Pink Floyd's First Album from 1967
The Piper at the Gates of Dawn: Syd Barrett Helps Define Psychedelia
In 1967, Pink Floyd recorded their first album, 'The Piper at the Gates of Dawn', helping to define London's Summer of Love. One track in particular, Bike, is discussed.
Where It's At
It’s 1967. It’s London. It’s the Summer of Love. In Studio 3 of EMI’s Abbey Road Studio on the heart of London's St John’s Wood, four musicians are recording what, alongside The Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper, many regard as the quintessential album of the British Summer of Love. Pink Floyd are producing ‘The Piper at the Gates of Dawn’, a title taken from one of the chapter headings of Kenneth Grahame's children's book, ‘The Wind in the Willows’.
At the time of recording ‘The Piper at the Gates of Dawn’, Pink Floyd comprised Nick Mason, Roger Waters, Rick Wright and the creative powerhouse behind the band, Syd Barrett. Barrett, who died recently, had joined the band two years earlier and changed them from one amongst many R&B bands (known as 'The Tea Set') on the go at that time to psychedelic pioneers.
The Piper at the Gates of Dawn
Barrett’s songs (and ‘The Piper at the Gates of Dawn’ contains eight of them (the first four and the last four) illustrate the eclectic nature of British psychedelia, bringing together the musical experimentation, made possible by developments in amplification and instrumentation, with the childlike simplicity and dream-world of the hippies. This is exemplified by the choice of title for this first Pink Floyd album.
The tracks on ‘The Piper at the Gates of Dawn’ are:
- Astronomy Domine
- Lucifer Sam
- Matilda Mother
- Flaming
- Pow R. Toc H.
- Take Up Thy Stethoscope and Walk
- Interstellar Overdrive
- The Gnome
- Chapter 24
- Scarecrow
- Bike
The very titles of the tracks suggest something different from what had gone before. This was an album that continued the developing break from albums containing songs each of which was about romantic love. Not one of the tracks on ‘The Piper of the Gates of Dawn’ is about romantic relationships. It’s hard to imagine this album being conceived a year or two earlier.
Syd Barrett's Relationship With His 'Bike'
There are relationships spoken about in the songs but, to take one example, they’re about things like a ‘Bike’, not primarily another person. 'Bike' starts with the verse:
‘I've got a bike
You can ride it if you like
It's got a basket
A bell that rings
And things to make it look good
I'd give it to you if I could
But I borrowed it’
and continues with a tale about another relationship, this time about a mouse. It goes:
‘I know a mouse
And he hasn't got a house
I don't know why
I call him Gerald
He's getting rather old
But he's a good mouse’
The song’s chorus does refer to a girl, but it’s not a soppy mention. Rather its about a relationship of equals.
‘You're the kind of girl that fits in with my world
I'll give you anything
Everything if you want things’
In Retrospect
Listening to the track now is to re-enter a world where things were simpler, where pleasures were sought through those simplicities and where music (and the music on Pink Floyd’s ‘Bike’ is both exceptionally innovative and also listenable) could transport the listener to another world, far away from where they actually were.
‘The Piper at the Gates of Dawn’ is worthy of being listened to even 40 years later, despite Roger Water’s protestations that he hasn’t done so for over a quarter of a century. The simplicity of a modern fairy tale like ‘Bike’, set against the nascent space-rock of Interstellar Overdrive (interestingly one of the pieces that Pink Floyd continued to play in concerts for many years after Syd Barrett had left the band, as they moved almost completely into the rock field), will continue to reward the listener who has the luxury of 45 unbroken minutes in which to close their eyes and drift away on this dream. This is psychedelia at its best!
