The Floyd completed the track at the session of June 27, the remaining dates being reserved mainly for the various edits and mixing. During the course of this session, the group recorded numerous drum, guitar, keyboard, and bass overdubs. Nick would also add a second drum part, as can be heard from 3:39, or just a ride cymbal (at around 1:00). It is also most likely the drummer who plays a percussion instrument (bongos?) with ample reverb at the very end of the track (around 9:33). Syd, meanwhile, alternates some distinctly intergalactic sounds created through the manipulation of his Echorec (5:34) with highly saturated power chords, as can be heard at 3:11. Rick executes solo passages on his Farfisa organ (for example at 1:30 and 6:06), and also seems to play a short passage on the cello at 6:43—unless this is Roger using a bow on his Rickenbacker. More certainly, Waters doubles his bass in the intro and subsequently adds extra parts, including what seems to be a saturated bass at 5:13 with a sound resembling a Moog. Roger’s contribution certainly got noticed, with two of his riffs evidently inspiring other musicians. Deep Purple seems to have drawn inspiration from the passage beginning at 1:02 for the refrain of “Space Truckin’” (Machine Head, 1972), and Argent would copy his bass line at 4:20 in their hit “Hold Your Head Up” (All Together Now, 1972).
“Interstellar Overdrive” was mixed in both mono and stereo. Which is better? In truth, both are interesting. The mono version possesses a power and a cohesion that are absent from the stereo mix. The improvisations seem less fragmentary, better structured, more fluid, and more logical, while the psychedelic aspect of the music also comes across more effectively. In stereo, the track loses something of its punch, except perhaps in the intro (although Rick’s organ has totally disappeared from the mix). Its strong point, on the other hand, lies in its use of panoramic effects, especially at 8:40, where the stereo image shifts from right to left in extraordinary fashion. This was a complete success achieved on July 18 with Norman Smith at the mixing desk. Peter Bown explains: “Ah… that was something we built for the Pink Floyd. We built these special pan pots for the Floyd, which they used to use in the studio.”10
A legendary Barrett-period Floyd track, “Interstellar Overdrive” paved the way for a “different” kind of rock music that was without equivalent at the time. Although clearly bearing the stamp of the group’s brilliant guitarist, it also contains the seeds of the group’s future albums and of the post-Barrett era.
For Pink Floyd Addicts
“My Little Red Book,” which gave Syd Barrett the inspiration for the riff of “Interstellar Overdrive,” is the opening track on Love’s first (eponymous) album. It is actually a song by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, which the group Manfred Mann had recorded in 1965 for the soundtrack of What’s New Pussycat?
Pink Floyd performed “Interstellar Overdrive” on October 25, 1969, at Amougies, a festival in Belgium supported by the French underground magazine Actuel. For this version of more than twenty minutes’ duration, Waters, Gilmour, Wright, and Mason were joined onstage by Frank Zappa. There is a bootleg entitled… Interstellar Zappadrive.
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France was evidently picked out for special treatment, with “Interstellar Overdrive” issued on May 20, 1967, as the B-side of a single whose A-side was made up of “Arnold Layne” and “Candy and a Currant Bun” (wrongly spelled Current). This was a short version lasting five minutes. It seems to have been not rerecorded, but re-edited from the long version. The record was reissued in 1987. The original has become a holy grail for collectors… Another peculiarity of this French single is that a short biography of each musician appeared on the back of the sleeve. Here their heights are given as: Waters 1.83 m; Barrett 1.62 m; Wright and Mason 1.60 m. As the band members will appreciate… something clearly went wrong with the conversion process during publishing!
The Gnome
Syd Barrett / 2:14
Musicians
Syd Barrett: vocals, twelve-string acoustic guitar, backing vocals (?)
Roger Waters: bass
Rick Wright: celeste, backing vocals (?)
Nick Mason: drums, cowbell
Recorded
Abbey Road Studios, London: March 19, 29, July 18, 1967 (Studio Three)
Technical Team
Producer: Norman Smith
Sound Engineers: Peter Bown, Norman Smith
Assistant Sound Engineers: Jeff Jarratt, Graham Kirkby
Genesis
According to Peter Jenner, Syd Barrett wrote “The Gnome” during the summer of 1966, while living in Earlham Street in London’s West End. This was around the same time he composed “Lucifer Sam,” “Matilda Mother,” “Flaming,” and “Scarecrow.” This mainly acoustic track is the first installment of the heroic fantasy triptych on the second side of The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, the other two being “Chapter 24” and “Scarecrow.” Childhood memories that continue to haunt Syd Barrett: memories of Cambridge, of Grantchester Meadows, of nursery rhymes, of reading authors with fertile imaginations… The songwriter draws us into his world, which is the world of fairy tales. In this song he tells of a little man, a gnome named Grimble Grumble, who wore a scarlet tunic and a blue-green hood, and who had a big adventure: the discovery of nature, the sky, and the river, a discovery that caused him to cry Hooray in bliss.
The mark of Tolkien is apparent here. In The Fellowship of the Ring, the first volume of The Lord of the Rings, the hobbits are captured by Old Man Willow. “None were more dangerous than the Great Willow,” writes Tolkien, “his heart was rotten, but his strength was green; and he was cunning, and a master of winds, and his song and thought ran through the woods on both sides of the river.” The hobbits, those inhabitants of the “Middle-earth,” owed their salvation to a strange character who sings nonsense rhymes, wears a blue coat, and sports a long brown beard. Another possible reference is Denys Watkins-Pitchford, who wrote and illustrated The Little Grey Men (1942) under the pen name BB. The influence lingers on here of Henry David Thoreau, who dreamed of “a people who would begin by burning the fences and let the forest stand” (Walking, 1862). In the United States “The Gnome” was released as the B-side of the single “Flaming.”
Production
A day was all it took to record “The Gnome,” although, as David Parker has pointed out, there is some doubt over the exact number of takes required. The sixth was retained as the best, but it has been impossible to locate the other five in the Abbey Road archives! As the musical arrangements are relatively straightforward, the song presumably presented no great difficulties. It opens with a cowbell struck by Nick Mason, accompanied by a guitar alternating between the upper and lower notes of a fifth. This is most likely Roger Waters playing high up on his Rickenbacker bass and plugged directly into the console. After two bars, Syd Barrett comes in simultaneously on lead vocal and twelve-string acoustic guitar (Harmony 1270 or Levin LTS5?). His voice, doubled by means of ADT, is gentle and positive, with a pop-like character, and does not give the slightest hint of his psychological troubles. In his memoirs, Nick Mason has described an album made in a spirit of “… general enthusiasm from everybody,” with Syd “more relaxed and the atmosphere more focused.”5 And this is also the impression conveyed to the listener. It seems to be Rick Wright supporting Syd with harmonies, and once again their two vocal timbres blend perfectly. Roger delivers a very good bass line that is relatively energetic for such a gentle song, but through this he is able to impart a certain pace and dynamism to the track, despite his instrument being recessed in the mix. In the refrains, a second acoustic guitar is added and another instrument contributes a chiming sonority. This is a celeste played by Rick, more specifically a Mustel celeste, a keyboard instrument whose sound resembles that of the glockenspiel, with a gentle, silky resonance that clearly helps to reinforce the nursery rhyme character of this song. In the final verse, Syd is doubled by a second, whispering voice with a long and very present reverb (his own? Rick’s?). The mono mix was completed on March 29 and the stereo on July
18.
“The Gnome” is a good song, although some detractors find it relatively weak. Syd had the ability to express images and impressions in the simplest of ways, without seeking to make an intellectual point. He allowed his instinct and imagination to wander wherever inspiration took them, and this has resulted in a poetic gem of great freshness, qualities that would sometimes be lacking in the group’s later work.
IN YOUR HEADPHONES
In the stereo version of “The Gnome,” Syd can be heard breathing in the right-hand channel during the first four seconds of the track.
For Pink Floyd Addicts
Syd Barrett did not name the song’s protagonist by chance: in Old English, grimble or grumble means to pollute or sully.
Syd Barrett is not the only person to have written a song called “The Gnome”: Modest Mussorgsky beat him to it by a considerable margin with his Pictures at an Exhibition of 1874, as did Emerson, Lake & Palmer by association almost a century later, with their Mussorgsky adaptation Pictures at an Exhibition (1971).
Chapter 24
Syd Barrett / 3:42
Musicians
Syd Barrett: vocals, electric guitar
Roger Waters: bass, backing vocals (?), gong (?)
Rick Wright: harmonium, organ, Pianet (?), backing vocals
Nick Mason: cymbal, tubular bells
Recorded
Abbey Road Studios, London: February 27, March 1, 15, June 5, July 18, 1967 (Studio Three)
Technical Team
Producer: Norman Smith
Sound Engineers: Peter Bown, Malcolm Addey, Norman Smith
Assistant Sound Engineers: Jeff Jarratt, Graham Kirkby
Genesis
The I Ching, translated by the German sinologist Richard Wilhelm as the Book of Changes, lies at the origins of Chinese philosophy. “Nearly all that is greatest and most significant in the three thousand years of Chinese history has either taken its inspiration from this book or has exerted an influence on the interpretation of its text. Therefore it may safely be said that the seasoned wisdom of thousands of years has gone into the making of the I Ching,”22 writes Wilhelm. During the sixties, when a significant proportion of young people were rejecting both Western consumer society and Marxist dialectical materialism, the I Ching was a key countercultural text. Syd Barrett himself extracted the essentials from it when writing his “Chapter 24,” telling Barry Miles that “[…] most of the words came straight off that.”3 The latter has a clear recollection of the day Syd came into the Indica Bookshop, where Miles worked, to buy a copy of the Wilhelm edition, although he adds that he thinks “it was a present for the girl he had with him.”3
Was the Pink Floyd singer-guitarist trying to imitate John Lennon, who had been inspired to write “Tomorrow Never Knows” by Timothy Leary’s adaptation of the Tibetan Book of the Dead? This is what Barry Miles believes, and it seems quite plausible. Thus the title of Barrett’s song refers to chapter twenty-four of the I Ching, entitled “The Return” (or “The Turning Point”). The Richard Wilhelm translation reads: “All movements are accomplished in six stages, and the seventh brings return. Thus the winter solstice, with which the decline of the year begins, comes in the seventh month after the summer solstice; so too the sunrise comes in the seventh double hour after sunset. Therefore seven is the number of the young light, and it arises when six, the number of the great darkness, is increased by one. In this way, the state of rest gives place to movement.”22 The first verse of “Chapter 24” follows this closely: All movement is accomplished in six stages/And the seventh brings return/The Seven is the number of the young light [meaning renewal]/It forms when darkness is increased by one.
Production
On Monday, February 27, Pink Floyd occupied Studio Three at Abbey Road between 7 p.m. and 2:15 a.m., where they recorded two new songs: “Chapter 24” and “Interstellar Overdrive.” The early part of the evening was given over to “Chapter 24.” It was with the fifth take that they thought they had the song’s rhythm track in the can. On March 1, Norman Smith replaced Peter Bown for a preliminary mix. On March 15, the group returned to the studio to add percussion, keyboard, and bell overdubs. However, it seems they were unhappy with the results, and so they decided to redo everything during the second part of the evening (from 6:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m.). And it was on the basis of this sixth take that they would record the definitive version.
Nick Mason opens the song on the cymbal. (Some claim it is the famous gong struck by Roger Waters, but this seems highly unlikely.) Indeed Mason’s role is pretty well confined to this percussion instrument—unless, as seems likely, it is also the drummer who plays the tubular bells that can be heard in the refrains. Rick Wright abandons his Farfisa organ for a while to accompany the whole proceedings on the harmonium. He plays a kind of drone over which he adds an oriental-sounding counterpoint, giving “Chapter 24” an Indian feel. Peter Bown recalls recording the instrument: “Harmonium was very much an ‘in’ thing… an ‘in’ musical instrument in those days. It was always dubbed on because it didn’t make much sound. It was also a damned difficult thing to mike!”10 However, in the second half, Rick returns to the Farfisa—no doubt connected to a Leslie speaker (listen between 1:50 and 2:08)—on which he plays a swirling organ part. He also plays arpeggios, mainly in the verses, on an electric piano (Hohner Pianet?). It seems that no guitar is present other than in the instrumental bridge (at 1:52 precisely), where Syd Barrett plays a chord on his Fender, connected to the Binson Echorec, which, after a short delay, produces a loop. (Listen between 2:02 and 2:08.) Another key element on “Chapter 24” is Roger’s bass. He uses the instrument sparingly, allowing the track to breathe (employing the excellent trick of playing on every other line), making his interventions all the more effective when they come. Finally, the singing is of high quality as always, with Syd playing on the words and accents, and when Rick—and presumably Roger too—joins him in the harmonies, the results are superb.
What can we say about this song? It is obvious that the Fab Four were a major influence on both the words and the music. George Harrison was one of the first to have made Eastern philosophy popular among, and accessible to, Western youth, and he would drive the point home with “Within You Without You”—also recorded on March 15 (in Studio Two, next door to the Floyd’s Studio Three)—Did the Floyd hear this and decide to record “Chapter 24” in its entirety the same day? It doesn’t really matter. This new gem with words and music by Syd Barrett blends the East with British pop, and is a triumph.
Chapter 24 was also the name of an excellent British fanzine devoted to Syd Barrett.
For Pink Floyd Addicts
ndica was one of the two main countercultural bookstores in London (the other being Better Books) and the equivalent of the City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco. Located in Mason’s Yard, it had been opened by John Dunbar, Peter Asher, and Barry Miles, who were able to count on valuable support from Paul McCartney (whose girlfriend at that time was Jane Asher, Peter’s sister). The Indica Gallery, where John Lennon met Yoko Ono, was subsequently opened in the bookstore’s basement.
Scarecrow
Syd Barrett / 2:11
Musicians
Syd Barrett: vocals, electric rhythm guitar, six- and twelve-string acoustic guitars, percussion (?)
Roger Waters: bass, percussion (?)
Rick Wright: organ, backing vocals, percussion (?)
Nick Mason: percussion
Recorded
Abbey Road Studios, London: March 20, 22, 29, July 18, 1967 (Studio Three)
Technical Team
Producer: Norman Smith
Sound Engineers: Peter Bown, Norman Smith
Assistant Sound Engineers: Jeff Jarratt, Graham Kirkby
Genesis
“Scarecrow” is another absolutely superb example of Syd Barrett’s imagination at play, of his bucolic inspiration that was a legacy of his Cambridge childhood. In this song he presents not a gnome out of the pages of Tolkien, nor a ra
t from Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows, but a black and green scarecrow with a bird on his hat and straw everywhere. The songwriter draws a disturbing analogy: The black and green scarecrow is sadder than me/But now he’s resigned to his fate/’Cause life’s not unkind/He doesn’t mind sings Barrett in the last verse. What are we to make of this? That the scarecrow is really none other than the songwriter? Or at least that he feels as detached from the world around him as the songwriter does? The scarecrow can perhaps be seen as the barely distorted reflection of what Barrett feels, with or without the help of psychedelic drugs. David Gale, a childhood friend of Barrett’s, with whom the songwriter had shared various experiences, suggests that “Scarecrow” is a “a jolly cannabis song,”17 while the “longer pieces, where he and Waters and Wright started hacking vast oceanic sound, were LSD-inspired.”17 What is certain is that Barrett the poet can be appreciated in this song, with rhymes that embellish the melody, such as: everywhere/He didn’t care; around/On the ground…
Pink Floyd All the Songs Page 9
