Month: June 2021

Published by Omnibus Books in February in Europe, and May in North America, is The Lyrics of Syd Barrett. Featuring 52 songs and a foreword by Pink Floyd’s first manager, Peter Jenner, and an introduction by Rob Chapman (author of Syd Barrett: A Very Irregular Head), this beautifully illustrated and official 96-page book compiles Syd’s extraordinary lyrics together for the very first time. David Gilmour has been a key person behind this book, working his way through Syd lyrics checking them for accuracy before the book went to the printers. A good friend of Brain Damage is Dr Kevin De Ornellas, a Lecturer in English Literature at Ulster University, and he has taken a detailed look at this new book… In an era of gargantuan coffee-table books, bloated CD and DVD box sets and cumbersome multi-disc vinyl re-releases, it is it refreshing to enjoy a relatively simple and affordable artefact: a small, easily handled book. This book, an apparently official provision of what is claimed to be Syd Barrett’s complete lyrics, is beautifully designed by Lora Findlay. It comes in a tactile, attractive cloth cover: on the front, a well-known Michael Ochs portrait of Syd Barrett is encased within an elaborate psychedelic border that is tasteful because it is all done with only two colours – white and a sort of mauve-lilac colour. The endpapers are particularly lovely – they feature repeated, wallpaper-like reproductions of Syd Barrett’s renowned Tortoise. Half of the tortoises have the head facing upwards – the other half are rotated 180 degrees. There are 168 tortoises in total. It is both a bit whacky and a bit poignant – and very much in the spirit of Barrett’s later music. A fuller, page-high reproduction of Barrett’s original, subtly-coloured 1963 Tortoise work is provided inside (page 18). The book is petite and thin but the high-quality cloth, the firm binding and the crisp texture of the pages makes the book feel sturdy: it is a keeper that will weather well. The lyrics are all laid out in a clear, readable font on either one or two self-contained pages and there are many splendid illustrations and photographs: if I counted correctly there are 18 monochrome images and 8 colour ones. Every one is reproduced perfectly: most feature posed or in-performance photographs of Syd Barrett with or without Pink Floyd; some reproduce Barrett’s art works. It might have been better to have more of Barrett’s art and less of Rick Wright’s cigarette and less of Roger Waters’ understated scowl. But the text of the book is what matters – here, there is much promise but the odd problem too.