"'No Good Trying' was positively impossible! Syd had, before the session, taken copy tapes.. which I presumed were to give to the musicians he was booking to learn... I was wrong; he kept them!"

- Malcolm Jones

Originally the words [at the end of 'No Man's Land'] were meant to be heard clearly, but we went and actually did it, that's how it came out, which wasn't really how I'd planned it.

-- Syd Barrett, Terrapin 9, p. 8.

G.D.:In "No Man's Land" on 'Madcap' there's a long spoken part which is barely audible, like the faded lyrics of "Astonomie Domine", was the intention to abstract the words into just background noise?

S.B.: Originally the words were meant to be heard clearly, but we went and actually did it, that's how it came out, which wasn't really how I'd planned it.

Giovanni Dadomo interview with Syd, July and August 1974 Interview with Syd Barrett c. 1971; unpublished until Terrapin 9/10) p. 8.

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.

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

Left off of Madcap because Gilmour and Waters were in such a rush.
When Syd transferred all the four tracks to eight-track for the final mixing, Jones noticed that 'Opel' was among them: "Syd obviously intended to include it on the album. I still think to this day that it is one of his best tracks and it's tragic that it wasn't included in the final album."

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

The first new song completed was 'Opel'. Nine takes were attempted, the last of which was unquestionably the finest. It remains unfathomable why this mesmerising performance should have been left unreleased; its exhumation was deserved and the track rightly formed the focal point of that aforementioned collection.

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

"How Pow R Toc H started was just one geezer would go up to the microphone and go, Ba-boom-chi-chi, and eveyone picked up on it and put the other things in it and then the drums and picked up and that was more or less that..

"'Rats' in particular was really odd. That was just a very crazed jam and Syd had this lyric and that he just shouted over the top.."

- Jerry Shirley

'Rat' in particular was really odd. That was just a very crazed jam, and Syd had this lyric that he just shouted over the top. It's quite nuts. But some of his songs are very beautiful."

-- Jerry Shirley, from DiLorenzo, 1978, Ibid.

Water in the north has sprung from the one of heaven, which is complemented by the six of earth. Fire in the south has sprung from the two of earth, which is complemented by the eight of earth. Metal in the west has sprung from the four of earth, which is complemented by the nine of heaven.

Confucius decodes the Yellow River Map, in "I Ching", transl. Wilhelm/Baynes; Ibid., p. 309.

Looking through at some bits of paper with Ramadan down Malcolm recalled the 3 hours (10:30am to 1:00pm actually) that they tried to put overdubs of a motorcycle onto the Ramadan track.

Malcolm Jones: Oh it's a good idea, it's just that the thing he had was this terrible little cassette player, I mean you know what cassette players were like in those days...

Ivor Trueman: Was he actually serious about that. (Syd had recorded some motor bike sounds on the back of his friend's bike-with this portable cassette & wanted to overdub this onto the Ramadan track.)

Malcolm Jones: Oh yes, we spent hours on it, the tape was no good, the first thing we did was try & link the cassette up through the desk, I think we made up a lead eventually, & we spent hours & then the engineer said it was not really very good so we said alright, cos EMI's got a good effects library. So we went along & dug out all the sound effects & spent hours putting them onto tape because the sound effects records are all one bit, the engine revving etc... & you add them all together. I don't think we stuck it on anything, I'm not sure where it was intended to go..

Ivor Trueman: I've heard rumours that the Floyd used it in Atom Heart Mother.

Malcolm Jones: I haven't got that album, I doubt it, it won't be Syd's tape.

Again one of Malcolm's pieces of paper (he has quite a few of them) shows that Ramadan & the motorbike effects were entered into the tape library mixed down to stereo but not joined together.

-- Opel #8, M. Jones Interview with I. Trueman, 1984

The proposed, but abandoned, follow-up to 'See Emily Play'. Called 'Old Woman in a Casket' by some promoters.

-- Mark Paytress, Record Producer Magazine

'Scream' has meanwhile joined 'Vegetable Man', another product of this tortuous period, as the great 'lost' Barrett creations. The masters for both still bear the declaration "not to be used for LP", ie: the group's projected second album.

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

I was sleeping in the woods on night after a gig we'd played somewhere, when I saw this girl appear before me. That girl is Emily.

-- Syd Barrett, quoted by Nick Kent, New Musical Express, April 13, 1974

Games for may, was a "happening" held at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on May 12, 1967 and Syd was commissioned to write a theme song for the event. Jenner and King felt certain that the result had 'hit' written all over it and suggested Syd rework it for the charts. Needing a new lyrical theme to fill the now redundant chorus line of "Free games for May" Syd looked around him for inspiration and found The Honourable Emily Kennet, a 16-year-old raver that the UFO crowd had nicknamed "the psychedelic schoolgirl" and looked down upon. Syd echoed this in the opening line: "Emily tries but misunderstands."

-- Jones, "Wish You Were Here".

...'See Emily Play'.... was initially entitled 'Games For May' in honour of the event [a happening] the Floyd had undertaken at the South Bank Queen Elizabeth Hall. "(They) intended this concert to be a musical and visual exploration - not only for themselves but for the audience too," proclaimed the attendant press release and the show did mark a watershed in their career.

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

....The tour of America was rife with stories of Syd's eccentric behaviour. The band played on 'American Bandstand' and Syd refused to lip sync the words to 'See Emily Play'. He stood facing the camera, lips impassively shut.

-- "Beyond the Wildwood with Brother Syd", Gian Palacios, originally published in Jakarta Program Magazine (September, 1994).

Syd always had lyric sheets in front of him, and turning the pages was often caught on tape (it was left in on 'She Took a Long Cold Look').

-- Malcom Jones, 'Madcap'

Chris Moise: "'Sunshine' is/was and will always be an edit piece recorded for Matilda Mother. You can hear it at the end of Matilda on Piper."

'Silas Lang' is the original title on the EMI files, and this was later changed to "Swan Lee". Syd never referred to it as Silas Lang, and this may be a mistake on the part of the engineer on the original session. Part of the lyric goes 'the land in silence stands', which sounds, in part, rather like 'Silas Lang'. ... 'Silas Lang' or 'Swan Lee' was a long and rambling tale about an Indian maiden, reminiscent in many ways of the story of Hiawatha.

-- Malcolm Jones' 'The making of The Madcap Laughs'

We returned to the studio and started work on another new song, 'Terrapin'. In one take Syd laid down a guitar and vocal track that was to be the master! At my suggestion Syd double tracked his vocal part, and that was it! (he later overdubbed the solo).

-- Malcom, Madcap

"Vegetable Man" -The PF- 1967
Syd wrote this manic song just before going into in the studio about what he was wearing.

The last Floyd song Syd wrote, 'Vegetable Man', was done for those sessions, though it never came out. Syd was around at my house just before he had to go to record and, because a song was needed, he just wrote a description of what he was wearing at the time and threw in a chorus that went 'Vegetable man -- where are you?' It's very disturbing. Roger took it off the album because it was too dark, and it is. It's like psychological flashing.

-- Peter Jenner

'Scream' has meanwhile joined 'Vegetable Man', another product of this tortuous period, as the great 'lost' Barrett creations. The masters for both still bear the declaration "not to be used for LP", ie: the group's projected second album.

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

"Waving My Arms In The Air" recalls Syd's early Floyd days when, attired in a long cape, he would stand onstage with his image projected onto a screen behind him, and do exactly that. -- DiLorenzo, 1978, Ibid.

Ivor Trueman: People call it The Word Song or Untitled Words Malcolm Jones: Syd's not said what it's supposed to be called? Ivor Trueman: I don't know.

-- Opel #8 Interview, 1984.