THE NILE SONG

"The Nile Song / Ibiza Bar " is a single release by UK progressive/psychadelic rock act Pink Floyd. The single was released through Columbia Records/Harvest Records in 1969. The A-Side features "The Nile Song" and the B-side of the single contains the song "Ibiza Bar". Both tracks are also featured on the Pink Floyd soundtrack album "More (1969)".

Both tracks on the single are hard rock songs and stand out quite a bit on the "More (1969)" album as very different sounding from the otherwise predominantly mellow folky and experimental psychadelic tunes which populate that album. "The Nile Song" is pretty guitar heavy and wild rocking and is actually one of the very few Pink Floyd tracks not to feature keyboards by Richard Wright. "Ibiza Bar" is very similar to "The Nile Song" in sound and style but it´s not as memorable and most fans will probably mention "The Nile Song" as a classic tune out of the two tracks on the single, while "Ibiza Bar" is more of a B-side track.

Singles generally had more merit back when this was released, and since both tracks are available on "More (1969)" in exactly the same versions, it doesn´t make much sense to purchase this today unless you are a hardcore Pink Floyd collector. There´s obviously nothing wrong with the quality of the material, which is high on both tracks, but the idea to release a single with two very similar sounding tracks wasn´t necessarily the best idea. A 3.5 star (70%) rating is still deserved though.

'The Nile Song' - Pink Floyd (Single)

Taken from the 'More' album, Pink Floyd's 'The Nile Song' is the single to that somewhat lukewarm album. One of the more harder edged Floyd tracks out there, I first heard it covered by the thrash metal band Voivod. Hearing the original finally, it is clear that the heaviness was instilled in the track; it is certainly a far cry from the psych pop cheer the dominated the Floyd's sound even a couple of years before. Alas, the songwriting here is not nearly as poignant as I am used to hearing from Pink Floyd, and along with a b-side that sounds virtually like a weak replica of the single, it's difficult to consider 'The Nile Song' a successful single from the band.

The song doesn't really have a memorable quality about it to my ears, standing out from other Floyd songs only because the band cranks up their guitars and gets a bit more aggressive than usual with the sound. The melodies have a couple of flourishes that are nice, but even after a couple of listens, most of the ideas don't seem to stick. This is the same to a much greater degree with the b-side 'Ibiza Bar', which is not so much an unpleasant track to hear as much as it is a completely unnecessary one, sounding virtually identical to 'The Nile Song'; the melodies, hard rock riffs, and song structure even.

Certainly a weaker single from Pink Floyd.