Just been listening to some early (very early!) Pink Floyd music from 1967 and it honestly sent shivers down my spine. The two most obviously ‘popular’ are Arnold Layne and See Emily Play which are just amazingly ‘complete’ as songs, not least because they came from the mind of that poor twisted soul, the late Syd Barrett.
Ok their voices aren’t particularly great, and their arrangements weren’t fully developed, yet there was something special about the lyrics that you can still feel today. Well *I* can anyway, it was after all ‘my era. 🙂
There’s a peculiarly perhaps aptly, strange version of See Emily Play on YouTube if you’d like a listen. It isn’t as good as the single (mainly because of the sound reproduction) but you’ll get the idea. There’s also an ‘interesting’ video of sorts of Arnold Layne for you to puzzle over. Last I’d suggest having a look at my all time favourite ‘early Floyd’ track which was one of Syd’s last creations… it’s “Bike” and is in my opinion quite exceptional. 😀
Clearly these kids were on something special back then, but whatever it was it affected Syd so badly his mental deterioration caused him to withdraw from the group, and from life in general. Still, long before Dark Side of the Moon was even considered, he’d made his mark.
For a few minutes entertainment you could do worse than type ‘Pink Floyd’ into the search bar of You Tube and see what turns up.
The Eclectic Interweb 
These early Floyd songs are wonderful – so Psychedelic. I love the Bowie version as well.
Watched a ‘thing’ on BBC2 the other week about the band and Syd’s legacy – nothing I didn;t already know and I still feel RW’s lack of remorse about what he did to Syd continues to be poorly represented – at the end of the day it was him who ‘engineered’ Syd’s demise and without any care to a guy who was obviously in serious trouble was left to just fade away.! You could see they all felt incredibly guilty ‘still’. And so they should.!!! Terrible what they did to him -the system completley failed him as well. Recent shots taken of him shopping showed him uncrecognisable, when they showed the photo of him to NM, he didn’t even recognise him!!
However, RW’s influence on the ‘Wish you were here’ album (possibly the greatest album of all time..!!!) one wonders if Syd had stayed would they have ever created such masterpieces..?
Food for thought I suppose.
The entire episode with Syd from start to finish was strange to say the least. I appreciate what you say about Roger… but I’d thought it was Dave who’d been insistent that Syd left because they were totally unable to perform or even record while he was on that downward spiral? I’ll have to look that up.
Even so… they were all relatively young and hadn’t much life experience back then. Syd at least is out of his misery now having died a couple of years ago.
Oh yes… imo, Dark Side of the Moon is the best of their albums! 😀
Apparently it went like this….
On their way to a show….turning into Syd’s street in Holland Park, someone says “Er, do we really want to pick him up then?” Roger Waters is the one who answers, “Naaah!” So they didn’t….
Simple as that..!!!
Without doubt Dave was embarrased to even play with Syd after Syd’s ‘drugs incident’ especially as it he was playing Syd’s guitar however Dave had no say at that point in the band. It was only really after Roger sacked Richard Wright that Dave G became more prominent as he led the court case (with NM) to stop Roger using the Pink Floyd name.
Lest we forget, it was Roger who apparently had Syd banned from the Apple studios (after his well recorded appearance one day) and apparently threatended to take him to court for ‘unpaid royalties’ and apparently in later years refused to refer to Syd as the Band initiator (the mans ego had reached the stage that as far as he was concerned the band only really existed once he started running things.!!).
As you can guess I am no fan of RW – completely respect his music however I really can’t stand the man. Nor do I have much time for the others who now look and feel guilty when under the focus of the camers but did not have the gumption to stand up to Roger and help Syd when he most needed it.!
I felt Dark Side of the Moon was just too self indulgent, without a doubt a great album but not as ‘raw’ as Wish you were here’ probably due to the album being borne in guilt over Syd making it just that little bit more real.!
Great Band, Great Music – sad history…!