The 500 - #347 - The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn - Pink Floyd

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by Los Angeles-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

---

Album: # 347

Album Title: The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn

Artist: Pink Floyd

Genre: Experimental, Psychedelic Rock, Acid Rock

Recorded: Spring, 1967

Released: August, 1967

My age at release: 2

How familiar was I with it before this week: Quite

Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: Interstellar Overdrive

Full disclosure, Pink Floyd is one of my favourite bands. They have been since I discovered their music in the fall of 1979. I have a humorous story about how I thought they were a "biker band", but I will save that for when we get to one of the other three records they have on this list.

Three of the Big Four Pink Floyd albums on The 500 List

It was not a surprise to me that three of the "big four albums" by British progressive rock group Pink Floyd were on The 500 list. However, I was surprised that the other "big" record (according the fans and critics) was not. That is the 1977 release, Animals.

Album Cover for Animals (1977)

Instead, Pink Floyd's debut record, Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, appears at #347. The selection perplexed. Animals is, by every measure, the superior album. It was better received critically and commercially: it outsold Piper four times over; and it is still a "fan favourite". In fact, the iconic floating pig from the record cover continues to hover over the heads of fans attending performances by Roger Waters -- the last of the Floyd members still touring. 

Waters, who recently restarted his Covid-delayed world tour, will appear in Toronto next July. I will be there and it will be the seventh time I have seen a "Floyd" concert. The classic line-up dissolved in the early 80s, but tours led by Waters or guitarist David Gilmour have filled the void for me over the past 40 years. Sadly, I suspect this is the last time I will see any Floyd member perform live. The remaining members have passed on or retired, and Waters will be 80 years old by the conclusion of this tour.

Which brings me back to this week's record, Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, an album that introduced the world to this unique, clever, creative and musically gifted band nearly 60 years ago. The original line-up featured Waters (bass), Nick Mason (drums), Richard Wright (keyboards) and Syd Barrett (guitars and lead vocals).

(l-r) Waters, Mason, Barrett & Wright

Waters, Mason and Wright met and began performing in 1963 in a variety of configurations under the names Sigma 6, The Meggadeaths, The Abdabs, The Screaming Abdabs, Leonard's Lodgers, Spectrum Five and The Tea Set. In 1965, Waters' childhood friend, Barrett, moved to London to attend arts college. He eventually joined the band, taking over on guitar and lead vocals and the foursome rebranded themselves as The Pink Floyd Sound. The name was taken from two blues records in Barrett's collection, one by Pink Anderson and the other by Floyd Council. 

Blues musicians who inspired Pink Floyd's name

Pink Floyd performed at several venues in the London area. Initially, they played Rhythm & Blues standards, but Barrett and Wright clicked as musicians and the group began to explore experimental sonic landscapes through improvisational jams. They incorporated a rudimentary, but hypnotic, light show and gained a loyal following, particularly among counter-culture youth experimenting with the psychedelic drug, LSD. The band were, in the parlance of the time, "a trip".

To fully appreciate Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, one has to imagine it the way it was intended to be heard -- live and loud. There is nothing quite like escaping with a band on a sonically dense and musically tight jam session. This is what Floyd fans in the early 60s expected and Barrett served as conductor and, having also taken LSD before most performances, the spiritual shaman. His stage presence was, according to biographer Nicholas Shaffner, "utterly riveting" with "enthusiastic displays of improvisational madness with his body, voice and guitar." 

The term "madness" is an unfortunate one that lingers from a different time when mental illness lacked the profile it has today. In the 1980s, when my friends and I were teenagers and fans of the band, we found Barrett's madcap antics fascinating. We were not yet of an age to recognize that this was a man, not much older than ourselves, who was suffering from profound mental illness, exacerbated by unregulated, heavy psychoactive drug use.

The cover for Barrett's first solo album The Madcap Laughs

Eventually, Barrett was unable to perform live with the band. He became unreliable as a musician, sometimes drifting off during a song, lost in his own LSD-clouded thoughts. The band recruited guitarist David Gilmore to replace him and Waters took over the lead vocals. The newly forged Pink Floyd would go on to become one of the biggest and best selling groups of all time. This was the band that would eventually release those "Big Four" records in the 1970s, a band without Syd Barrett.

(l-r) Wright, Gilmore, Mason & Waters - Pink Floyd 1973

As I revisited the music of early Pink Floyd and did more research into the tragedy of Barrett, I began to understand better the importance of Piper At The Gates Of Dawn. Syd Barrett is cited as an influence by some of the most important and significant pop musicians of all time. Paul McCartney, Pete Townshend, David Bowie and Kurt Cobain all credit him as inspiration. Barrett was full of childish innocence, and that shines through on the tracks Bike, The Gnome and See Emily Play. He was also an incredibly talented guitarist. Interstellar Overdrive, from this week's record, is ranked #36 on another Rolling Stone Magazine's list of the Greatest Guitar Songs Of All Time.

Perhaps, most importantly, he is a cautionary tale of tragedy. Though a gifted and talented artist, he fell victim to the choices he made for the sake of his art. Somewhere in his performances, he got lost. Gone, but not forgotten. He continued to inspire Pink Floyd well into the 1970s, as we'll learn with their next record on this list: Wish You Were Here, dedicated to Barrett and his lasting influence on the group.