“I’m going to cut you into little pieces!” The four Pink Floyd songs featuring Nick Mason’s vocals
Eclecticism and curiosity are two of the most vital attributes in the music game, and Pink Floyd was lucky enough to have both by the barrowload. From psychedelic, interstellar beginnings under Syd Barrett’s leadership, Pink Floyd approached the 1970s with new concerted efforts to push at the predetermined walls of musical tradition. Their disregard for radio airtime and pop sensibilities soon had them lumped together with prog-rock titans like Genesis, Rush and King Crimson.
Throughout Pink Floyd’s history, the main band has involved just five members. When David Gilmour arrived in late 1967 to take the load off Barrett, whose mental health was sady in a spiral, Pink Floyd was briefly a five-piece. However, with Barrett’s exit in the run-up to A Saucerful of Secrets, the group returned to the four, which comprised the classic lineup that rocked the world with The Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here in the 1970s.
Intriguingly, throughout Pink Floyd’s existence, Nick Mason has been the only constant member. After Gilmour’s late arrival, Roger Waters dismissed keyboardist Richard Wright from the band during the intense sessions for The Wall. Though Wright subsequently returned, technically as a salaried session player, Waters departed the band after The Final Cut, leaving the remaining three-piece to continue into the 1990s.
Throughout 15 studio albums, six live albums, 12 compilation albums, five box sets, three EPs and 27 singles, Mason has remained Pink Floyd’s sturdy mast and rhythmic backbone. Like most drummers, his contributions in other areas of the band’s recording operations were slim. He has joint songwriting credits on a handful of classic Pink Floyd songs that came together during a group effort, and just one song is credited to him alone: ‘Speak to Me’.
At the beginning of The Dark Side of the Moon, ‘Breathe’ is introduced by a brief instrumental piece called ‘Speak to Me’, which is credited to Mason alone on the original record sleeves. Over the decades, some fans have suggested that the song was actually the fruit of a group effort gifted to Mason by his bandmates. On some streaming sites today, Waters’ name appears alongside Mason’s, calling this old conversation back to the light.
In a 2024 interview, Far Out asked Mason about his songwriting credit on ‘Speak to Me’. He confirmed once and for all that, to his memory, the song was his solo composition. After claiming that he “hadn’t registered” that Waters now had a credit on the track, Mason asserted, “I would have said that I did that on my own, but I’m not going to start a war with Roger.”
Outside of his percussive duties, Mason also made a handful of vocal contributions to the Pink Floyd catalogue. Beyond the odd demo harmony and a lead performance in the early rarity ‘‘Scream Thy Last Scream’, Mason’s first vocal appearance on record was on the A Saucerful of Secrets track ‘Corporal Clegg’. His voice can be hard, manically voicing the lines “In orange, red, and blue / He found it in the zoo” and later, “He’s never been the same / No one else to blame” and “From Her Majesty the Queen / His boots were very clean”.
Later in the catalogue, Mason delivered the only line in the Meddle opener, ‘One of these Days’. The song is mostly instrumental, with an intense rhythm of rushing motorways, but just after the three-minute mark, Mason’s demonic, modified vocal shouts, “One of these days, I’m going to cut you into little pieces!” Finally, Mason’s voice cropped up 16 years later in the instrumental piece ‘Signs of Life’, where he voices a muffled spoken-word passage.
