[cassiepaper]

From: James Guthrie interview

> Another piece that worked better than expected was the telephone operator. Roger was keen to illustrate the personal disconnect of being on the road. We were in L.A. at Producer’s Workshop so I phoned my neighbour, Chris Fitzmorris in London. He had the keys to my flat and I asked him to go there and said that I would call him through an operator. “No matter how many times I call”, I said, “just pick up the phone, say ‘Hello’, let the operator speak and then hang up”. I placed a telephone in a soundproof area, got on to an extension phone and started recording to ¼” tape. It took a couple of operators – the first 2 were a bit abrupt, but the 3rd was perfect. I told her that I wanted to make a collect call to Mrs. Floyd. “Who’s calling?” she asked. “Mr. Floyd”, I replied. Chris’s timing was terrific, over and over he would hang up just at the right moment and she became genuinely concerned. “Is there supposed to be someone there besides your wife?” I was playing her along saying things like “No! I don’t know who that is!” “What’s going on?” and she would try the call again. Unwittingly, she was helping to tell the story. Afterwards I went through the ¼” and edited my voice out, just leaving her and Chris. I sometimes wonder if she ever heard herself on the record.

Source: https://www.brain-damage.co.uk/other-related-interviews/jame...

[raywu]

> Initially, I was shocked at how slowly everything moved! I was used to working really quickly when producing and engineering albums. Suddenly it was like the brakes were on and often it was difficult to get the momentum going. Eventually, I adapted to the Floyd pace. One of the great things about working with this band is that you are allowed time to be creative, to pursue an idea even if it takes some time. The Floyd had a production deal to make their records and the record label never heard anything until it was done. The record was made purely and only by the people in the studio.

The creative freedom without commercial intervention - this is very cool. I can almost hear it in The Wall - how grand and elongated the songs are.

What a great interview. Thank you for linking

[hinkley]

“The Floyd”?

Ironic that Have a Cigar was released four years before The Wall:

    The band is just fantastic, that is really what I think
    Oh, by the way, which one's Pink?

[mrandish]

It's cool to hear how that came together as an improvisation. It recalls a simpler time when a major album (or movie, TV show, etc) could just feature your neighbor and a random telephone operator without signing releases and clearing rights.

It also gave Chris Fitzmorris (the neighbor) one of the greatest "random cool thing that happened to me" stories ever.

[wahnfrieden]

Musicians still release samples without clearing them

[slillibri]

Alternatively, treating the “random telephone operator” as a prop and forcing them to be part of your project without consent is troubling.

[SoftTalker]

"He keeps hanging up. And it's a man answering."

You can tell the operator was really loving that....

[emmelaich]

Too cheap to hire a voice actor, let's stress out some random telephone operator.

[jameslk]

I was wondering if they ever figured out who the operator was? I couldn’t find anything about her through my Googling. Seems like she should have some credit in the album for her brilliant contribution

[shric]

The session singer who did "The Great Gig in the Sky" vocals on The Dark Side of the Moon famously got £30. She later sued and got an undisclosed settlement.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clare_Torry

[lastdong]

It may have been Jane Barbe (AT&T).

https://telephoneworld.org/telephone-sounds/miscellaneous-te...

I believe (unable to fully verify) she got a credit in the 2017 album “Is This The Life We Really Want? — Almost 40 years after the release of The Wall”.

https://www.discogs.com/release/10441646-Roger-Waters-Is-Thi...

[GrumpyNl]

This contradicts the finds of the author, this story means it was regular DTMF used while the author could not find that. Or am i missing something?

[matthiasl]

(Author here) No contradiction.

I think what happened is

1. The recording engineer dialled the operator. Could have been pulse dialling, could have been DTMF, doesn't matter.

2. Operator answered and the engineer said "I'd like to call London, collect, number 01xxx831".

3. Operator entered 044 1 xxx 831, and this was transmitted to another exchange in SS5 tones.

I didn't grow up in the USA, but a couple of people who did have said that, yes, they think that at least some of the time, you could hear the SS5 tones and also the initial conversation between the operator and whoever answered the phone. It may be that it depended on the operator, since they probably had a mute button, and maybe on the particular exchange the operator was in.

In the film, we hear from 3 onwards.