Early Pink Floyd is much weirder than I thought! (Arnold Layne, Pow R. Toc H., & Bike) | Episode 398 

"The few times I saw Syd Barrett perform in London at UFO and the Marquee clubs during the '60s will forever be etched in my mind" - David Bowie

Fun fact: Piper was recorded in the room next door in Abbey Road while the Beatles were recording Sgt Pepper. McCartney was a big fan - he described the album as "knockout".

Astronome Domine would have been a more interesting choice, since it's a more interesting chord sequence and, really, one of Barrett's best songs. See Emily Play might have been nice too, since it's closer to their live psychedelic sound than Arnold Lane (good though that is).

I am part of the minority that prefers Syd-era Floyd. The early psychedelic stuff just works for me. His solo works are also worth a listen. Give me PF through Meddle and I am a happy man. Keep going down the hole.

Looking forward to your hearing Floyd’s “Careful With That Axe Eugene.”

Syd's first solo album "the madcap laughs" is an outsider art masterpiece

Dave Gilmour said that Syd Barrett was one of the three or four most seminal figures in 60's music, including Dylan. He was a superb visual artist as well as revolutionizing English contemporary music. Not to mention the fact that he was one of the most beautiful men to have walked the earth. I feel that his poetic sensibility was a direct inheritence of both the English Romantic and English surrealist tradition, eg Lear , Lewis Carroll. He sings as an Englishman; his imagination inhabits an English landscape. I'm not sure that we create such people now.

It was hearing "See Emily Play" that at a young age made me realise there was other music besides the jingly, jangly stuff that seemed to be the only thing on TV and radio at the time. I subsequently bought every album of theirs and, decades later, am still listening to their output.

Piper at the Gates of Dawn is my fav psychedelic album of all time, hands down.

Not only was the Piper era led by Syd instead of David or Roger, but Rick was a bigger presence in the band early on.

My favorite Pink Floyd album.

Syd's solo albums are amazing.

There is NOTHING like early Pink Floyd! 🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘

Piper is one of the things Syd is called in the lyrics of Shine on You Crazy Diamond. My favorite thing about Shine on... though is if you turn it up, the very last thing you hear at the end of part IX is Rick playing the vocal melody to go with "Emily tries, but misunderstands"

I heard Bike as a child and found the outro quite scary and strange. As an adult some 45 years later I think it's quite wonderful. NOBODY makes music like this anymore, and somebody really should...

"Flaming" is a very underrated song from this album, it is really good. See Emily Play is really good too

I’d love to see you review “Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun”.

They have a much over looked classic, "Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun". Watch the video were they are playing in an ancient ampitheatre in Pompeii. Stunning backdrop of the murals, statues & the stars. Very clear footage & brilliant lighting.

Syd had a habit of throwing every chord he could think of into a song, sometimes basically every major chord, and somehow making it all work.

"You're the kind of girl that fits in with my world" the chorus lyrics fit metrically while the verse lyrics waft long and short. The vocals are jagged in the verse and calm in the chorus. Either the girl is as crazy as him and they kind of cancel out or she is capable of calming him.

Piper at the Gates of Dawn 1967 Syd Barrett, Astronomy Domine... The single See Emily Play was a huge hit. Extremely Experimental

Arnold Layne still gets airplay, the wonderful, bizarre, genius of Pink Floyd!

Syd was a proper genius, Doug. He had methods of expressing himself in ways that communicated things that are hard to get across. He was my idol and inspiration throughout my teen years. I’m 40, now, and in my early 20s, part of me actually succumbed to some of the pressures that did Syd in, and I have retreated into hermitage, but in those very early years Syd and I shared something-whether I was on acid or dead sober I got the feeling he was expressing something I wanted to, as if we’d perhaps grown up twins. When Syd (by then, Roger) passed, I sold one of mi amplifiers that I could fly out and attend his funeral from a respectful distance, as it were not meant to be a public funeral. One of the most beautiful and misunderstood minds in rock ‘n’ roll-indeed, in all 20th Century art.

Back, in 1967, they had a gig at Gyllene Cirkeln (Golden Circle) in Stockholm, Sweden. My dad’s best friend took them to Sweden. So, both my dad and I were there. At that time I was five years. I thought it was only noice. Syd Barrett asked my dad if he was allowed to give me candy. Daddy said yes.

A great mix of early Pink Floyd is found on the album Relics. I particularly like the Richard Wright tunes Paint Box and Remember A Day. And of corse the greatest blues-rock jam of all time, Biding My Time.

Wind in the Willows is a much loved children's' book that is often made into TV series and films.

While I love Dougs commentary, I can't help but notice that he keeps missing the mark when he refers to Pink Floyd as "a mainstream act" - in fact, early Pink Floyd was very self-consciously NOT mainstream. They were an experimental underground band, who wanted to explore and expand the limits of what could be considered music. Hence, sound collages, found objects, dadaism, sound effects, indian music, english folk music, modern experimental classical, endless one-chord jams... everything could fit within this free framework. It wasn't really until Dark Side of the Moon that they established themselves as a mainstream act, and even then it was more or less against their will: early live versions are decidedly more experimental than the more polished album. Also, the next project they wanted to tackle after Dark Side was an album made without any musical instruments at all, every sound instead produced from household objects. Only after abandoning this project did they keep cultivating their more mainstream profile.

For people of my generation in England "Wind in the Willows" was part of our childhood. To me, Syd's lyrics are still absolutely hilarious. I'm sure this will be an unpopular opinion for any later Pink Floyd fans, but I much prefer Syd Barrett's quirky and eccentric lyrics to Roger Water's angst. I wish you had also played Astronomy Domine.

If you ever get to see Nick Mason's Saucerful of Secrets, absolutely go. He plays nothing be pre-Dark Side Floyd live, and he really brings it to life. You can tell he's having a blast doing it too which really makes it a fun experience. Best concert I've ever been to, and I've seen both Waters and Gilmour

Syd Barrett lived in a small cul-de-sac in Cambridge where I worked in a bookies on the corner of the road. He was a total recluse. He died while I was working there and later that week someone painted an amazing mural on the wall of my workplace. Sadly my boss had the council remove it shortly afterwards.

The early anthology "Relics" is one move my absolutely favorite psychedelic albums, favorite Pink Floyd Albums, favorite all-time albums.

Man, the look of bewilderment at the end of Bike is priceless. "WTF was that!!!" 😂 Wonderful songs. Arnold Layne and Bike are brilliant, and timeless pieces of art.

You should listen to Syd Barrets album The Madcap Laughs. It is very interesting, though somewhat disturbing. The man wasn’t well. But there’s some wonderful songs on it, such as Golden Hair, a haunting and beautiful song based on a poem by James Joyce.

This is right proper Pink Floyd Music. Doug, Please do See Emily Play .

One cool footnote, in case it hasn’t been mentioned yet … The last phrase played by Rick Wright on the keyboard at the very end of “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” is the verse melody from the band’s second single, “See Emily Play.”

They were one of the first innovators of a mixed-media presentation using things like moving-liquid slides and such. They also had created a rudimentary quadraphonic sound system known as the 'azimuth coordinator' which used a speaker stack in each corner of the room and a joystick to move the sound around the room.

My all-time favorite Pink Floyd song is the 23-some minute epic "Echoes", from 1971's "Meddle" (my personal favorite PF album) :) The opening piece "One Of These Days" is also a great listen ;)

So glad that you finally listened to some of Syd's songs. The way he structures songs is so weird, yet full of fun. The music industry tried to push them into three minute "singles" when they really wanted to play long extended improvisations. For more of these songs try See Emily Play, Matilda Mother, Lucifer Sam, Take up thy stethoscope etc. For a Friday, one of their improvisations; My favourite is Set the controls for the heart of the sun, but Saucerful of secrets, Astronomy Domine, Interstellar Overdrive would be good (Either the original album versions or the live ones from either Pompeii or Ummagumma. By the way, the drummer is currently touring as Nick Mason's Saucerful Of Secrets; they play the early songs including the singles and album songs from Piper at the gates through to Medal (including a non-brass version of Atom Heart Mother. Saw them last week 😊

I'd love to see Doug react to the Syd Barrett solo albums, specifically Dark Globe, Octopus, Effervescing Elephant, Feel, Love You and/or Baby Lemonade. But honestly, anything from the solo albums is great...

The whole album is a delight to listen to in headphones, I first heard it in 1981 aged 18 or 19, catching up on early Floyd having only got into them in the 1970s. Especially if you are under any kind of 'influence'...it really is a trip. But also very beautiful. Syd could hear in colours, and his way of writing everything as if experiencing things for the first time, like a child, was really special.

We asked for more Pink Floyd and you delivered, Thank you 👏🏼

According to Nick Masons autobiography, the Abbey Road studios had a huge collection of sound effects on tape for radio dramas. So they made intensive use of those, which they kept during their career. It was inspired by the musique concrete.

Mid 70's middle school exposure to this release helped warp me in a good way.

Arnold Layne was included on a album a couple years later. Relics, a bizarre collection of antiques and curios. Interstellar Overdrive, See Emily Play, Careful With That Axe Eugene, and Bike as the last track

Pow R. Toc H. was the army signallers code for TH, for the Talbot House, a club where officers and enlisted men were equals.

Agree 100% with a band's ability to be so experimental with their debut album. I always love listening to the first albums and progressing through the discography. I tend to like the first albums a lot because that is when a band is always their most experimental.

i really like the first song on Piper; Astronomy Dominé. There are kinda 2 sides to early Floyd, Syd's quirky pop tunes, and those long space jams. i think Interstellar Overdrive is a better space jam than Pow R Toc H. Somehow Astronomy Dominé sits between the quirky pop and the space jams.

"I think that he is showing her his clock" with that straight face - too funny. I couldn't stop laughing :D

As a sixteen year old I went with my friends to a tiny club beneath a shoe shop in the city centre. They didn't serve alcohol. We just laid on the floor with the lights playing, grooving to bands like Pink Floyd.

Syd was a genius. His inflence on the entire scene was incomparable.

love your insights and musical nuggets - thank you !

“I think he’s showing her his clock”. This is the best line you will ever speak. Epic .

The Wind in the Willows is a classic British children's book, which has been animated several times. The characters are animals - Ratty, Toad, Badger and so on. The chapter with Pan actually stands out as the weird one, with a much more mysterious tone than the rest of the book.

Just to remind people, Stereo was not common when this was recorded. To get a stereo album was very rare in 1967, some such as Sgt Pepper were released in Mono and Stereo: there were some false stereo manufactured albums, but stereo recording was in its' infancy. Recently saw Nick Mason's Saucerful of Secrets at the Royal Albert Hall. They play Pink Floyd early stuff up to Dark Side. Brilliant! Music at this time was in transition from formulaic to experimental and the realisation that anything was possible and becoming VERY interesting. It was a great time to be alive and listening to the radio (all radio was mono!)

Syd Barrett broke many moulds. Sadly missed. Piper at the Gates of Dawn is my favourite Pink Floyd album.

I'll never forget my first hearing of this album. The outro to bike had me and and my mate in stitches.

Syd was actually a wildly original songwriter - you should definitely try such gems as Astronomy Domine, Scream Thy Last Scream, Flaming, Octopus, Jugband Blues.

Syd’s music (especially Piper) is great but you can’t have a “Weird Wednesday” until you do Captain Beefheart’s “Trout Mask Replica”!

Thanks Doug for always making this channel a collaboration with your community. Appreciate your insight, passion, and kindness!

I am loving watching you take the Pink Floyd journey that I (and many here) did years ago - starting with the “later” albums like Dark Side and such and THEN listening to this album and having all Pink Floyd expectations (and mind) totally blown!

I had the pleasure of seeing Nick Mason and his band play both Arnold Layne and Bike at the Royal Albert Hall in London a month ago. Great stuff! Catch them if you can.

Just one year before that, Zappa's Freak Out was released and it is said to have a big influence on various british bands. Maybe the fourth side (with "Return of the Son of Monster Magnet (Unfinished Ballet in Two Tableaux)", " Ritual Dance of the Child-Killer" and "Nullis Pretii (No Commercial Potential)") was some kind of revelation for some of them (And would be perfect for a Weird Wednesday).

It would probably be impossible for me to adequately express how much I love Syd’s music. A true, charismatic original, and I’ll just leave it at that.

love syd period，so excited to watch.

Those first six albums are lightyears from Dark Side and what followed. Some bands take a while to find their sound. That being said, once they found it, the rest is history. And you're right, the history of the band is often just as interesting as the music: influences, direction, genres, etc.

Syd's always meant so much to me. I think the band took a long time to find themselves after his leaving.

Interstellar Overdrive from same album is a psychedelic masterpiece with a great opening riff and "weird" bits in the middle (most of song actually). It would be a great addition to a Weird Wednesday. Doug, next, I recommend you digging into the next album and last one recorded with Syd, "Saucerful of Secrets." It's really two different records, the more psychedelic/prog instrumental writings of the band with Dave Gilmour, and a few songs from Syd. There are two tracks that never made it onto an original LP but I believe are available on the remaster, both written by Syd, "Scream Thy Last Scream" and "Vegetable Man." (maybe about himself?) The difference between 1966-67 Syd and 1968 Syd is that humor is gone and insanity seems to be setting in. Still brilliant but VERY weird.

I've loved Bike for 50 years now. It holds a special place in my heart. Early Floyd, middle Floyd - wonderful. Not too big on post-Wall.

What a coincidence! This afternoon was randomly singing Bike, then wondered what would have happened with the band if Sid had not got involved with the drugs. That led to same thoughts about Peter Green.

Pink Floyd is my favorite band all-time but it kills me that so many don't know how important Rick Wright was to this band. Massively important. The album Wish You Were Here was his moment in the sun.

The reason for the strange audio delay in your phones is probably because the original LP was mastered in mono The Floyd produced some great stuff but for me they never topped this Sid was a genius

This is why Pink Floyd was so diffferent from the other bands, including the progressive, they didn`t have problem of experimenting new sounds, or simply different things in their songs... just amazing...

Thanks Doug! Enjoyed your reaction to classic Floyd. I’d recommend Astronomy Domine, Set the controls for the Heart of the Sun, and Careful with that Axe, Eugene as well from their next couple albums. Also Cymbaline and Fat Old Sun are favs of mine from that era also. Granchester Meadows off Ummagumma is really cool as well.

my wife and i named our oldest son Barrett, after Syd, obviously. totally under-rated songwriter.

Early Floyd is some of my favorite music to this day.

The vocalizations on Pow.R.Toc.H are the seeds for the vocals in Atom Heart Mother. You were very perceptive to reference Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict. Their experimentations with sound effects and tape loops were quite prevalent in the early albums. I was inspired by them to engineer a composition of various dogs barking on tape loops, processed through reverb and ring modulation. The dogs were recorded at the local city pound. The name of the piece was Doggy Dachau.

I love the sense of humor of Bike. At the moment Doug raises his arm is the funniest moment where the pompous "boom! boom!" slows the song to a comedic pace and the wind-down begins (presumably because by this point we're laughing so hard). The song played randomly at my home about a month ago and it made me laugh when it got to that point. Funny, funny stuff. And am I the only one who hears the Stones and the Kinks in this?

For scrutinising three songs from this amazing album (one of my all-time favourites), I would have chosen Flaming, Interstellar Overdrive, and Chapter 24. Syd's imagination was incredible, and wonderfully supported by Rick Wright on keyboards.

For me the history shows the genious of every part of their soul bound creativity that no onemszün

Thanks for continuing to feature Pink Floyd on the channel

It was 1981. I was 13yo and in Catholic boarding school. The only teacher who wasn't an asshole was Herr Gerum, a Hippie. He was my arts teacher. One day, he overheard us talking about Pink Floyd's The Wall and told us that he had some old albums of them. I asked him if could make me a copy on cassette tape and hie did. It was The Piper at the Gates of Dawn and A Saucerful of Secrets. My life was instantly and forever changed.

Bike was the final track on the second side of the album. It was actually a looping outro... the duck quacks would just keep playing until you got up and turned off the record player. Listening to this album for the first time back in 1984ish was a revelation. I'd got into the 70's era stuff first and, much like you, had no idea this stuff existed... a friend loaned me his cassette version and that was it... life time PF fan especially of the Syd Barrett era. Discovered at the perfect time for me.

I've never heard, or seen you before, but when I saw early Pink Floyd I had to check you out. My brother in law was in Vietnam and once when he was coming home on leave he bought Piper in Hong Kong. It became the soundtrack to more than one acid party.

I bought this album when it came out. For me the stand out tracks were, Astronomy Domine and Interstellar Overdrive, they give a hint as to where Floyd were going musically. As many comments have said this trend was developed much further in Saucer Full of Secrets, their next album. I continued to buy their albums to Wish You Were Here released in 1975, after that, their concept albums didn’t do much for me, as I had moved to listening to Fusion jazz. Great reaction, thank you.

I was 14 years old when I listened to this album for the very first time - 40 years ago. It's one of my favorite albums of all time, and it doesn't sound weird anymore...

I've never owned this particular Floyd album, and its not a particular favourite of mine from the period, but I've heard it several times, and in 1967 I remember those duck noises coming out of my older brother's bedroom. They brought a smile to my face then, as they do now. My brother loved this album and played it all the time. I also remember my Father coming out of the bathroom, hearing it and muttering to himself, 'what a bloody noise.' At the height of the counter culture, this was probably a substantial reason for liking this album, it contained few conventional songs, but sounds that nobody had heard before and had an amazing sense of adventure, performed with a great pre-Python sense of humour, and there was definitely an element of, if you were into all of that, then it signalled to other youths that each of you were both young and hip. However, this album is also an influential precurser to prog and to Pink Floyd's later career, and made those Genesis and Yes albums possible. Despite the fact that Doug is a classical composer, his taste here is closer to that of my plain and four square, non musical Father, than English youth of 1967. I've just been on to Wikipedia to see if this album has subsequently garnered the soubriquet "weird" in the last few years, but apparently not. Wikipedia goes to the opposite extreme of over lauding it. Im reminded of the PF manager's remarks about how badly they thought this album had gone down with their American distributors, by assuming they thought: "what's this latest bit of rubbish from England". I think Doug is from this school of thought. Its difficult when a man from a subsequent generation hears music for the first time, without the cultural references and context that contemporaries had, and critically without the previews that he wisely allowed himself on some Genesis reactions, to better understand or interpret what he's listening to, before having to find something constructive to say, but this album is a lot more important than the virtual mockery that Doug signs his reaction off with............ edit: grammar.

I cried. Thank you Doug and thank you Syd ❤

So longtime rabid fan of The Pink Floyd here.. watching and looking forward to this :);

if you want some heavy Pink Floyd for Metal Monday try "Interstellar Overdrive" and "The Nile Song"

The early stuff in the '60s with Syd was perfect for the Psychedelic era. Their sound became more refined and with more cohesiveness when David Gilmore joined

The Arnold Layne film clip was shot at the beach in West Wittering in West Sussex, UK. A beach less than an hour from where I live that I know well.

This was the first album I bought, I was seventeen and in my first year at college. The versions you played are remixed, I think the original vinyl had ,in my opinion, more mystery about what the sounds were and also on a mono record player you didn't get all the stereo panning that is present on the later versions.In those days musicians had more freedom to experiment if they had the talent, there were no tried and tested formulas for music, it was all new. It had an influence on me, two years later I was a professional musician. Thanks for the channel Doug, I love watching your reaction to the music that has been part of my life for over fifty years.

Arnold Layne versión LIVE with David Bowie on vocals is the GREATEST VERSIÓN!! AWESOME!!

You really need to listen to some Hawkwind on the next weird Wednesday, "Assault and Battery (Part 1) "The Golden Void (Part 2)" From Warrior on the edge of Time.

One of my all time favorite albums. Just so great to trip to.....

That first album is an album I've listened to hundreds of times but yet I keep finding new things every single time I hear it. It's so good. "Lucifer Sam" is one of my all-time favorite songs!

Do check out Syd Barrett's 2 solo albums. Flawed but wonderful at the same time. Syd Barrett is definitely the biggest case of "what might have been" in rock music. Syd was a very literate man.

Hooray for Weird Wednesday! (also, yay early Pink Floyd)

I really had a great time with this, Doug! Please do Astronomy Domine and See Emily Play next!

The final part of "Bike" it's their approach to "Musique concrète" (developed by french composer Pierre Schaeffer)