pink" (being either a comical reference to Syd Barrett, or a foreshadowing of Pink's eventual insanity), who lives somewhere in a funny farm (a term to describe a psychiatric hospital) in Chalfont. Before he can tell the exact location, however, he gets interrupted by someone (James Guthrie) in the background who says Carolyne (Waters' wife) is on the phone. The wife's full name is Carolyne Christie.
Read more about this topic: Empty Spaces
Famous quotes containing the words hidden and/or message:
“For believe me!—the secret to harvesting the greatest abundance and the greatest enjoyment from existence is this—living dangerously! Build your cities on the slopes of Vesuvius! Send your ships into uncharted seas! Live at war with your peers and yourselves! Be robbers and conquerors, so long as you cannot be rulers and possessors, you knowing ones! The time will soon be past when you could be content to live hidden in the forests like timid deer.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“The whole idea of image is so confused. On the one hand, Madison Avenue is worried about the image of the players in a tennis tour. On the other hand, sports events are often sponsored by the makers of junk food, beer, and cigarettes. What’s the message when an athlete who works at keeping her body fit is sponsored by a sugar-filled snack that does more harm than good?”
—Martina Navratilova (b. 1956)