The secret “message” to Stanley Kubrick hidden in a classic Roger Waters song
Throughout their time at the top, Pink Floyd existed as one of the most inspired boundary-pushing groups on the planet, relentlessly dedicated to innovation. As masters in using the studio as an instrument, which fell in tandem with their undoubted talent and foresight, the band pulled together to create truly inspired music, whether it be their psychedelic debut album Piper at the Gates of Dawn, the 1973 masterpiece The Dark Side of the Moon, or 1979’s deeply political commentary The Wall.
One familiar aspect of their artistry is that Pink Floyd’s creative director, Roger Waters, had the propensity to include secret messages that were hidden within their songs, something he continued in his career away from the band. One such moment in his solo chapter featured a reference to an iconic Stanley Kubrick movie and a “message” to the director himself.
Speaking to Rockline in 1993, following the release of his third studio album, Amused to Death, fans called in and quizzed the musician on various topics. At the end of the conversation, Waters revealed how he referenced Kubrick’s widely influential science-fiction epic 2001: A Space Odyssey in the third track on the album, ‘Perfect Sense, Part I’.
On reflection, of course, this was an immensely ironic moment, given that it is well-known that Pink Floyd refused the auteur permission to use ‘Atom Heart Mother’ as part of his now famed movie A Clockwork Orange. Per the account of the band’s drummer Nick Mason in a 2018 interview with Uncut, this was “probably because he wouldn’t let us do anything for 2001“.
As what goes around comes around, when Waters asked Kubrick to use a snippet from 2001 in ‘Perfect Sense, Part I’, he was denied. As a result, Waters needed to record his own version of the snippet that he wanted from the film. Adding weight to the Kubrick connection, the song’s opening also references 2001, with the line: “The monkey sat on a pile of stones and stared at the broken bone in his hand”.
Speaking to Rockline, Waters explained: “OK. Alright. Well, well done. A number of people know that I often put messages on records that I make. There’s one on The Wall and a few other bits, and over that particular piece of ‘Perfect Sense, Part I’, we had a bit from 2001. You know, the Kubrick movie. The bit where Dave is turning off the HAL 9000 computer and the computer is saying ‘Stop Dave’, I don’t know if you remember it, and there’s all this breathing in the background. It’s a great scene, and it’s been sampled and used on a million different rap records.”
Revealing that this reference was ballasted by a “message” to Stanley Kubrick, the former Pink Floyd man continued: “Anyway, I stupidly asked Stanley Kubrick for permission to use it as background on that particular track. He hemmed and hawed for ages and ages and eventually refused me permission to use it on the grounds that it would open the floodgates and lots of other people would use it. And my presumption is that he was closing the stable door to those who bolted and fell on deaf ears. So, I made my own which is why you’ve got me breathing on there, which is a bit like that thing, and that is a backwards message for Stanley Kubrick. So, ‘Yelnats’ backwards we all now know is Stanley.”
Since then, Waters has used the real audio of HAL’s sentience being removed during the introduction of ‘Perfect Sense, Part I’ in the live setting, such as on the In the Flesh tour of 2002, which arrived three years after Stanley Kubrick had passed away in 1999.
Listen to ‘Perfect Sense, Part I’ below.
