I begin with Piper At The Gates of Dawn. This album, along with the following, is the A Nice Pair pressing from 1974.
This set was purchased at The Record Exchange on Hampton Ave in St. Louis, MO. I'd seen this pressing at an antique mall I routinely frequent for records as well.
More on that place later in the series, but I'd always placed it back on the rack because... I have Relics and that's enough of this era for me right?
Wrong.
I'm going to make one thing quite clear.
I find the Syd Barrett era of Pink Floyd to be a novelty. Now would be a spectacular time for you to either send me a nasty email or for you to comment below about how I'm a terrible human being, I don't understand Pink Floyd, and certainly my writing is subpar compared to the other semi-pro music bloggers in the world.
In the docs I have viewed regarding Pink Floyd from this era, it's always the same. Barrett was a pop writer and the band didn't really know how to play yet.
When it comes to these two statements, the former is far more apparent than the latter. Piper is a bit of a disjointed album to me. Pink Floyd is a master of the album. Not just concept records, but their music and records have a flow that only Led Zeppelin could almost compete with.
Piper though doesn't have that flow.
Astronomy Domine is a delicious psychedelic prog tune that is a wonderful piece of foreshadowing for what Pink Floyd was to become in the future.
Lucifer Sam.... this is a song about a cat? It sounds like a tune written by someone desperate for a hit. It's so far and away the preceding track.
Matilda Mother is a wonderful nexus point between the first two songs. It's certainly a psychedelic freakout, but it also doubles as what appears to be a singing 60's pop tune. The drugs were clearly working.
Flaming seems to create the legend of Syd Barrett before it happened. The poppy leanings are great and powerful here, but Syd's become comfortable in his own skin. It's a lovely tune that leads me to wonder...What did he know about himself at this time?
This album continues to get a bit crazier as time goes on. On the next track, Richard Wright plays the most wonderful piano piece. He sounds like the first member of the band to have mastered his instrument on Pow R Toc. H.
Take Up They Stethoscope and Walk... finally. It's the moment of the record. The only song penned by Roger Waters on Piper....
Wait...what in the hell is this crap? The lyrics are more amatuerish than the bullshit I tried pass off as poetry in high school. There is some interesting music...but it's just an explosion on the tape.
Side two opens with the legendary track.... Interstellar Overdrive. Both sides start off with a long song, followed by several little bits. This song is heavy and out there. It's Pink Floyd before they were Pink Floyd.
Not only is it great, but remember, this record dropped in the pre-heavy metal days and take that main riff, put it through a Peavey 5150, and double time it and you've got a pretty sweet heavy metal riff. It's no wonder metal heads dig this group.
The Gnome...it's more Syd Barrett creepiness, but it sounds ever so lovely.
Chapter 24. Another Syd song?? They said many times in the docs that they just followed Syd. Clearly...that happened and was a thing.
The Scarecrow. I'm ready to just get to the next track. Sue me.
Bike. I'm back on the bicycle so to speak. This song is the perfect cross between pop sensibilities and utter crazy. It's the kind of creepy crazy but he sounds so sweet, like gingerbread men.
But seriously....no one wore cloaks in 1967...and he wore one so much it got torn??!
In the end...Piper At The Gates of Dawn wasn't really written or performed by Pink Floyd. Had this band continued unfettered. The genius of Roger Waters and Pink Floyd would never have been realized.
This album is like that final indie record a band does before they get big. It's a novelty, but not indicative of the band as a whole.
A Saucerful of Secrets....let's continue.
Welp. Who's in this band at this point? If one goes by the amazing intellectual juggernaut of Wikipedia, it appears there are five people in the band. Waters, Barrett, Wright, Mason, and Gilmour.
OK then.
Let There Be More Light....What if those piper people where just as poppy but a bit less crazy? Well, this sounds about right.
Remember A Day....well this band is clearly still a bit on the crazy side.
Set The Controls For The Heart of the Sun... If any time Roger Waters has gotten onto a stage is any indication, he fucking loves this song.
I'm not there with him. Perhaps had I some LSD?
Corporal Clegg.... Do I hear the first of about 673 songs written by Waters about WWII??? And kazoos for some reason.
A Saucerful of Secrets... Hey, lookee lookee Senator. It's the first Pink Floyd tune to be really long and separated into movements. I seem to recall that particular motif from other famous Floyd tunes.
Real talk here....this song is pretentious bullshit that I guarantee you they could never replicate live.
See-Saw... Like much of this album, it feels like a band trying to hold onto an identity and a sound so desperately, even though they, quite literally, aren't that band anymore.
Jugband Blues...the final time we'd hear Syd Barrett as a member of Pink Floyd. Though he'd basically assemble Pink Floyd for his works outside of Pink Floyd.
They were a band in transition and they tried so desperately to avoid you even knowing that. Syd played a few a tracks, sung one track, and Roger And Dave sounded nothing like they would in the future.
Kind of a let down album really.
This one is a compilation album, so I'm going to ignore the tunes we've already gone through, ok?
Arnold Layne... Their first single. It sounds like nothing they ever did again. The lyrics were far more developed than the music.
See Emily Play...another single. Also later released on Ummagumma's live disc. Another tune by Young Master Barrett.
It's as if they wanted us to think there was still some sort of connection.
How many other bands had a personnel change like this and just kept trying to act like it never happened?
I mean besides KISS of course.
Paint Box...Here we are enjoying a song written by Rick Wright. These have been few and far between. On Secrets, Waters wrote most of it....Frankly, this song feels like it has naught to do with Pink Floyd.
(Real talk: I had side two done and done...and it got eaten. So this is take two at it.)
Julia Dream... A non-album track from the wayback. It's also the first song sung by Gilmour on the set. He didn't get a lead vocal until side two. Kind of interesting.
Kind of a boring tune that I'm just not really digging on honestly.
Careful With That Axe Eugene... Here we've another long-ish instrumental, but this time, it features vocals! Oh that Pink Floyd. They're always up to something are they not?
What I like about this one is that, unlike many of the other tracks on what would be Ummagumma, this actually feels like a song rather than four stoned AF young men bashing on their instruments in a vainglorious attempt to recreate the Doors.
Cirrus Minor... Gilmour is still singing the majority of the songs on this side. This track comes from the More Soundtrack, as does the succeeding.
It's hard to think of Pink Floyd whoring themselves out to film soundtracks though isn't it? I mean, just a little.
It begins with birds chirping. Hmm. Pink Floyd using sound effects on a track. I think we might run into this again.
The Nile Song...again, we're still on the sound track. This, to the best of my knowledge of Pink Floyd, is the closes they have ever come to being metal.
Perhaps they could've done that just a little bit more yes?
Biding My Time... I see they finally let Roger sing on this record again.Even on a compilation they only let him have a single tune.
Is it any wonder that between his writing and being pushed into the shadow that he took control?
They finish off with Bike. Previously, I mentioned this song really struck a chord with me. Fitting that they finish off the collection of antiques with a brilliantly penned Syd tune.
It's interesting to consider what the band may have become had he not fallen down. In the days leading up to the big era, there were all the parts of what they were to become.
It just took time for them to put the pieces all together.
Next up.....Becoming God Sized.
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