One of the most characteristic sensations of an LSD trip is "flaming", a visual experience where ordinary things like cigarettes or fingers emit sparks like the traces of hand-held fireworks in the dark. Syd mixes the memory of a psychedelic picnic on the banks of the River Cam in the autumn of 1965 with those of childhood games of hide-and-seek with his sister Rosemary.

-- Jones, "Wish You Were Here".

'Gigolo Aunt'. Only three were complete: take 7, take 9 - included here for the first time - and take 15, which appeared on "Barrett".

-- Brian Hogg, 1993, Crazy Diamond Box Set Booklet

"Gnome, The" -The PF- March 1967 on "Piper..." (Track 7)

The Gnome was inspired by Tolkien's Lord Of The Rings. Published in 1954, the book had taken on a second wind during the late '60s as trip literature. "We were all brought up on books like that Ð Tolkien, Lear, the Gormenghast trilogy, Aubrey Beardsley Ð and Syd was no exception," says Miles. "They were cult books in which stoned people felt parallels with mysticism. But we were finding mystical signs in flock wallpaper, for God's sake."

-- Jones, "Wish You Were Here".

If leaving Pink Floyd were hard for Barrett, so were his last months in the band. Shirley explains: "When he plays a song, it's very rare that he plays it the same way each time - any song. And some songs are more off-the-wall than others. When he was with the Floyd, towards the very end, Syd came in once and started playing this tune, and played it completely different. Every chord change just kept going somewhere else and he'd keep yelling (the title), 'Have you got it yet ?' I guess then it was Roger (who kept yelling back, 'No!') who kind of realized, 'Oh, dear.'" "When he was with the Floyd, towards the very end, Syd came in once and started playing this tune, and played it completely different. Every chord change just kept going somewhere else and he'd keep yelling (the title), 'Have you got it yet?' I guess then it was Roger (who kept yelling back, 'No!') who kind of realized, 'Oh, dear.'... "It was getting absolutely impossible for the band," Shirley recalls. "They couldn't record because he'd come in and do one of those 'Have you got it yet' numbers, and then onstage he would either not play or he'd hit his guitar and just turn it out of tune, or do nothing."

-- Jerry Shirley quoted by DiLorenzo, 1978.

"He wrote it, I seem to recall, in a matter of minutes. The whole recording was done absolutely live, with no overdubs at all, Syd changed from playing rhythm to lead guitar at the very end and the change is noticeable. Syd, however, would change like that often...
That accounts for the drop during the solo, as Syd's rhythm guitar is no longer there!"

-Malcolm Jones, 'Madcap'

Shirley and Willie Wilson, the former Jokers Wild drummer, were both drafted into the making of the LP midway through April, helping in the recording of 'No Man's Land', with its incoherent spoken piece, and 'Here I Go', the second 'old timey' song on the album. Jones states categorically that this latter track, with its unusual music hall structure, was written in the studio in a matter of minutes, so refuting Roger Waters' assertion that all Syd's material was written prior to the split with Pink Floyd. The track was recorded "live" with the freshly written lyrics in front of Syd.

-- "The Madcap Laughs: Mick Rock Photo Sessions, 1993

"Roger and I sat down with him, after listening to all his songs at home, and I said: 'Syd, play that one.' We sat him on a chair with a couple of mikes in front of him and got him to sing the song"

-Dave Gilmour

I'm a King Bee" was written and first recorded by James Moore (aka Slim Harpo), b. 1924 - d. 1970. Moore was a rhythm and blues singer, guitarist, and harmonica player from Louisiana. He recorded 'King Bee' in Crowley, Louisiana and it was released in 1957 on the Excello label as a "answer song" to "Bumble Bee", which had been written and recorded by Lizzie Douglas McCoy (Memphis Minnie). Slim Harpo had other R&B and rock and roll crossover hits in the 1960s such as "Raining in My Heart" (1961) and "Baby Scratch My Back" (1966) and he toured with James Brown at Madison Square Garden and appeared in the Whiskey A-Go-Go in 1968. If all his songs, "I'm a King Bee" was most often covered by white rock and roll bands including the Grateful Dead, the Rolling Stones, and Pink Floyd.

-- catherine yronwode, blues fan

"What's the point in listening to *us* doing 'I'm a King Bee' when you can hear Slim Harpo do it?"

-- Mick Jagger, 1968

This song was first featured on the San Francisco Soundtrack and also in different form on the 'Tonite Lets All Make Love in London' movie.
"I was once trying to tell him about this Arthur Lee song I couldn't remember the title of, so I just hummed the main riff. Syd picked up his guitar and followed what I was humming chord-wise. The chord pattern he worked out he went on to use as the main riff for 'Interstellar Overdrive'. -- Peter Jenner "...Barrett's riff [is] allegedly based on Love's version of Burt Bacharach's 'My Little Red Book'"

-- Mark Paytress, Record Producer Magazine

And of course it was quite different because my humming was so bad! The chord pattern he worked out he went on to use as his main riff for Interstellar Overdrive." The song Jenner was attempting to hum was Love's version of the Burt Bacharach and Hal Davies song My Little Red Book. Others, notably Roger Waters, also detected a hint of Ron Grainer's theme to Steptoe And Son in Syd's new riff.

-- Jones, "Wish You Were Here".

"I was trying to tell him about this Arthur Lee song I couldn't remember the title of, so I just hummed the main riff. Syd picked up his guitar, followed what I was humming, and went on to use the chord pattern he worked out for 'Interstellar Overdrive'." 'Interstellar Overdrive', with its extended free-form passage, was the piece which established Pink Floyd's experimental reputation and it was one of the tracks the group attempted during their first recording session at Chelsea's Sound Techniques.

-- Brian Hogg, 1993, Crazy Diamond Box Set Booklet

Often stretching for over half an hour and always sonically disorientating, Interstellar Overdrive became an aural replica of an LSD trip's dislocation and confusion, and it lit the way for the total abandonment of conventional musical structures that began in earnest in 1966. There was very little precedent for this sound in Britain, apart from maybe The Who. When the Floyd began playing Interstellar Overdrive in April 1966, The Beatles' psychedelic B-side Rain had yet to be released and Revolver was still four months away. During the Floyd's residencies at the Marquee and the UFO clubs, Interstellar Overdrive became the cornerstone of the show. A wildly unpredictable, chemically-inspired instrumental of indeterminate length required a considerable leap of faith for a pop audience weaned on blues or Merseybeat, but it soon became a curious anthem for the emerging underground scene. ...

On January 11, 1967, Barrett, Waters, Wright and Mason entered Sound Techniques studio in Chelsea with engineer John Woods and producer Joe Boyd. In two short sessions across successive days The Pink Floyd cut four songs, Interstellar Overdrive (a version lasting 16 minutes and 46 seconds that was the closest they ever came to capturing their frenetic stage sound on tape) and Nick's Boogie - another freewheeling jam - followed by two of Barrett's eccentric pop tunes, Arnold Layne and Let's Roll Another One (later to become Candy And A Currant Bun).

No other song in the Floyd's early canon better illustrates the duality at the heart of the group than Interstellar Overdrive. On the one hand, Barrett the unfettered art student who would constantly exclaim that there were "no rules"; on the other, Roger Waters the cautious structuralist and architecture student. Waters reined in Syd's free-jazz tendencies. "Given the chance, Syd would have jammed the same chord sequence all night," notes King. "Roger gave the track dynamic boundaries within which Syd could run free."

-- Jones, "Wish You Were Here".

"'Jugband Blues' is the ultimate self-diagnosis on a state of schizophrenia...'I'm most obliged to you for making it clear that I'm not here - and I'm wondering who could be writing this song.'"

- Peter Jenner


"It is almost a poetic recitation by Barrett, with avantgarde sound effects by the group. The centre passage is almost free form pop, with six members of the Salvation Army on the recording session told to 'play what you like.'

-- Alan Walsh, "HITS ? THE FLOYD COULDN'T CARE LESS" Melody Maker December 9, 1967.

Jugband Blues is a poignant coda to Syd's tenure as leader of Pink Floyd, the final track on Saucerful Of Secrets, recorded long before work began on the second album in October 1967. When Andrew King heard Syd play it for the first time he was awestruck. An extraordinary hybrid, part jaunty singalong, part melancholic love song, part insane Dadaist freefall, it was, in his view, one of the finest things Syd had ever produced and petitioned for its release as the next single.

It was recorded in two sections at De Lane Lea Studios, the first with the Floyd, the latter just Syd alone with an acoustic guitar. In a moment of sublime clarity he encapsulated the pain of his own deteriorating mental condition in lines like, "I'm most obliged to you for making it clear that I'm not here/And I'm wondering who could be writing this song." Though each line seems to be a non sequitur, they come together into an impression of Syd's advancing illness....

The two parts of the song are bridged by a collage which features the Salvation Army Band of North London who recorded their albums at Abbey Road. Syd had asked Norman Smith for a brass section to play through the bridge and wanted them to play spontaneously, without music. Smith felt the bewilded musicians should be properly scored. It was the only time Syd had a vociferous disagreement with Smith, who finally agreed to record two versions, one with his scored section and one with Syd's instruction to "play whatever you want". Syd, tired of arguing, walked out, leaving Smith to finish the track his way. EMI rejected Jugband Blues as too downbeat to be a single.

-- Jones, "Wish You Were Here".

Syd then used a cigarette lighter to overdub a slide guitar sequence on 'Late Night', before completing the piece with a first-time vocal.

-- Brian Hogg, 1993, Crazy Diamond Box Set Booklet

There were some problems recording this song apprently (just like most of the songs that were cut live off of Madcap. "We'd say 'What key is that in, Syd?' and he'd reply 'Yeah' or 'Thats funny.'"

- Robert Wyatt


The singer then completed several versions of 'Love You'; the first fast, the third slower, the fourth forming the basis for that appearing on "The Madcap Laughs". As performances, there was little to choose between the different renditions and the final choice reflected mood - "best to decide later" states the cryptic note attached to the box.

-- Brian Hogg, 1993, Crazy Diamond Box Set Booklet

"'Lucifer Sam' was another of those quite obscure pieces. It didn't mean much to me at the time, but after three or four months, it began to assume a precise meaning"-

Syd - Terrapin 9

...an original hinged to the 'Gloria' riff... Rudimentary ...but ...indicat[ing] a defined sense of purpose, particularly [Lucy Leave,] which, although pop R&B, shows a playful imagination.

-- Brian Hogg, 1993, Crazy Diamond Box Set Booklet

Dave Gilmour also maintains that songs such as 'Rats' and 'Maisie' on the second album simply fell into place during studio rehearsals.

catherine yronwode identifies the bass and percussion at the beginning of Maisie as deriving from Howlin' Wolf's "Spoonful"

-- "The Madcap Laughs: Mick Rock Photo Sessions, 1993

"Matilda Mother" -The PF- Sept 16, 1967

The songs were full of fairy-tale images. Matilda Mother is a beautiful evocation of being read a bedtime story by mother. When it was first played live, Syd would sing verses lifted straight from Hilaire Belloc's Cautionary Tales. When it came time to record the track, Andrew King approached the Belloc estate but was refused permission to use the poem, so Syd wrote his own version.

-- Jones, "Wish You Were Here".

here is the Belloc version of

Matilda Who told Lies, and was Burned to Death.


Matilda told such Dreadful Lies,
It made one Gasp and Stretch one's Eyes;
Her Aunt, who, from her Earliest Youth,
Had kept a Strict Regard for Truth,

Attempted to believe Matilda:
The effort very nearly killed her,
And would have done so, had not She
Discovered this Infirmity.
For once, towards the Close of Day,
And finding she was left alone,
Went tiptoe
to
the telephone
And summoned the Immediate Aid

"He's pretty together there, isn't he?"

- Malcolm Jones