Roxy Music Surface Private Cottage Demo of ‘Pyjamarama’ From Expanded ‘For Your Pleasure’

Roxy Music have released a previously unheard early demo of ‘Pyjamarama’ from the forthcoming expanded reissue of ‘For Your Pleasure’.

Identified as ‘Pyjamarama – guitar & vocal’, the stripped-back performance is the earliest known version of the 1973 single and had not been publicly heard for more than 50 years.

Featuring only Bryan Ferry’s voice and acoustic guitar, the recording also documents the first known occasion on which the Roxy Music frontman wrote a song using the instrument.

The demo dates to a period when Ferry was staying alone in a remote cottage in the Derbyshire Dales, where he withdrew from the band’s busy touring schedule to focus on writing material for their second album.

“I went up there for three or four days with the sole purpose of writing,” Ferry recalled of the period. He took keyboards, a guitar, an amplifier, tape recorders, and writing materials 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’.”

The demo is below:

Guitarist Phil Manzanera has also recalled helping Ferry become proficient enough to develop the track.

“Bryan was determined to play guitar — I thought, ‘Oh Christ,’” he said. “I told him I would show him how to tune the guitar so he could play with just one finger. And he actually came up with something, which shows how clever he was.”

Although most closely associated with the ‘For Your Pleasure’ era, ‘Pyjamarama’ was originally issued as a standalone single in March 1973, reaching number 10 in the UK.

Roxy Music have also released a newly found performance of ‘Pyjamarama’ from Top Of The Pops in March 1973. The tape had disappeared from the BBC archive but was recently rediscovered in a collection belonging to mobile disco DJ Roger Hill.

The recovered footage is below:

The expanded ‘For Your Pleasure’ reissue was first announced in August, when the band also shared a previously unheard 1971 demo of ‘Grey Lagoons’.

The Super Deluxe edition, scheduled for release on November 6 via UMR/Island EMI, spans three CDs and a DVD, including songwriting demos, rehearsals, AIR Studios outtakes, BBC sessions, instrumentals, and archive television and concert footage from 1972 and 1973.

Other rarities include early piano and keyboard sketches of ‘Do The Strand’, ‘Beauty Queen’, ‘Editions Of You’ and ‘For Your Pleasure’, multiple unfinished versions of ‘In Every Dream Home A Heartache’, and tapes featuring Brian Eno.

The reissue will also be available in 2LP, 2CD, digital, Blu-ray, and Dolby Atmos formats.

Originally released in March 1973, ‘For Your Pleasure’ was Roxy Music’s second studio album and the final one to feature Eno as a band member.

Roxy Music most recently reunited for a 50th anniversary tour in 2022, when Ferry, Manzanera, Andy Mackay, and Paul Thompson performed together for the first time in more than a decade.

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