The game: Bills at Patriots
The beer: Ballast Point Black Marlin Porter
The result: Win, 20–13
The commentary: “I’m not emotionally prepared to write about the state of my football team.” Lo, had I joined the loathsome rabble? Remain I there? Surely not, so long as ours is somehow a top-twenty defense.

I’ve recently… acquired… a copy of the bootlegged unauthorized Pink Floyd live set Meddled, which itself seems to be an unauthorized spin on the unauthorized Meddler. Recorded at the Paris Theatre in London for a session with John Peel in September of 1971, I’d be remiss to let its high fidelity pass without revisiting last season’s week of panic to retcon myself an improved three-hour-plus concert à la that business with Nomar Garciaparra and the interrupting cow. John Gruden, feel free to listen along while reviewing the game film in your continued search for Sammy Watkins, who is right there at the top of the screen, you buffoon! To recap…

1. Astronomy Domine
2. Fat Old Sun
3. Atom Heart Mother
Smoking Blues, November 1970

4. Grantchester Meadows (a.k.a. “Daybreak”)
The Man and the Journey, September 1969

5. Green Is the Colour
Electric Factory 1970, September 1970

6. Careful With That Axe, Eugene
Live in Montreux, September 1971

7. Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun
Electric Factory 1970

8. The Grand Vizier’s Garden Party (a.k.a. “Doing It”)
9. Cymbaline (a.k.a. “Nightmare”)
The Man and the Journey

10. Echoes
Live in Montreux

11. Interstellar Overdrive
Electric Factory 1970

12. Pow R. Toc H. (a.k.a. “The Pink Jungle”)
13. The Labyrinths of Auximenes
14. Behold the Temple of Light
The Man and the Journey

15. A Saucerful of Secrets
Electric Factory 1970

16. More Blues
Smoking Blues

Pretty solid! OK, my work is done. But wait! Three Meddled songs are coming in through the window! Alright, let’s sit around the fire with a few Pecan Pie Porters (available again) instead of Monday’s adequate Black Marlin (and certainly over last week’s Coronado Blue Bridge, which tasted of disappointment more than coffee or stout) and see what we can do to stretch this thing out even further. Call it: Pass the Tequila, Manuel, and Leave the Bottle.

To start things off, I continue to favor the “Astronomy Domine”/“Fat Old Sun” pacing (and breadth) already in place. But the new 1971 version of the latter is superior, due as much to the recording as to the playing, so it slots in as the new number two. “I am not a number! I am a free man!” David even manages to keep his shit together this time. The transition back to Smoking Blues’s “Atom Heart Mother” isn’t as fluid but we’re talking about recordings of indeterminate goddamn origin here.

The other edits are the additions of two songs and about seventeen minutes. In retrospect, this doesn’t seem to be as big a deal as it did when I originally set about recompiling a bunch of Pink Floyd songs on a blog that no one reads. Onward. “One of These Days” breaks up the Waters-y, doom-y “Careful With That Axe, Eugene”/“Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun” block that bogged down the early middle. Hard rock has a place in the world. On that note, I really tried to slot in Smoking Blues’s “The Embryo” last year but it just wouldn’t happen—perhaps my officiousness demanded an even, divisible sixteen. But now? But now! The vocals are much stronger a year later and Meddled wins out again over the distracting crowd chatter of Smoking Blues. “Aw man, I sat in gum!” Those children’s giggles creep me out too—what is this, The Re-Deadening?—and the seagull effects were later rolled into “Echoes” with great success. Redundancy in two-hundred-minute territory is, after all, an offense only slightly more criminal than a hampering WNEW station identification.

Considerations were made for replacing Montreux’s “Echoes” with this new one but the opening “Ping!” isn’t as well done, for I remain proud of that “Nightmare”/“Echoes” transition. And rightly so! Lastly, Meddled’s “Blues” is actually “More Blues” and sounds too, I don’t know, produced. It doesn’t satisfy as a closing track and I can’t be bothered to blow this thing up—clearly, since I haven’t really done much to it other than replace one song and add two more. You might even say that’s exactly what I’ve done. And a selection of sane gentleman might even agree with you. You Swiss are just angry that I inferred a “Ze!” ahead of “Pank Floyt!” to serve a comedic agenda.

New! Improved! And may G. kick this godforsaken virus to Ibiza.

1. Astronomy Domine
2. Fat Old Sun
3. Atom Heart Mother
4. Grantchester Meadows (a.k.a. “Daybreak”)
5. Green Is the Colour
6. Careful With That Axe, Eugene
7. One of These Days
8. Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun
9. The Grand Vizier’s Garden Party (a.k.a. “Doing It”)
10. Cymbaline (a.k.a. “Nightmare”)
11. Echoes
12. Interstellar Overdrive
13. Pow R. Toc H. (a.k.a. “The Pink Jungle”)
14. The Labyrinths of Auximenes
15. Behold the Temple of Light
16. The Embryo
17. A Saucerful of Secrets
18. More Blues

Up next: The league is less interesting without Peyton Manning. Happy Thanksgiving!