{"id":747987,"date":"2026-07-07T06:42:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T06:42:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/747987\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T06:42:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T06:42:11","slug":"the-beginning-of-the-end-for-pink-floyds-syd-barrett","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/747987\/","title":{"rendered":"The beginning of the end for Pink Floyd\u2019s Syd Barrett"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Pink Floyd<\/a> launched second single See Emily Play in 1967, it marked the beginning of their rise to global success \u2013 but also the beginning of their end for early leader Syd Barrett<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Released in March 1967, Pink Floyd\u2019s first single Arnold Layne<\/a> reached Number 20 on the UK chart. It seems tame now \u2013 but Syd Barrett\u2019s whimsical tale of the moonlight clothes thief was considered transgressive by broadcasters, and its airplay soon dwindled.<\/p>\n

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Trippy follow-up See Emily Play was less contentious, released in June 1967 and peaking at Number 6 the following month. \u201cWe were convinced we\u2019d go higher,\u201d Nick Mason<\/a> told Prog in 2010. \u201cWe were sure A Whiter Shade Of Pale<\/a> would drop out week to week. But of course it didn\u2019t \u2013 it just stuck there!\u201d<\/p>\n

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As Prog reported in a rundown of the 10 most important Floyd concerts<\/a>, See Emily Play had been written by Barrett for a 1967 show billed as Games For May, and shared that title in its earliest form. The event at London\u2019s Queen Elizabeth Hall was described as \u201ca space-age relaxation for the climax of spring \u2013 electronic composition, colour and image projection, girls, and the Pink Floyd.\u201d What was not to like?<\/p>\n

The performance included \u201cmore or less what was to become The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn<\/a>, and premiering Emily.\u201d At one point \u201csomeone dressed as an admiral gave out daffodils to the audience, while a bubble machine stained the seats \u2013 allegedly resulting in a lifelong ban at the venue for the group.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Alan Freeman introduced the band for their first appearance on Top Of The Pops<\/a>. \u201cI suppose we expected more out of it than it could deliver,\u201d the drummer reflects. \u201cIt was a bit like going through sheep dip: you\u2019re brought in, you do the rehearsal, then mime rather than actually play live.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy main memory is of going into hair and make-up and finding all the road crew having their hair done! Nobody knew who anyone was, so as long as you had long hair, if you wandered in to that area someone would wash your hair.<\/p>\n

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\u201cBut the show was an anticlimax for all the inevitable reasons \u2013 you\u2019d been on telly but it didn\u2019t change the world. The important stuff was still to go out and play.\u201d<\/p>\n

The success of See Emily Play was a milestone in the Pink Floyd story, and it\u2019s still their second highest-charting single by a long chalk, after 1979\u2019s Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2<\/a>). Its three performances on Top Of The Pops also foreshadowed the troubled times ahead for the song\u2019s mercurial writer.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy the time we went back for the second show Syd was not that happy about it,\u201d says Mason. \u201cHe was getting a bit weird, so that made it all the more difficult. He felt that John Lennon<\/a> didn\u2019t do Top Of The Pops, so why should he? He was already wandering off into that area of not wanting to be a pop star.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The BBC later wiped all three Top Of The Pops appearances, although a degraded video recording of their first performance, on July 6, was revealed in 2009.<\/p>\n

Once described by Prog as \u201cthe perfect marriage of Floyd\u2019s psych sound and Barrett\u2019s lyrical genius,\u201d a subject that\u2019s lingered over the decades is the identity of the song\u2019s titular Emily. It\u2019s often assumed to be the Right Honourable Emily Young, a politician\u2019s daughter who earned the nickname \u2018the psychedelic schoolgirl\u2019 at London\u2019s UFO Club, and who later became a revered artist.<\/p>\n

Roger Waters<\/a> said<\/a> in 2004 that \u201cEmily could be anyone. She\u2019s just a hung-up chick, that\u2019s all.\u201d But Syd\u2019s girlfriend Jenny Spires \u2013 \u2018Jennifer Gentle\u2019 in Lucifer Sam \u2013 told Prog <\/a>in 2022: \u201cSyd loved the name Emily; quite unusual then, and used to say, \u2018If I ever have a daughter I want to call her Emily.\u2019 \u2018Emily\u2019 was Syd\u2019s Alice [Through the Looking Glass].\u201d<\/p>\n

As Barrett increasingly rejected the idea of being a pop star<\/a>, and became more erratic in his behaviour, the band would move on without him. \u201cBut See Emily Play was a very important stepping stone in our career,\u201d Mason said. \u201cIt was a big part of the journey.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Pink Floyd launched second single See Emily Play in 1967, it marked the beginning of their rise…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":747988,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[88,216],"class_list":["post-747987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/747987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=747987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/747987\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/747988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=747987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=747987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=747987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}