Syd Barrett: The Radio One Sessions

SYD BARRETT: THE RADIO ONE SESSIONS (1970-71 / 2004)

1) Terrapin; 2) Gigolo Aunt; 3) Baby Lemonade; 4) Effervescing Elephant; 5) Two Of A Kind; 6) Baby Lemonade; 7) Dominoes; 8) Love Song.

General verdict: The real symbol and star of this «live album» is its brevity — one song for each year of the artistʼs musical career.

This album was actually first released way back in 1987 on John Peelʼs Strange Fruit label, as part of a large series of radio recordings salvaged from Peelʼs archives — under the title The Peel Session, since, true enough, it contained all the five songs that Syd performed in person on the Top Gear show on February 24, 1970, amounting to a whoppinʼ 13 minutes worth of music. In 2004, the album was re-released as The Radio One Sessions after somebody scooped up three more performances from Bob Harrisʼ Sounds Of The Seventies, broadcast on February 16, 1971; terrible audience bootleg-level sound quality, but hey, when youʼre pining for live solo Syd Barrett, you just donʼt get to be picky, and at least you have the legitimate right to call the expanded, almost 20-minute long (!) album The Radio Sessions, with a plural -s, instead of The Radio Session, which is just so humiliating and depressing.

You cannot and should not expect any particular greatness or huge surprises from these sessions, for which (the first one at least) Syd found himself propped and backed by Gilmour on bass and keyboards, and Jerry Shirley on percussion. All the songs are significantly truncated, usually about one third to one half shorter than the studio versions, as if Syd had trouble performing them in full; he probably had, but he is in pretty decent form anyway — the singing and acoustic rhythm playing are in perfect order throughout, and if you didnʼt know the details, youʼd very likely just assume this was supposed to be a nice and relaxed «unplugged» interpretation of the more heavily and densely arranged studio originals.

The only new song is ʽTwo Of A Kindʼ, a very cute and «normal» bouncy Brit-pop number that might as well be mistaken for a Small Faces song — ironically, its authorship remains disputed between Barrett and Rick Wright, and since both are dead now, we shall never know the truth anyway, so I will just assume it was really written by Steve Marriott and Ronnie Lane instead. Had the song been included on The Madcap Laughs, as Syd allegedly intended, it would have been the most instantly accessible song there... perhaps this is why it was not, after all. But it is always a pleasure to hear Syd sing sweet innocent Brit-pop in that gorgeous voice of his.

As for the three songs from 1971, it is hard to evaluate the quality of the performance just because the sound is so abysmal — hard to tell if the guitar is really so much out of key or if it is merely the effect of chewn tape. Its real historical value is that this is the last ever performance by Syd Barrett, the solo artist (he did have a couple quickly botched attempts to start up a new band in the next couple of years), so you can take the awful quality symbolically, as a metaphor for artistic evaporation, and leave it at that.

On the whole, as far as desperately salvaged scraps are concerned, Iʼm sure we have all heard much worse than this — and, after all, Syd Barrett is perfectly legit as somebody who deserves a cult following, and any cult following deserves to have desperately salvaged scraps, so I am definitely more glad that this little piece is on the market than, say, the umpteenth edition of Dylanʼs Bootleg Series or another from-the-vault Prince or Frank Zappa release. And any excuse to take a second to look back upon the short-lived genius of this man, another member of the «27 club» in all but number, is welcome, as long as it actually involves listening to his music rather than digging into the dark druggy details of the last years of his musical career. 

Syd Barrett: Opel

SYD BARRETT: OPEL (1988)

1) Opel; 2) Clowns & Jugglers; 3) Rats; 4) Golden Hair (vocal version); 5) Dolly Rocker; 6) Word Song; 7) Wined And Dined; 8) Swan Lee (Silas Lang); 9) Birdie Hop; 10) Let's Split; 11) Lanky (part I); 12) Wouldn't You Miss Me (Dark Globe); 13) Milky Way; 14) Golden Hair (instrumental).

General verdict: A generally unsatisfactory collection of outtakes — unless you have a very special feeling for Syd at his most stripped-down.

I am not sure why it took Harvest eighteen years to release this collection of outtakes from Syd's solo recording sessions — even less sure why they finally agreed to do so in 1988, which was a bit earlier than the «archival craze» that hit the labels in the advanced CD age — but the fact remains that Opel is a problematic, but legitimate final chapter to Syd's career. Altogether, there are eight songs here that had never been officially released before; six alternate raw takes on the previously published originals from The Madcap Laughs and Barrett; and, if you get the 1993 reissue, six more alternate raw takes to satisfy your hunger for bloody Barrett meat.

The actual value of this LP, however, will sorely depend on how much you love Syd Barrett as the blisteringly badly tortured demented soul that he was around 1968–70. Some people love that kind of Syd Barrett more than their own, so disgustingly sane and rational, fathers and mothers; such people are fully in their right to claim that the rawer it is, the better, and therefore these embryonic, even-sloppier-than-usual takes on ʽDark Globeʼ and ʽOctopusʼ (here given in its original title, ʽClowns & Jugglersʼ) are actually preferable to the «overproduced» versions, where Syd's pure, pristine vision was contaminated by the likes of Gilmour, The Soft Machine, Malcolm Jones, Peter Jenner, and whoever else. Or that ʽOpelʼ, whose six minute-long acoustic strum is technically reminiscent of the first bars of Dylan's ʽIt's A Hard Rain A-Gonna Fallʼ, is actually the quintessential confessional Syd Barrett song, a prolonged, intense, straight-in-your-face call for love, help, and sympathy.

From that kind of perspective, it is Opel, not the older records, that constitutes the perfect ideal for the indie singer-songwriter — I would go as far as to say that I hear the echoes of Opel the album (and ʽOpelʼ the song) in every hipster icon from Jeff Mangum (passable) to Conor Oberst (abysmal). Truly and verily, these outtakes are Syd Barrett at his rawest, and I could never bring myself to calling them unlistenable — after all, he isn't that sloppy on his acoustic guitar, and even in that totally wasted state he could generally hold a note once he'd started it, so that all the drawn-out "I'm liiiiiiiving, I'm giiiiiiiving..." wails on ʽOpelʼ reach the mark.

However, that one reason why The Madcap Laughs still holds up after all these years is that, no matter how crazy and wasted the artist was, at that point he was still a songwriter. It is all too easy to forget that Syd Barrett not only had a soul and a vision — he also had talent, and he could think of touching, intriguing, and diverse melodic twists on a regular basis... except when he was too stoned, too sick, too catatonic to concentrate on more than one or two finger movements. And as far as «rawness» is concerned, Syd was never the «loner genius with an acoustic guitar» — he loved loudness, distortion, psychedelic effects, and a general fullness to the sound, meaning that «Syd and his guitar» were very much just a technical inevitability at the stage where Syd himself was no longer capable of adding extra layers to his sound.

Consequently, when it comes to the salvaged outtakes laid out on Opel, I cannot share the opi­nion that they represent «true Syd» and could in any way be considered superior to what we already had available before that. I find ʽOpelʼ (the song) to be an ambitious, but failed, epic, whose six-minute length is not in the least justified by its allegedly mesmerizing capacity. I think that ʽDolly Rockerʼ is a bare skeleton of something that could be a lively and exciting pop rocker in an alternate dimension, but, as it is, is not even saved by such lyrical lines as "she's as pretty as a squirrel's nut". I insist that ʽWord Songʼ is three minutes of gibberish that would be of more interest to a psychiatrist than an average listener.

In fact, I believe that the only track here that even begins to approach an «accomplished» status is the grim blues-rocker ʽSwan Lee (Silas Lang)ʼ — perhaps because, unlike the others, it features a few extra overdubs, including a sly little slide guitar flourish that makes all the difference; or perhaps because there is a little bit of impassioned role-playing going on, as Syd weaves a mock-Indian epic that almost seems to predict the future solo career of Nick Cave (I think the song would have fit in perfectly on any of Nick's early albums). Actually, I stand corrected: another song with multiple players is the instrumental jam ʽLanky (Part 1)ʼ — five and a half minutes of quiet psycho-blues noodling that has no reason to exist in between the legacy of, say, Cream, and, say, Grateful Dead. If this was some sort of attempt to awaken Syd's classic demons — the ones that used to turn the UFO club into a daughter branch of Purgatory — it can only be classified as an unfortunate failure. More likely, it was just a warm-up. At any case, it is at least better than the unreleased ʽLanky (Part 2)ʼ, which is allegedly said to consist of two drum tracks running over seven minutes. (Not that it wouldn't fit on this album, mind you).

In the end, it is probably best to think of Opel as simply an archival add-on for completists, rather than a record that could stand on its own — an accidental collection of outtakes, regardless of how much it might remind us of certain brands of indie songwriting that do this kind of crap intentionally. But, like any such archival add-ons, it is good to have access to it if you are at all interested in the strange and inscrutable ways in which one sick person's affected mind might work. Like everything that Syd has ever done, it is capable of eliciting a mixed admiration-cum-pity reaction from the listener — except this time around, there is clearly much more pity than admiration.

Syd Barrett: Barrett

SYD BARRETT: BARRETT (1970)

1) Baby Lemonade; 2) Love Song; 3) Dominoes; 4) It Is Obvious; 5) Rats; 6) Maisie; 7) Gigolo Aunt; 8) Waving My Arms In The Air; 9) I Never Lied To You; 10) Wined And Dined; 11) Wolfpack; 12) Effervescing Elephant.

General verdict: A last-minute nursing assistant attempt to squeeze genius from madness.

Surprisingly, Syd's second and last studio album, sanctioned by EMI in light of the positive response to Madcap, actually sounds a little more like a regular pop/rock record than the con­fused mess that Madcap represented. Doubtless, this has to do with the slightly more cohesive nature of the recording sessions: spread over five months rather than an entire year, and with a permanent backing band, which included Gilmour, Wright, and Jerry Shirley on drums, plus a couple guests here and there. This does not mean that Syd himself was in much better shape: according to David's and Rick's memories, the sessions largely consisted of them following Syd around and trying to bottle up occasional flashes of genius emerging from the general decay — with mixed results, to say the least.

They did eventually come up with the idea of laying down their own basic tracks and letting Syd play or sing against them, which explains why so many songs this time around have steady rhyth­mic grooves that you can tap your foot to — one reason, perhaps, why some people prefer Bar­rett to its predecessor. The problem with this, of course, is that you can never tell if the final result was something that Syd really wanted himself; but, clearly, it was either that or nothing, and overall, I remain amazed at the kind of sacrifice these guys were making for their poor old friend — more artistically satisfying, perhaps, than changing the diapers on an immobilized patient, but also far more depressing.

That said, it is interesting that the three tracks laid down during the first session, February 26, are almost normal — even Gilmour reportedly noticed that and became afraid that they were losing the «Barrett-ness»... so he immediately rushed out and got Syd a pack of Mandrax, just to make sure. (Well, I did make up that last part, so don't get any ideas). ʽBaby Lemonadeʼ and ʽGigolo Auntʼ could have both made excellent singles, with their upbeat attitudes, catchy choruses, and clearly, if briefly, returning Mother-Goose-on-speed spirit. Granted, ʽGigolo Auntʼ runs out of lyrical ideas midway through and becomes an extended blues jam, with Syd in surprising control of his electric lead (Gilmour restricts himself to bass), not quite able to come out with a smoothly flowing solo, but at least consistently staying in key and sometimes churning out «biting» licks that clearly show the spirit was still there. The first half, however, is a nifty little Brit-pop nugget, once again touching upon the complicated and rather psychotic relations between Syd and the female sex: that line about "I almost want you back" is subtly cutting, as it encapsulates the man's tormenting indecisiveness about everything.

On the opposite side of the fence from ʽBaby Lemonadeʼ and ʽGigolo Auntʼ is ʽMaisieʼ, a dark, gloomy blues tune that is essentially Syd's personal tribute to Howlin' Wolf — he even adopts the deepest, bassiest tone that he is capable of for the performance. The groove is never allowed to develop into anything larger than just a groove, but it is interesting to see Syd actually doing impersonations: judging by the style of Madcap, you'd think that theatrical artistry would be the very last thing on his mind at the time. Yet he was strong enough to put on a couple faces for these sessions, and pretty cool faces at that — I'm sure Captain Beefheart, of all people, would have appreciated the grumpy grumble of "Maisie... Maisie... bad luck... bride of a bull...".

As time went by, though, control and focus were inevitably lost, and already tracks like ʽLove Songʼ and ʽIt Is Obviousʼ sound like unfinished ramblings, hastily molded into some sort of shape by the rhythm session of Gilmour and Shirley but, perhaps, more treasurable to us in their rawest form — a hypothesis that you can verify for yourself, since the CD edition of Barrett comes loaded with bonuses, including early acoustic takes on both of these songs and more. Both of them are really just okay in any form, but the man did hit the nail on the head with ʽDominoesʼ: the single saddest moment of this entire record is hearing Rick's quiet, mournful organ swirl by as Syd utters the line "you and I... you and I and dominoes..." Somehow that one line just perfectly captures the idea of total isolation and seclusion, more so than ʽDark Globeʼ or ʽLate Nightʼ, just by way of its tranquil melancholy and obedient submission to one's doom.

One might take offense at Gilmour and Wright's decision to end the album with ʽEffervescing Elephantʼ, a brief nod to circus / music hall music with lyrics that would make Dr. Seuss blush; however, they did so more or less in their own tradition (ʽBikeʼ, remember?) — one final bit of deflation always works wonders for serious statements, and, who knows, perhaps they saw the song as a good luck charm of sorts: with Syd actually writing at least a few songs on general absurdist themes rather than about his own sorry condition, one could entertain a very weak hope that one day he'd be strong enough to snap out of it...

Alas, that day never came. Who knows what might have become of Syd Barrett, had he actually made it and regained a bit of psychic health? Could he have gone on to become a wise and humble and ironic singer-songwriter, something like a UK equivalent of Randy Newman? Would he have embraced New Wave and hired Robert Fripp to play on his sessions? Or are these idle and meaningless questions, since the man was destined not to outlive the Sixties, having died in spirit, if not in body, around the same 27-year mark as Janis, Jimi, and Jim? Whatever be the case, The Madcap Laughs and Barrett together constitute a short, strange, and — when you carefully consider the context — rather terrifying artistic legacy that, hopefully, will not be forgotten as long as people still cut off their own ears and run around naked in the rain and snow.

Syd Barrett: The Madcap Laughs

SYD BARRETT: THE MADCAP LAUGHS (1970)

1) Terrapin; 2) No Good Trying; 3) Love You; 4) No Man's Land; 5) Dark Globe; 6) Here I Go; 7) Octopus; 8) Golden Hair; 9) Long Gone; 10) She Took A Long Cold Look; 11) Feel; 12) If It's In You; 13) Late Night.

General verdict: The big winner of the Musical Paralympic Contest of 1970, and its record is still waiting to be beat.

Considering the state of Syd Barrett in late '67, it is nothing short of an absolute miracle that he eventually managed to recover enough to get back to a recording studio — with a lot of help from his friends, of course, but still sufficiently conscious to work on new material. That Peter Jenner and Andrew King, Floyd's original managers, chose to cast their lot with Syd is understandable: he'd been the primary songwriter and visionary, and I doubt that listening to Roger Waters' early compositions such as ʽTake Up Thy Stethoscope And Walkʼ could have inspired a lot of con­fidence in his future songwriting career anyway. But that they actually managed to get Syd on his feet and squeeze out those last drops of artistic brilliance from him... well, I am in no position to judge if this conduct was sadistic or salvational, but I am amazed that this record even exists.

Granted, it is still a mess, but would we expect anything else from a man whose only live solo public performance consisted of four songs with a non-working microphone, after which he just stood up and left? With different producers and different scraps of working bands coming and going in the studio, with various sessions stretched over more than a whole year, with songs where you can almost feel how damn painful it must have been to work them up to the level of an actual song, The Madcap Laughs is more like The Madcap Does The Strain, and, frankly speaking, Syd's pose on the album cover also suggests the latter. Yet it is in many ways a fasci­nating strain, and I dare say that, while initial impressions of the record might not amount to much, it is one of those records that has a good chance of growing upon you as you go through life, and especially if, at any period in your life, you find yourself in an existential crisis. (Okay, breakups may count as existential crisis, too, but only if your other looks like Roger Waters).

To begin with, The Madcap Laughs is actually two mini-albums wrapped in a single package. Five of the tracks were laid down in April 1969 and produced by Malcolm Jones, with members of The Soft Machine helping Syd to achieve a fuller sound. Most of the others were recorded in the summer of the same year, with Gilmour and Waters now taking matters in their own hands and assisting Syd in producing and playing — said «assistance» much too often implying a rather spontaneous and free-form approach to things, meaning that the sound is comparably quite lo-fi, and the songs are much closer to ramblings than to songs. At the time, some people (including Jones) abhorred this treatment and even hinted that Syd's former bandmates were intentionally sabotaging his solo career; today, I guess we look back fondly at this kind of sound, because... well, where would Neutral Milk Hotel and other indie troubadours be without this acid pool of sloppy, incoherent inspiration?

In any case, much of what is here is acutely and strangely beautiful. Nothing sounds much like the material from Piper, because at the time of Piper Syd was still focused, and his songwriting still largely consisted of creative vignettes in which he painted either the terrifying vastness of space or the little comical figures from children's books. Here, almost everything comes from deep within — introspective, depressing, disturbing streaks of self-consciousness, as if the man set about to probe himself to death. It is pure coincidence that the album was eventually released in 1970, the year when confessional singer-songwriterism really took off, but in a way, it is the most devastating of all these records, being just as brutally honest and coming from the perspec­tive of a man who had pretty much buried himself alive — or, as he eloquently and understan­dingly puts it himself, "tattooed my brain all the way". (Its only contemporary competition comes from that other infamous lunatic across the ocean, Skip Spence, but that's what the difference between American and British perspectives is for).

Technically, most of the songs should be qualified as love ballads, which is somewhat curious in itself because there were no love songs whatsoever on Piper. Barrett did break up with one of his many girlfriends in 1968 and was allegedly going through rough times with another one in 1969, but something tells me that things would not be that much different had he been living alone all that time — the «you» that he sees the need to constantly address is merely a pretext to escape the maddening feel of loneliness.

The "I really love you, and I mean you" that opens the album is hardly directed at anyone in particular; in fact, it is quickly followed with a "I wouldn't see you, and I'd love to", implying that the second part is imaginary. Moreover, the entire atmosphere of ʽTerrapinʼ clearly paints the image of a long gone lunatic, sitting out there with non-blinking eyes, scraping together a few shards that are left from a formerly rich pool of emotions — the lyrics are half-sung, half-spoken in a way that could be equally well decoded as «loving and tender» or as «completely drained and devoid of any detectable emotion», depending on how actual feelings mix with traces of Syd's old-school haughty Britishness. The most amazing thing about it, though, is that the three lines of the verse form a perfectly shaped pop melody, every bit as well-written as anything on Piper. It is only when we get to the bridge that the man begins to ramble — "floating, bumping, noses dodge a tooth..." — and unlike the verse, the bridge never gets a proper resolution, just sort of leaving you hung up in mid-air. But then it is back to the verses again, and ultimately the track proudly shuffles along to a satisfactory conclusion. It is perfectly symbolic of Syd's overall state at the time, lapsing into a comatose condition only to re-emerge refreshed and ready for action, only to drop quasi-dead without notice at any unpredictable moment.

Not all the album is completely dominated by Syd's acoustic guitar: ʽNo Good Tryingʼ and ʽNo Man's Landʼ are fuzzy, distorted pieces of psychedelic blueswailing, particularly the former, where Soft Machine members are helping the man out to create the impression of hot, melted brains gradually evaporating into the atmosphere (special prize goes to Mike Ratledge's velvety organ tone). ʽNo Man's Landʼ, in comparison, is an idea in search of a proper song body, a search that is abandoned midway through but still leaves a weird aftertaste, like, here is a man who wanted to make a sinister statement, but ended up lost and confused, so was that even a threat, and should we be afraid or what? In any case, electric instrumentation does not hinder the flow of the album; it just adds to its overall messiness, and makes it easier to sit through, because if you are going to make something as sloppy as this, at least do your best to alternate acoustic sloppi­ness with electric one.

Arguably the most Piper-ish tune of the lot is ʽOctopusʼ — it has a name that would very much fit in with Piper's Siamese cats and scarecrows, it has psychedelic rather than befuddled love lyrics, and a cheery psycho-folk melody where, for once, Barrett manages to sing in an uplifted, though still stark raving mad, manner. (Unsurprisingly, it was one of the earliest songs written for the album, originally titled ʽClowns And Jugglersʼ; also unsurprisingly, it was chosen as the album's only single, though it never had any chances of charting). It is so cheery, in fact, that it stands at odds with most of the other material, usually melancholic or gloomy; the stimulating chorus of "please leave us here, close our eyes to the octopus ride!" is oddly reminiscent of "I'd like to be under the sea, in an octopus' garden" (why is it that octopi were so commonly associa­ted with magic and escapism back in the late Sixties?), but it is also as close as Syd personally got to his own ʽMagical Mystery Tourʼ, with the main difference being that he was not nearly as sympathetic to the idea of taking others with him.

As for the Waters/Gilmour-produced tracks (ʽOctopusʼ is one of them, by the way), I do not feel so bad about them. They are raw, and Syd often sounds on these tracks as if he were in one room and the microphone were in the other one, but I do not think this was an intentional (let alone evil) oversight on the part of the Floydsters — rather, on the other hand, it was an attempt to preserve Syd's legacy just the way it was created, to convey the atmosphere of self-loss and confusion; in short, a case of genuine application of lo-fi values where they actually mattered, as compared to future generations of self-important indie clowns who wouldn't know real suffering if it bit them in the ass. ʽDark Globeʼ (which may have served as a blueprint for a good half of Jeff Mangum's entire career) alone is utterly devastating, a cry for help and forgiveness ("won't you miss me? wouldn't you miss me at all?") that, unfortunately, could not be heard, or even if it could be heard, it was already too late. On the other hand, ʽGolden Hairʼ (based on a Joyce poem) and ʽLong Goneʼ are slow, murky, somber, almost creepy ballads (ʽLong Goneʼ, with its deep bass and Syd's gravelley singing, sounds like an early prototype of a Nick Cave murder ballad). And while I used to hate the flubby, tuneless, rambling attempts to sing on ʽIf It's In Youʼ — and in a way I still do, because my ears are too sensitive to positively react to Syd going for inebriated melisma on the "yes I'm thinking" bit — the song has a certain desperate, defiant charm to it (again, very much presaging Jeff Mangum's «drunken minstrel» acoustic challenges on Aeroplane).

That Syd was not completely spent as a musician, either, is especially evident on the last track: the basis of ʽLate Nightʼ was laid down in 1968, but in April '69 he was still capable of embel­lishing the song with several overdubbings of his slide guitar playing, creating a gorgeous «weeping wall» behind the main melody that works as a near-perfect conclusion for the album. But this, too, is just one of those momentary flashes of brilliance that come and go, because on the whole the album does not even begin to approach the imaginative depths of Syd's playing when he was still in secure control of his own mind.

Overall, as I am relistening to the thing now, almost half a century since its release and about twenty years since I first heard it myself, I am amazed at how tremendously modern it is — and how it puts to shame so many acclaimed indie singer-songwriters of the last two-three decades. Well, perhaps «puts to shame» is a bit strong: Barrett has the combined advantage of being a talented songwriter, a psychologically and physiologically broken down human being, and a trailblazer in an age when the world was still undecided about how to react to such manners of self-expression. In 2017, an album of such quality would probably be greeted with thunderous acclaim by the musical community (just look at the adulatory reception received by something like Mount Eerie's A Crow Looked At Me, whose creator is lucky to have a tenth part of Syd Barrett's talent); in 1970, some critics gave it nice, but confused reviews and that was that. But it might just turn out that the madcap has got the last laugh, after all.