Pink Floyd The Early Years 1965-1972 -Anticip/ation

+1
The nine Syd tracks they had at their disposal (including a long instrumental) would have nicely filled a 40 minute album. With one Waters track (Set the Controls), just like on Piper. A psychedelic masterpiece if ever there was one!

 

Quoting myself, but obviously Syd didn't write all nine tracks; there are three Wright compositions of course. But he plays on all of them, that's what I meant with 'Syd tracks'.

 

I like & enjoy Saucerful of Secrets a lot & Jugband Blues is a pleasant enough (if slightly awry) Syd song, but it astounds me that they had Veg & Scream sitting there ready to go & passed over them.
Maybe they considered them "dated" by this point.

I'm just glad they're finally (legitimately) seeing the light of day soon.

 

To be honest I don't understand the level of praise Scream Thy Last Scream and Vegetable Man suddenly gets. I mean they are good songs and all, but to call them lyrical masterpieces and favorite songs of all time etc. is to me a bit of a stretch to say the least. I guess it's because they were never officially released. I don't say they are not important, because they are just as any other of Syd's songs, but I just don't see them as any better than many of his other songs, that's all.

 

I think Vege-Man is a good song, up there with Apples & Oranges and amongst Syd's best. Scream i think less of a song– but I think it might be let down by the production. I don't think the Vege-Man praise is sudden or because it was unreleased. It's been around on boots for ages.

 

I'm curious to hear how they've handled mixing "Vegetable Man." The versions I've heard on boots pale in comparison to covers by bands like The Jesus & Mary Chain and The Soft Boys. The latter in particular made it groove.

 

Vegetable Man is a fascinating work in all regards. Not only is it the candid self-portrait of an artist on the brink, à la Van Gogh I suppose you could say, it's also a strange perspective into what Pink Floyd could have become if Syd hadn't been jettisoned.

 

I just think it's a delicious lyric, aside from any romantic ideas about the writer being on the brink.

I have the JMC version on a single. I still prefer the rough sounding boot of the PF's Jenner mix.

 

A good title for A second Syd Album would be "Projection", which was the rejected title for Piper. Piper was to be called "Projection" up into July of 67.

 

No romance here. He was on the brink, factually. If only on the brink of a very real upheaval that got him kicked out of his band, and of the new life that ensued.

 

I'd like to hear a tape of Syd teaching Roger HAVE YOU GOT IT YET.

 

Yes, but my point is about when the idea of 'madness' or mental turmoil in an artist is allowed to over-shadow their natural talent and skill as a songwriter. His songs were bigger than the fascination people have with his mental state. The fact that he may have been having a break-down has nothing to do with his abilities to write good songs.

 

Thanks re that update. Gosh stuff quickly goes out of print these days.

 

For track 10 I'd include "Julia Dream". I know, a Waters composition, but the track was his attempt at emulating Syd's style and it works well stylistically with the other 9 tracks. I always thought this would have been better on Saucerful than Corporal Clegg.

 

Title: Projection

Side A

1. Vegetable Man
2. Apples & Oranges
3. Paint Box
4. In The Beechwoods
5. Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun

Side B

1. Reaction in G
2. Scream Thy Last Scream
3. Remember A Day
4. Jugband Blues

Running Time: 41'40"

Release Date: December 1967

 

There is now the official Syd Barrett website. Is this a good idea if you wish to control the spread of "Sydmania"? I can appreciate for family, friends and band members and other persons who work with Floyd, memories of Syd being quite painful. It is a difficult balancing act trying to place his work in the public domain and keep the integrity of Syd and others intact.

 

They should release a remastered mono Piper. I thought the 2007 was not that bad until I very recently listened to a vinyl rip that sounds so warm and nice that I lost all interest in the harsh official version.

 

not Reje/ction

 

With Syd, this can be a bit of a blend though since a lot of the most coherent songs to be released after Piper turned out to have been written BEFORE Piper. At least, that's my recollection from reading "Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd: Dark Globe."

 

That's not what I was implying, on the contrary. Had he not been the songwriter he was, he wouldn't have given form to his "turmoil". Not in such a way in any case.
Candor, as Emily Dickinson puts it, is the only wile.

 

My comments were only trying to find the reasons behind there being a lack of Syd-related Pink Floyd-material during the last twenty - twenty five years or so, which I think to a certain extent can be explained partly by Syd being alive and then letting time pass. I know that his family has approved of the festival in Cambridge this summer, perhaps showing that the healing hands of time are working. Obviously the forthcoming box show that the estate of Syd Barrett in collaboration with the remaining owners and directors of Pink Floyd Music Ltd has agreed to number of previously unreleased tracks finally being officially released which is great. Whether or not that means that we will see other outtakes (Reaction in G etc) in an expanded Piper/Saucerful edition further down the road remains to be seen. I certainly hope so.

 

someone played the soudboard tape at some floyd event or something, not so long ago, and someone in the audience recorded it... at least that is what my silver says...

 

I don't think they are that good. I much prefer the direction the band took after Syd left, to be honest & I prefer his solo albums to those two songs.

 

Au contraire, Syd's mental state may have had everything to do with his ability to write good songs! To me, those songs seem quite infused with elements of (mental) unstability....