[The 'Masterpiece' series is a 200 words-or-so look at some of the albums that have changed the way I listen to music. Today: the psychological chicanery of Pink Floyd]
What does it feel like to float gently in space while a psychedelic lounge band types out the misadventures of your life in musical morse code?
For Syd Barrett, the answer to that question – and so many others – went to the grave with him last year. But we do know that Barrett showed up at the sessions for this album to offer his services and try to rejoin his old band. Whether he understood that the songs on playback (and the tears in his former bandmates’ eyes) were for and about him is also unrecorded. But if you had to have your life paraphrased, packaged, and paraded in front of the world by the likes of Roger Waters, chances are you’d turn your back on everything and take up painting and gardening too.
“We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl” sings Waters on the title track. I often wonder which of those two souls was the most lost – and I think I know the answer.
Tags: Pink Floyd, Syd Barrett, Wish You Were Here
19 May 2008 at 11:51 pm |
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17 February 2009 at 9:43 pm |
And did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
No doubt. Top of my list.