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Warning: the following review was written spontaneously by the author to denote and connote an album that is almost impossible to describe, being something “that he can’t explain.” The author apologizes in advance for any clichés or superficiality in certain areas. Lastly, the author wishes you a good reading.
The first purely psychedelic album conceived by an English band: space travels in sound like "Astronomy Domine" and "Interstellar Overdrive"; psychedelic folk ballads like "Flaming", "The Gnome", and "The Scarecrow" which, even though they are short sketches, are full of suggestions, rich in meaning; "Lucifer Sam" with surf rock influences; "Matilda Mother" begins with a liturgical atmosphere along which unfolds a fairy-tale-like story told by the mother to the child; "Pow R Toc H", a sound experiment between the comic and the tragic, between the entertaining and the haunting, in which the two Rogers (Roger Waters and Roger Keith “Syd” Barrett) engage in schizoid, demented vocalizations, then give way to Wright's piano in a perfect classical style, reminiscent of detective films; "Take Up Thy Stethoscope And Walk" is a perfect synthesis of what the band does best: a three-minute jam where everything is thrown in, with Waters' first lyrics as well.
And finally "Chapter 24" and "Bike". Both very haunting; in the first, as already mentioned for "Matilda Mother", there is a liturgical, spiritual air, evoking the East, as the text is inspired by the I Ching. Perhaps the most haunting in the album. "Bike" is the weirdest, most alienated, and alienating piece that respects the song form. It too lasts only three minutes, but in those three minutes, for heaven's sake! You witness something never heard before. A text that seems stupid, banal, childish regardless, but which actually hides a true philosophy, a naïve and primitive idea of exchange between a boy and a girl. The boy feels he needs the girl in question, saying she is "the kind of girl who fits in his (his) world" and to win her over he promises her anything, except his bike, because he borrowed it. Genuine unconventional love song. Who the hell else but Syd Barrett would have thought to write, dedicate such a love song to a girl? Not to mention the music. Two sections alternate: the first presents the text, sung on an apparently jolly base, but with a haunting undertone. In the second section, the jolly element is completely lost because your ears encounter a cacophony of sounds, including clocks, announced at the end of the text by Syd, and duck sounds made by human voices.
A word for "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn": insane! I would add another similar: mad! “The Piper at the Gates of Dawn” is indeed the craziest album, alongside “The Marble Index” by Nico, that I have ever heard.
10/10
PS. Only 10/10???
Tracklist Lyrics Samples and Videos
01 Astronomy Domine (04:12)
Lime and limpid green, a second scene
A fight between the blue you once knew.
Floating down, the sound resounds
Around the icy waters underground.
Jupiter and Saturn, Oberon, Miranda
And Titania, Neptune, Titan.
Stars can frighten.
Blinding signs flap,
Flicker, flicker, flicker blam. Pow, pow.
Stairway scare Dan Dare who's there?
Lime and limpid green
The sounds surrounds the icy waters underground
Lime and limpid green
The sounds surrounds the icy waters underground.
02 Lucifer Sam (03:07)
Lucifer Sam, siam cat.
Always sitting by your side
Always by your side.
That cat's something I can't explain.
Jennifer Gentle, you're a witch.
You're the left side
He's the right side.
Oh, no!
That cat's something I can't explain.
Lucifer go to sea.
Be a hip cat
Be a ship's cat.
Somewhere, anywhere.
That cat's something I can't explain.
At night prowling sifting sand.
Hiding around on the ground.
He'll be found when you're around.
That cat's something I can't explain.
04 Flaming (02:46)
Alone in the clouds all blue
Lying on an eiderdown.
Yippee! You can't see me
But I can you.
Lazing in the foggy dew
Sitting on a unicorn.
No fair, you can't hear me
But I can you.
Watching buttercups cup the light
Sleeping on a dandelion.
Too much, I won't touch you
But then I might.
Screaming through the starlit sky
Traveling by telephone.
Hey ho, here we go
Ever so high.
Alone in the clouds all blue
Lying on an eiderdown.
Yippee! You can't see me
But I can you.
08 The Gnome (02:13)
I want to tell you a story
About a little man
If I can.
A gnome named Grimble Grumble.
And little gnomes stay in their homes.
Eating, sleeping, drinking their wine.
He wore a scarlet tunic,
A blue green hood,
It looked quite good.
He had a big adventure
Amidst the grass
Fresh air at last.
Wining, dining, biding his time.
And then one day - hooray!
Another way for gnomes to say
Oooooooooomray.
Look at the sky, look at the river
Isn't it good?
Look at the sky, look at the river
Isn't it good?
Winding, finding places to go.
And then one day - hooray!
Another way for gnomes to say
Oooooooooomray.
Ooooooooooooooomray.
09 Chapter 24 (03:42)
A movement is accomplished in six stages
And the seventh brings return.
The seven is the number of the young light
It forms when darkness is increased by one.
Change returns success
Going and coming without error.
Action brings good fortune.
Sunset.
The time is with the month of winter solstice
When the change is due to come.
Thunder in the other course of heaven.
Things cannot be destroyed once and for all.
Change returns success
Going and coming without error.
Action brings good fortune.
Sunset, sunrise.
A movement is accomplished in six stages
And the seventh brings return.
The seven is the number of the young light
It forms when darkness is increased by one.
Change returns success
Going and coming without error.
Action brings good fortune.
Sunset, sunrise.
10 The Scarecrow (02:11)
The black and green scarecrow as ev'ryone knows
Stood with a bird on his hat and straw everywhere
He didn't care...
He stood in a field where barley grows
His head did no thinking his arms didn't move
Except when the wind cut up rough
And mice ran around on the ground
He stood in a field where barley grows
The black and green scarecrow is sadder than me
But now he's resigned to his fate
'Cause life's not unkind
He doesn't mind
He stood in a field where barley grows
11 Bike (03:21)
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
You're the kind of girl that fits in with my world
I'll give you anything
Everything if you want things
I've got a cloak
It's a bit of a joke
There's a tear up the front
It's red and black
I've had it for months
If you think it could look good
Then I guess it should
You're the kind of girl that fits in with my world
I'll give you anything
Everything if you want things
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
You're the kind of girl that fits in with my world
I'll give you anything
Everything if you want things
I've got a clan of gingerbread men
Here a man
There a man
Lots of gingerbread men
Take a couple if you wish
They're on the dish
You're the kind of girl that fits in with my world
I'll give you anything
Everything if you want things
I know a room full of musical tunes
Some rhyme
Some ching
Most of them are clockwork
Let's go into the other room and make them work
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Other reviews
By charles
From the very first record, you can tell what they would do in the future, which is create a sound all their own.
Excellent record, which deviates a bit from the typical Pink Floyd sound but is still a colossus in the history of music.
By zaireeka
Written at the tip of LSD.
One of those clocks, orphaned by the irreversible madness of Syd Barrett, was preserved by his old companions and made to chime once again at the start of Time.
By Moro1
Only Barrett can explain the masterpiece he composed and wrote, and he does it through the stories of a king told in a mother’s fairy tale.
He sang it almost 40 years ago and it is still the most beautiful of all.
By anthon
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By AJAX
The early Pink Floyd managed to synthesize into a unique and inimitable vision the impulses from West Coast acid rock, ... and the love for genuinely English fairy-tale elements.
'The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn' captures both sides of the coin, marking a year when pop and the avant-garde went hand in hand.
