Pink Floyd's "A Saucerful of Secrets": Who Could Be Writing This Song?

Review and discussion on Pink Floyd’s A Saucerful of Secrets (1968).




Relevant links:

The Claypool/Lennon Delirium post that prompted this post: An older post on Syd Barrett

The Lennon/Claypool Delirium and Homelessness

Almost immediately after I got back from the cruise, I began to transition into my new position in the North Texas area. Within a week, I was commuting from Austin to Denton, effectively homeless and relying on the hospitality of friends for a place to sleep. I spent a lot of time driving up and down I-35, and it would seem like a prime time to crank through a whole bunch of music, but my in-car CD rotation has remained basically static since the June roundup. This is partially because the CD collection is  still in boxes, but admittedly, I also have had a hard time letting go of this run of music. In retrospect, this collection of albums seems like a thread of continuity though that period.

And it feels as if I am still clinging to them, as they also represent the last vestiges of my Austin life: Weezer [white], A Moon Shaped Pool, The Force Awakens OST, Plastic House at Base of Sky, Some Boots, The Invention of Knowledge, Bottomless Pit, Get to Heaven, and The Monolith of Phobos. These albums all contain frozen moments from those long commutes. Rather then do an extended roundup of albums that I have mostly already addressed, however, the curious case of The Lennon/Claypool Delerium’s The Monolith of Phobos deserves specific mention (also because some readers asked for it).

Although I am a fan of both Les Claypool and Sean Lennon, I would never have predicted them collaborating. Over the past few years, Lennon waded through introspective pop waters into 60’s tinged psychedelia while Claypool, when not fronting Primus, seemed fully committed to the jam-band paradigm. Still, the two have found some common ground and despite the seeming oddness of their pairing, it works.



Any project that includes Les Claypool has to deal with the fact that no matter what happens, comparisons to Primus are inevitable. Despite being far more mercurial in his musicianship, however, Lennon’s nuanced songwriting and melodic strengths provide a compelling counterbalance to Claypool’s penchant for groovy ditties about all the freaks and weirdos he knows.

Furthermore, A quick look at the liner notes shows that the album is, indeed, created and performed entirely by Claypool and Lennon. Lennon has his share of convincing guitar and keyboard leads, but Claypool clearly bears the shredding burden. His bass playing is at an all-time high in terms of its melodic content. Lennon’s greatest strengths shine through as an arranger, but as a drummer, his performance is adequate, if sometimes frantic. While it works pretty well in the classic psychedelic style that they are shooting for, I can’t help but wonder what might have happened if the drums were outsourced - especially if Claypool is still on good terms with his old Oysterhead cohort and former Police drummer Stewart Copeland.



His presence, however, would endanger the project’s early Pink Floyd feel that, with some reinterpretation, the Delerium is pretty successful at capturing. This takes a little imagination to see: let’s say that if Roger Waters had an affinity for the Isley Brothers and Syd Barrett had not had a psychotic break, they might have developed a similar writing partnership as Claypool and Lennon.  Bubbles Burst is a good example of the way in which their unique characteristics mesh.



The video earned Lennon a bit of ire for its macabre characterization of Michael Jackson. It's important to note, however, that Lennon is not speaking as an outsider. He was one of several young celebrities that was invited to hang out at Neverland back in the day, which earns him the right to describe the experience however he sees fit.  Truth of the matter was, Jackson WAS weird, and just because he has passed on (due in part to his eccentricities) I don’t think that it is necessary to sweep Lennon’s perception of that whole scene under the carpet because it doesn’t portray Jackson in the most positive light. In fact, I think it's even more important because it is an honest recollection of a closed-door scene. Plus, it’s a actually a pretty good song.

And that’s the really impressive thing about The Monolith of Phobos. Despite all its quirkiness, it's an accessible listen. During one of our many family road trips during that month of homelessness, I put it on, fully prepared for the request to take it off and put in Everything Everything’s Get to Heaven again. I was surprised to watch the wife and kids bobbing their heads to the infectious funk shanty Captain Lariat. It became a family favorite that, like the Lennon/Claypool Delirium itself, I could not have predicted.  

Syd Barrett Part 2: An Odd Bike and a Raw Octopus

Judging from my previous post, you might get the idea that back in the day, I wasn’t too impressed with Syd Barrett. You’d be right. Although I never got rid of my copy of Barrett, until last November it has been in my collection for nigh on twenty years with virtually no play. At the time, it cemented my prejudice against Pink Floyd’s pre-Dark Side catalog. Sometime around 2004, however, when YouTube was new, I happened across a DIY video for Bike (a video which sadly no longer seems to exist - although it was almost as silly as this one).

Immediately, this tune burrowed its way into my ear, so I decided to take Barrett’s pre-breakdown work with Pink Floyd for a spin around the block and try to accept it on its own terms. I bought Piper at the Gates of Dawn, and thought it was quite good, but unfortunately, 2004 was the beginning of a bad period for me personally.  Very little new music was making any kind of lasting impression. By no fault of its own, Piper at the Gates of Dawn got put on the back burner.

If you have been following the blog regularly, you know that I have had a rekindled interest in Pink Floyd’s early work and, consequently, Syd Barrett’s limited solo catalog. I got The Madcap Laughs for Christmas and, as Stringtapper suggested, it is a stronger overall effort than Barrett. What I find most startling is the impact that Barrett had on Pink Floyd even after his departure. While his former bandmates were experimenting with the excesses of progressive rock on Atom Heart Mother and Ummagumma, Barrett was writing songs that, despite the withdrawn state of his mental collapse, were profound enough to influence Pink Floyd’s future work. Listening to tracks like Dark Globe, Barrett’s influence on Roger Waters’ later songwriting seems obvious.



Although it is more consistent than Barrett, The Madcap Laughs has a bit less studio polish. For me, it is difficult not to view it as a set of demos for a Pink Floyd album that was never meant to be. Its raw nature, however, masks deeper musical concepts. On the surface,  Barrett seems to sporadically drop and add beats in his songs, much to the chagrin of drummer Jerry Shirley. Listen to the rhythm section struggle to keep things straight about thirty seconds into Octopus.



Initially, I thought that Barrett could simply have cared less about things like a backbeat and standard phrasing.  It just sounded like mistakes.  When I returned to Piper at the Gates of Dawn on a road trip this weekend, however, I noticed that this erratic metric sense is pervasive in the music he wrote even before he was triggered. In fact, Bike, the song that turned me on to the album, features this irregular rhythmic concept in virtually every verse. Without getting too analytical, it seems that Barrett makes the entire structure of the song subservient to the natural rhythm of the lyrics, and it is so deliberate that it makes me question just how erratic his performances actually were on The Madcap Laughs.

On a final note, I have gained a much greater respect for Piper at the Gates of Dawn in my more recent encounter with the album. The simple act of drawing boundaries on the songs (i.e. knowing the difference between Matilda Mother and Lucifer Sam) allowed me to see its creative breadth. It’s a fantastically varied work that miraculously coheres under Barrett’s obvious charisma, and although it doesn’t sound like the arena rock that characterized Pink Floyd in the 70s, it has had its own profound influence. I leave you with one of the only clips I found of Barrett playing live.



There's a longer version of this clip available where the rather dour gentlemen you see at the beginning interviews Barrett and Waters, demanding for them to explain just why they are so darn loud.  The only answer he seemed to accept was "we like it that way."

Standing in the Gulf with Syd Barrett

For me the most real (but probably not my all-time favorite) version of Pink Floyd was the late 80s post-Waters incarnation, so I was, and still am, a huge fan a David Gilmour. History, however, has repeatedly (and exhaustively) labeled him as the "replacement" for founding member Syd Barrett, an artist whose genius was famously eclipsed by his fragile mental health.

Once I caught wind of Barrett, I became insanely curious about his musical prowess, but at the time, a lot of mainstream stores did not carry his solo stuff. In cases like this, I could always count on my favorite record hangout at the time, a long-defunct store called Compact Discs of Austin. CDs of Austin stocked a cornucopia of imported and rare albums and, most importantly, if I ate in my car, it was within driving distance of my high school during the glory days of open lunch.

So I picked up Barrett, but when I got it home, I genuinely did not see what all the fuss was about.  The album's almost quaint and sometimes meandering style bore little resemblance to the grandiose Pink Floyd that I knew. Superficially, Gilmour certainly seemed to be a much superior guitarist and vocalist  At the time, I concluded that Barrett’s biggest contribution to the band, aside from being an admittedly important character in its foundation, was to provide inspiration for Roger Waters' dark and perhaps exploitative lyrics for the next twenty years.

Admittedly, I was not swept up into Barrett's rise to fame when it crested, so I’m not sure I will ever really understand the hoopla around him.  With Pink Floyd flashing back into recent public consciousness, however, the story of the band is being recounted with increasing regularity.  It’s impossible to ignore his looming spectre. To stave off my compulsive desire to add more missing pieces of Pink Floyd's early catalog to my collection, I decided to revisit Barrett during Thanksgiving vacation.

One of many sights on our beachcombing safari.

In recent years, Thanksgiving vacation has evolved into much more than just a few days off and a turkey meal. Our extended family takes an annual trip to South Padre for Thanksgiving and this year was the Little One's first.  When she and I had some time to ourselves, I strapped her to my chest and went out for a barefoot walk on the beach. With Barrett on my headphones, I took time to appreciate the primal chill of ocean water rolling across my feet, while she watched them inexplicably disappear and reappear under the waves.

Barrett sounds much different to me as a new parent taking an introspective walk on a beach in November than it did to a me as delusional and naïve high school student. It was much more intimate than I remembered, and Barrett does show glimmers of fancifully obtuse genius. Check out the impish guitar intro to Baby Lemonade.



I also noticed that there are some tracks from Barrett that share a distinct vibe with earlier Pink Floyd, particularly Dominoes.  



But according to the accounts of its recording, it’s no wonder. Recorded in 1970, its sessions run concurrently with Atom Heart Mother, and for all intents and purposes, Gilmour and Wright should probably share some writing credits. They “helped” Barrett get his album done, and perhaps many of the uncanny twists and turns that the songs often take are an effort to reign in and capture Barrett’s stream of consciousness.

That was, however, a different time, when the legal implications of songwriting and collaboration were a bit more naïve.  Regardless of the process that created them, Barrett features some truly unique and affecting songs.

Ultimately, Barrett’s Floyd was not really the one that I know and love, although now, in reflection, I shouldn't underestimate his influence on the group  Barrett's most important contributions to Pink Floyd mostly occurred before the band's debut, and  lay at their very foundation.  They are also, unfortunately, lost to history.  Doubtlessly Pink Floyd would have been a profoundly different band had he kept it together, and his solo work provides a hint at what it might have sounded like.  On the other hand, Barrett also has its own merits if it is accepted on its own terms.