From Robyn on Patreon in 2023
This was Syd Barrett’s zenith and possibly the start of his downfall: he actually wrote a Top Twenty hit. He and the rest of Pink Floyd were pop stars - rock gods hadn’t quite been invented in mid-1967. I missed their Top of The Pops appearances, with Barrett apparently turning up wearing increasingly ragged clothes week by week. He didn’t seem to respect himself as a pop star - yet as his mental breakdown continued he looked ever more glorious, with crushed velvet trousers and eyeliner, well ahead of the glam curve.
All I knew at the time was that on the rare occasions I heard this song, I loved it. It’s sad, exhilarating, enchanted - made you want to spin around and around until you were dizzy and fell over, in a spooky forest somewhere. The essence of 1967, then as now.
The original was a new peak in production - with what used to be called ‘sound effects’ blossoming through every available gap in the music: young, psychedelicised minds carefully recorded by straight and sober EMI engineers. So I just want to see how this and other beauties from that sacred era sound on two acoustics with not much else going on. More to follow on my “1967” album - you’re hearing it here first…