See Emily Play

from the 7” single, Columbia Records, 1967



Some songs have the preternatural ability to transmute everything going on around them at their date of recording in such a convincing way that, when played, they magically teleport the listener through time and space, back to their moment of conception. These are the sounds of London’s more psychedelic element in the summer of 1967, masterfully crafted for us by none other than Pink Floyd, whose music truly embodied everything this new lysergic counterculture stood for. It begins with a bang, organ whirring in the shadows, and Syd Barrett coaxing the most unnatural and creepy noises from his guitar that you could almost mistake them for synth effects. “Emily tries, but misunderstands; she’s often inclined to borrow somebody’s dreams ‘til tomorrow…” His singing through this track is so archetypically British: twee, exaggerated, almost cheeky---but the strange theme of the lyrics balances that out properly…“Soon after dark, Emily cries; gazing through trees in sorrow, hardly a sound ‘til tomorrow…put on a gown that touches the ground; float on a river for ever and ever, Emily…” Syd claimed the song came to him while he was sleeping in the forest, but most people around him at least recognized the “Emily” of which he spoke here; in fact, she was the 16 year-old daughter of a British aristocrat (one Lord Kennet), and also a regular, dubbed “the psychedelic schoolgirl”, at the UFO nightclub which Pink Floyd regularly played in those halcyon days. Considering the legendary events which were to follow this era of the Floyd, at turns tragic & triumphant, one can’t help but feel the ominous prescience of Syd singing, “…there is no other day, let’s try it another way, you’ll lose your mind and play…” Being that there was no mass explosion of schizophrenia coming out of the hippie era (in fact, rates of schizophrenia dropped significantly in this same time period), one can only objectively assume that what happened to Syd Barrett’s fragile mind, soon after this recording, was not merely the fault of the LSD alone. Indeed, many people around him were consuming equal amounts of this substance and never fell prey to same vacuous state which Syd lived in throughout the remainder of his years. At this point, however, he still had it together enough to produce some of the most pleasing, candy-coated, & trippy pop music that’s ever been laid to wax. Future band member David Gilmour dropped in on the “See Emily Play” recording sessions, and recounted in an interview the signs that Mr. Barrett was perhaps beginning to come undone, “…he (Syd) just looked straight through me, barely acknowledged that I was there…those eyes, you know? Very weird…” I remember being really disappointed as a little kid when I learned that Syd was only a member of Pink Floyd for one album; and yet, if you look at Pink Floyd’s lyrics over their entire career, Syd really remained there with them all along, always inspiring and compelling penance, fey and disembodied sprit though he became. Shine on you crazy diamond!