Written and sung by keyboardist Rick Davies, it is the longest song Supertramp recorded at over sixteen minutes.
It was going to be on the album, but the whole experience was so unpleasant that he felt he didn't want to put his masterpiece on an album where the vibes were so bad during the sessions.The introduction to the track features a reading from George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, fragments of spoken news reports, and the final lines from the nursery rhyme Oranges and Lemons.
A music video was also produced for the song, which was filmed in the derelict Pan-Pacific Auditorium, starring actor Chris Mulkey.
[2] This track features drummer Bob Siebenberg's then brother-in-law Scott Gorham of Thin Lizzy on rhythm guitar.
They auditioned a lot of excellent guitar players including Buzz Feiten and my pal from the A&M demo days Kenny Lee Lewis.