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Post by semolinapilchard on Oct 24, 2004 19:47:18 GMT
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Post by TotalInformation on Oct 24, 2004 19:48:12 GMT
forgot something?
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Post by semolinapilchard on Oct 24, 2004 20:19:09 GMT
Yes I forgot everything but it's there now.
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Pat
Contributor
Posts: 69
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Post by Pat on Oct 26, 2004 9:53:25 GMT
The Song is a description of himself... thats my take on it anyway. I have also wondered if there was something more to Syd's madness than just taking too much acid and the pressures of fame. He was a big beatles fan since the early 60s... and he would've saw Faul a lot at EMI in 67... makes you wonder.
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Post by abbey on Oct 26, 2004 12:25:37 GMT
Wonderful article. Thank you Semolina.
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Post by semolinapilchard on Oct 26, 2004 18:09:28 GMT
yer welcome sister!
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Post by TotalInformation on Nov 1, 2004 3:34:38 GMT
What's the timeline on when Syd Barret went mad?
Recall Brian Wilson flipped out at about the time Faul showed up to visit them in L.A. with advance copies of Pepper. Curiously enough, FAUL also crunched celery for the Smile track 'Vega-tables.'
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Post by unrepentant on Nov 24, 2004 17:40:35 GMT
curiouser and curiouser...
although he began to change in early 1967, syd's downward spiral commenced officially right around the time PEPPER was being completed, in april/may '67. the story goes that someone spiked his drink with a massive hit of acid just before he went on stage [with faul in attendance] at pink floyd's biggest ever show.....and he was never the same again.
barrett and faul crossed paths at EMI in march, i believe...
PIPER AT THE GATES OF DAWN is a great album.
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Post by Palin on Nov 26, 2004 9:44:18 GMT
I thought it was a bit later than that, but there seems to have been a long slide into madness by Syd, and his friends had urged him to easu up on the acid for some time. He would go on stage with The Pink Floyd competely tripping, have no idea what to do, and naturally this pissed the rest of the band right off.
The band didn't offer much in the way of support and simply got shot of him, replacing Syd with Dave Gilmour. Floyd used the same studios in Abbey Rd as the Beatles, and they met a couple of times, with Floyd being present during some of the sessions for Sgt Pepper. I think it's a bit much to blame F/Paul for either Wilson or Barrett's descent into mental health problems. Both had been known as heavy users of psychedelics, and both were annoying their bands because of it. It was well enough documented.
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Post by TotalInformation on Nov 27, 2004 6:59:19 GMT
It's silly to just write off Wilson's madness to "psychedelics." Millions of people have used psychedelics without flipping out to the degree Wilson did.
Just look at the timeline.
Wilson was in a friendly competition with McCartney.
But he was also trying to make an "All-American" pop album as an answer to the British Invasion, to capture the hearts and minds of American youth.
That's what the SMILE project was all about.
FAUL showed up in Los Angeles towards the end of April/beginning of May 1967 with advance tapes of the Sgt. Pepper album.
Wilson took a listen and must have realized that McCartney had beat him from beyond the grave. That he had lost to the British Invasion. (Take a listen. SMILE is a nice little pop album, but it ain't no Pepper.)
Even if Wilson had wanted to "give the game away," he couldn't, really. Derek Taylor (who did PR for both groups and made the trip with FAUL, iirc) and/or whoever would have been holding all the info on the orgies and everything over the Wilsons' heads as blackmail.
Before the month was out, Wilson had flipped and SMILE would be abandoned.
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Post by Perplexed on Nov 28, 2004 7:55:19 GMT
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Post by Palin on Nov 29, 2004 9:59:27 GMT
It's silly to just write off Wilson's madness to "psychedelics." Not really. Not if you look at what had been going on with Wilson prior to this. Those around him, as with Syd, had told him to take it easy, but to no avail. Psychedelics can screw you up. Millions may have survived, but there were a lot of casualties form the sixties, and to suggest otherwise is to take a blinkered view, and underlying problems can be hugely exacerbated by acid. Millions of smokers haven't been kiled by cigarettes, but no-one would suggest cigarettes are harmless. I can cite a friend of mine who developed schizophrenia after taking acid regularly over a year, and plenty of people have ended up with depression or other nervous debilities after going too far for too long. Don't you think it's maybe just possible that Wilson over did it with drugs? Lennon seemed to think that he himself had a near escape when by 68 he was seriously wondering what it was all about, and claimed to have ingested so much acid over the previous two years that he could no longer see colour properly, and feared for his sanity to the point where he gave it up. Ok, he started taking heroin soon afterwards, but that says more about the nature of Lennon than anything else.
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Post by TotalInformation on Nov 29, 2004 12:34:08 GMT
Millions of smokers haven't been kiled by cigarettes, but no-one would suggest cigarettes are harmless.
Yes, but your analysis here is akin to discussing a smoker's collapsed lung whilst ignoring the elephant in the room that had been stomping on his chest.
Was Lennon going batsh*t crazy and attending "primal scream" therapy sessions where he was crapping himself, etc etc simply because he had been taking LSD, or was something else traumatic going on in his life?
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Post by Palin on Nov 29, 2004 12:55:45 GMT
Lennon was being overly self-indulgent, rejecting his rock-star pasts and trying to come to terms with what went on in his choldhood, which is what primal scream therapy seeks to reslove if memory serves. His central problem was always relationships in the aftermath of what happend to his natural parents. JMO.
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Post by Floydfan1028 on Mar 24, 2005 22:54:04 GMT
I agree Syd's problems were for a while before the shit really hit the fan. And i cannot blame PF for dumping him although they have felt remorse for doing so most of their albums feature songs about or dedicated to Syd. I mean the whole Wish you were here album is in his memory. You know though as talented at Syd was i dont think we would have ever saw Darkside or WYWH or Animals or the wall. He would have trapped them into the psychodelic era forever or they may have never got anywhere. As was stated his acid problem was seriously dragging the band down. Shows in which he would stand on stage and not say one word during the concert. His destiny was to trip his way to the looney bin.
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Post by valis on Jul 11, 2006 15:24:29 GMT
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Post by unrepentant on Jul 13, 2006 3:15:24 GMT
yeah, it was sad news. i've been playing the CRAZY DIAMOND box set a lot lately.
i always held out hope that he'd go blogging on the internet, and carve out a new niche for himself online doing that. alas, it was not to be.
his health was bad ever since his mother died, and now........like one of his songs put it, "my book is closed; i write no more".
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Post by Perplexed on Jul 13, 2006 6:56:00 GMT
Syd, not syd. Similar to Syd, sort of.
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Post by vegetableman on Jul 23, 2006 18:08:40 GMT
Hello people. I've always thought it was a little odd that Syd went bonkers shortly after they released their first album; an album they recorded across the hall from where the Beatles were recording 'Sgt. Pepper's'. It seems like it's possible that Syd knew that Paul had been replaced and it freaked him out so much that he dropped out of the band and everything else in order to avoid a similar fate. It must have been weird not seeing McCartney around. Well something must have happened to him because when he showed up to the 'Wish You Were Here' sessions, he looked like this... We could just turn to the lyrics of the last tune of his to appear on a Floyd album: 'Jugband Blues' It's awfully considerate of you to think of me here And I'm most obliged to you for making it clear That I'm not here. And I never knew the moon could be so big And I never knew the moon could be so blue And I'm grateful that you threw away my old shoes And brought me here instead dressed in red And I'm wondering who could be writing this song. I don't care if the sun don't shine And I don't care if nothing is mine And I don't care if I'm nervous with you I'll do my loving in the winter. And the sea isn't green And I love the queen And what exactly is a dream? And what exactly is a joke?
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Post by TotalInformation on Jul 23, 2006 19:04:31 GMT
Wow, Jugband blues. "Sea isn't green" - Yeloow Submarine reference? Seems so. Mysery songwriters, dream, joke, allegiance to the queen...
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Post by vegetableman on Jul 23, 2006 23:08:17 GMT
Exactly...I think there might be more to the story than meets the eye...
I have a particular fondness for this next Barrett song, I wonder why?
'Vegetable Man'
In yellow shoes I get the blues, So I walk the street with my plastic feet with blue velvet trousers make me feel pink Theres a kind of stink about blue velvet trousers In my paisley shirt, I look a jerk, and my turquoise waistcoat is quite outta sight. But oh, oh, my haircut looks so bad.... Vegetable man! Where are you? So I change my gear, and I bugger my knees and I cover them up with the latest cuts My pants and socks are all in a box It does take long to find darn old socks The watch, black watch, my watch with a black face and a date in a little hole and all the luck, its what I got, Its what I wear, Its what you see, It must be me, Its what I am! Vegetable man! Where are you? Ah, ah ah ah, ah ah ah Hah, ah ah ah, ah ah ah - oh! I've been looking all over the place for a place for me But it ain't anywhere It just ain't anywhere. Vegetable man, Vegetable man, Vegetable man. Vegetable man, Vegetable man, Vegetable man, He's the kind of fella you just gotta see if you can, Vegetable man.
This could be about Faul...when he first appeared in those photos with that bad haircut and the little moustache. Nice new clothes to distract people from the truth...
This could be about JPM when he was dead in a hole with his 'date'; a girl perhaps? Where is he? I don't know, just a guess.
How about this one?
'NO GOOD TRYING' It's no good trying to place your hand where I can't see because I understand that you're different from me yes I can tell that you can't be what you pretend and you're rocking me backwards and you're rocking towards the red and yellow mane of a stallion horse. It's no good trying to hold your love where I can't see because I understand that you're different from me yes I can tell that you can't be what you pretend the caterpillar hood won't cover the head of you know you should be home in bed. It's no good holding your sequin fan where I can't see because I understand that you're different from me yes I can tell that you can't be what you pretend yes you're spinning around and around in a car with electric lights flashing very fast...
Ooh what a give away! That last line is kind of telling, not to mention that the rest of the song keeps saying that "You can't be what you pretend".
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Post by Perplexed on Jul 31, 2006 7:52:21 GMT
Hello people. I've always thought it was a little odd that Syd went bonkers shortly after they released their first album; an album they recorded across the hall from where the Beatles were recording 'Sgt. Pepper's'. It seems like it's possible that Syd knew that Paul had been replaced and it freaked him out so much that he dropped out of the band and everything else in order to avoid a similar fate. It must have been weird not seeing McCartney around. Well something must have happened to him because when he showed up to the 'Wish You Were Here' sessions, he looked like this... We could just turn to the lyrics of the last tune of his to appear on a Floyd album: 'Jugband Blues' It's awfully considerate of you to think of me here And I'm most obliged to you for making it clear That I'm not here. And I never knew the moon could be so big And I never knew the moon could be so blue And I'm grateful that you threw away my old shoes And brought me here instead dressed in red And I'm wondering who could be writing this song. I don't care if the sun don't shine And I don't care if nothing is mine And I don't care if I'm nervous with you I'll do my loving in the winter. And the sea isn't green And I love the queen And what exactly is a dream? And what exactly is a joke? A guitar player friend of mine and I got into a discussion of Syd. He has read a lot about Floyd and very familiar with their albums and history. He comented to me that, sadly, Syd took enormous quanities of acid, an amount in one week that most "trippers" would use in a much longer period of time--practiaclly handfulls, he joked---in irony as he thought Syd's initial gifts were stellar. He also said that Syd spent a lot of time institutionalized, getting out and going home, but having bouts where he needed supervision. He thinks that a combination of a possible history of mental problems i the family, combined with his sensitivity, and a AVALANCHE of LSD in his system in that year he "lost it", is what led to his breakdown.
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Post by vegetableman on Jul 31, 2006 14:15:15 GMT
Well Doc yes that's the usual explanation but I think there may have been more to it. Syd lived in a flat with a bunch of hangers on who used to dose him on a regular basis...in his morning coffee. He never knew if he was coming or going during this time. The thing that gets me is that people seemed to be driving Syd crazy on purpose. Perhaps he knew too much.
I think this line from No Good Trying is really important:
I mean come on...who could he be talking about? Faul that's who.
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Lic.Teish
Contributor
There's nothing you can't see that isn't shown
Posts: 161
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Post by Lic.Teish on Aug 9, 2009 18:24:07 GMT
[/img]Vegetable Man may WELL be "Green -dressed- John" in Pepper Cover,WICH IS "FOHN"-off course BTW. Syd was Fohn. The Song is a description of himself... being THE VEGETABLE man,the green one, in pepper GARDEN. Attachments:
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Post by Sun King™ on Aug 15, 2009 9:08:45 GMT
You mean this? Interesting .... Syd Barret as Faux John Lennon Eric Clapton (The Cream one) as Faux George Harrison .... what a BAND! But if true I don't think that he was " Lenono " ( the double in Yoko hands) too since Syd could accept only to be a Beatles.
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