Students and a name
Pink Floyd came together in London in 1965 around a group of friends who had studied in London: Roger Waters on bass, Nick Mason on drums, Richard Wright on keyboards and Syd Barrett on guitar and vocals. Barrett and Waters were boyhood friends from Cambridge, and Mason and Wright had studied architecture at the Regent Street Polytechnic. Barrett, who attended art school in London, became the main songwriter. The band went through several names before settling on Pink Floyd, which Barrett is said to have taken from the first names of two American blues musicians, Pink Anderson and Floyd Council.
At first they played rhythm and blues covers. By 1966 they had moved toward their own material and long improvisations, with light projections accompanying their performances. They were taken on by managers Peter Jenner and Andrew King of Blackhill Enterprises and became regulars at the UFO Club on Tottenham Court Road, which was a leading venue in the London underground scene. The club was run by Joe Boyd and John Hopkins, and it was a gathering place for the capital’s alternative culture.
Signing and singles
In early 1967 the band signed to EMI in a contract that reportedly included a sizeable advance by the standards of the time. Their first single, “Arnold Layne”, was released in March 1967. Its lyrics, about a man who steals women’s clothing from washing lines, were considered risqué by some, and it was reported that certain broadcasters were unhappy with it, but it still reached the British top twenty. A second single, “See Emily Play”, came out in June 1967 and did better, reaching the top ten.
These singles were written and sung by Barrett, and they are whimsical, melodic songs. They pointed to a band that could be both experimental and commercial, and they gave EMI confidence that the album would sell. The singles did not appear on the original British album, which followed the common British habit of keeping singles and albums separate.
Abbey Road
The album was recorded between February and May 1967 at EMI Studios in Abbey Road, London. At the same time, in the neighbouring studio, the Beatles were working on the Sgt. Pepper album. The band members have recalled seeing the Beatles at work, though the meetings were brief and the stories grew in the retelling.
The producer was Norman Smith, who had worked as an engineer on the Beatles’ records. He was tolerant of the band’s experimental ideas while keeping the sessions organised. EMI’s studios were well equipped and strictly run, with technicians expected to follow set procedures, and the band had to work within them. The result is a record that is more compact than their live performances.
The songs
The album takes its title from a chapter of Kenneth Grahame’s children’s book The Wind in the Willows, a sign of the English whimsy that runs through Barrett’s writing. It has eleven tracks:
- “Astronomy Domine”, “Lucifer Sam”, “Matilda Mother”, “Flaming”, “Pow R. Toc H.”
- “Take Up Thy Stethoscope and Walk”, “Interstellar Overdrive”, “The Gnome”, “Chapter 24”, “The Scarecrow”, “Bike”
“Astronomy Domine” opens the album with space imagery and echo-heavy guitar. “Interstellar Overdrive”, built on a descending riff and a long improvised section, is the nearest thing to what the band did in concert. “Chapter 24” takes its words from the Chinese book of divination the I Ching. Others, such as “The Gnome”, “The Scarecrow” and “Bike”, are short and childlike. Barrett wrote most of the songs, while the whole band shared credit on the instrumentals, which is a notable contrast with the later Waters-led albums.
Release
The album was released in Britain on 5 August 1967, by EMI’s Columbia label, and it reached the top ten of the British chart. In the United States it was released later in the year by Tower Records, a subsidiary of Capitol, in a changed version. It dropped some tracks and added “See Emily Play”, which is a reminder that American and British editions of the same album often differed in 1967. The American release did not make a big impression at the time.
The record belongs to the same wave of psychedelic experimentation as the other major debuts of the year, though it is distinctively British in tone. It was played in the context of the summer’s publicity about the Summer of Love, and the band’s connection to the London underground scene gave it an audience among those who followed that culture. The pirate radio stations, which had been a major route to hearing new music, were made illegal in mid-August 1967, so the album’s release coincided with the end of that era in British broadcasting.
Barrett’s decline
Barrett’s behaviour became increasingly unpredictable during 1967. Accounts of the period describe missed or erratic performances, including on an American tour in the autumn, and it is widely believed that heavy use of drugs, and possibly other factors, contributed. The causes are hard to establish and have been discussed ever since, so it is best not to point to any single explanation.
The band added the guitarist David Gilmour around the turn of 1967 and 1968, and Barrett left in the spring of 1968. Pink Floyd continued without him, and went on to considerable success in the 1970s. Barrett made two solo albums and then withdrew from public life, dying in 2006. The Piper at the Gates of Dawn stands as the only Pink Floyd album in which he was the central creative figure, and it remains the clearest record of what British psychedelia sounded like in its first flowering.