From Robyn on Patreon in 2024
I don’t know how much Syd Barrett was a fan of Captain Beefheart; as a devotee of both I like to think he was. They were two visual artists writing lyrics that you could easily envisage - trails of words that became pictures. And both of them continued to paint long after they had abandoned music.

‘Rats’ is an archetypal later-Barrett rant: a hurtling stream of words intoned over a one-chord chug. I can imagine a gang of children chanting around a cauldron “Rats, rats, lay down flat, yes yes yes yes, lay down flat” like a witches’ prayer. However, playing through the song recently in San Francisco with Kelley Stoltz and Dr Pete Strauss, it began to feel more like something that Beefheart and The Magic Band might have done on the Mirror Man album. It develops its own lopsided funk and then mutates into jam-band-land. At points there’s some Dr Feelgood in there too: it’s all in the Telecaster, probably. Then, if you’re lucky, the guitar starts to play itself: you just have to let your fingers sprint up and down the neck. Or at least I do.

I was thrilled that Kelley was able to capture this post-gig rehearsal at his Electric Duck studio. We threw on some extra voices to make it all sound more intentional. Playing Syd Barrett’s songs I’m morbidly aware that he himself never really played them again once he had recorded them; someone else has to bring them to life now. ‘Rats’ remains an exuberant slice of rage coming from a mind that was becoming incompatible with itself - but at least Syd managed to squeeze this one out before he shut down. With David Gilmour acting as midwife, of course…