The album's title supposedly comes from a Cambridge slang word for sex, commonly used by one of Pink Floyd's friends and occasional roadie, Ian "Emo" Moore, who would say 'I'm going back to the house for some ummagumma'. However, some band members have since stated that the word was "totally made up and means nothing at all". In footage of the band rehearsing for a Royal Albert Hall appearance in 1969, one of the band members can be heard, off camera, quietly chanting the word "ummagumma".
Ummagumma detailed collector's information
The cover of the original LP varies between the British, American/Canadian, and Australian releases. The British version has the album Gigi leaning against the wall immediately above the "Pink Floyd" letters. At a talk given at Borders bookstore in Cambridge on 1 November 2008, as part of the "City Wakes" project, Storm Thorgerson explained that the album was introduced as a red herring to provoke debate, and that it has no intended meaning. On most copies of American and Canadian editions, the Gigi cover is airbrushed to a plain white sleeve, apparently because of copyright concerns; however the earliest American copies do show the Gigi cover, and it was restored for the American CD edition. On the Australian edition, the Gigi cover is completely airbrushed, not even leaving a white square behind. The house used as the location for the front cover of the album is located in Great Shelford, near Cambridge.
On the rear cover, roadies Alan Stiles (who also appears in Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast) and Peter Watts are shown with the band's equipment laid out on a runway at Biggin Hill Airport; a concept proposed by Nick Mason, with the intention of replicating the "exploded" drawings of military aircraft and their payloads, which were popular at the time.
Song titles on the back are laid out slightly differently in British vs. North American editions; the most important difference being the inclusion of sub-titles for the four sections of "A Saucerful of Secrets". These subtitles only appeared on American and Canadian editions of this album, but not on the British edition; nor did they appear on original pressings of A Saucerful of Secrets.[citation needed]
The inner gatefold art shows separate black and white photos of the band members. David Gilmour is seen standing in front of the Elfin Oak. Original vinyl editions showed Waters with his first wife, Judy Trim, but she has been cropped out of the picture on most CD editions (with the original photo's caption 'Roger Waters (and Jude)' accordingly changed to just 'Roger Waters'). The uncropped picture was restored for the album's inclusion in the box set, Oh, by the Way.
