Roxy Music have shared a previously unreleased early demo of ‘Pyjamarama’, taken from their forthcoming expanded reissue of ‘For Your Pleasure’.
Titled ‘Pyjamarama – guitar & vocal’, the stripped-back recording is the earliest known version of the 1973 single and has remained unheard for more than 50 years.
Featuring only Bryan Ferry’s voice and acoustic guitar, it also documents the first time the Roxy Music frontman had written a song using the instrument.
The demo was recorded while Ferry was staying alone at a remote cottage in the Derbyshire Dales, where he retreated amid the band’s hectic touring schedule to concentrate on writing their second album.
“I went up there for maybe three or four days, with the sole purpose of writing,” Ferry recalled of the period. He brought keyboards, a guitar, an amp, tape recorders and writing materials with him to the cottage.
“I was completely alone out there, and just really focused on writing,” he added. “Those few days in that cottage were crucial to the making of ‘For Your Pleasure’.”
Listen to the previously unreleased demo here:
Guitarist Phil Manzanera has also recalled helping Ferry learn enough guitar to develop the track.
“Bryan was intent on getting to wear a guitar – at which, obviously, I thought: ‘Oh Christ,’” he said. “But I said, ‘I’ll tell you what, I’ll show you how to tune the guitar so you can play it with just one finger’. And he actually came up with something! Which shows how clever he was.”
Although closely associated with the ‘For Your Pleasure’ era, ‘Pyjamarama’ was originally released as a standalone single in March 1973, and it reached Number 10 on the UK singles chart.
Roxy Music have also shared a newly recovered performance of ‘Pyjamarama’ from Top Of The Pops in March 1973. The tape had been missing from the BBC archive, but was recently rediscovered in a collection belonging to mobile disco DJ Roger Hill.
Watch it below:
The expanded ‘For Your Pleasure’ was first announced in August, when the band also shared a previously unheard 1971 demo of ‘Grey Lagoons’.
Due out on November 6 via UMR/Island EMI, the Super Deluxe edition spans three CDs and a DVD, featuring songwriting demos, rehearsals, AIR Studios outtakes, BBC sessions, instrumentals and archive TV and concert footage from 1972 and 1973.
Among the other rarities are early piano and keyboard sketches of ‘Do The Strand’, ‘Beauty Queen’, ‘Editions Of You’ and ‘For Your Pleasure’, as well as multiple unfinished versions of ‘In Every Dream Home A Heartache’ and tapes featuring Brian Eno.
The reissue will also be available across 2LP, 2CD, digital, Blu-ray and Dolby Atmos formats. Pre-orders are available here.
Originally released in March 1973, ‘For Your Pleasure’ was Roxy Music’s second studio album and the final one to feature Eno as a member of the band.
Roxy Music most recently reunited for a 50th anniversary tour in 2022, with Ferry, Manzanera, Andy Mackay and Paul Thompson performing together for the first time in more than a decade.
