We’re always very keen for Brain Damage visitor contributions, and the following is a great example of writing by I. G. Roberts. He has come up with a great, and well argued, Pink Floyd playlist that, he suggests, looks at “the gentler, lesser spotted, more rusticated side of one of the world’s most successful bands. ‘A sun-dappled world of birdsong, bees, church bells and drowsy melodies drifting down the river into the sunset awaits you.â”… I fell under the spell of The Pink Floyd on hearing their first two singles, âArnold Layneâ and âSee Emily Playâ, during the fabled spring and summer of 1967 â I think the definite article may have still been in play then, although it had certainly disappeared by early August when the debut album was released. At the time, I spent approximately half of one weekâs wages on the thrilling âSee Emily Playâ â about 35p these days â from my after-school job (collecting paint and wallpaper etc. on a delivery bike with a basket attached for a local decoratorâs shop from a wholesaler). Joint-top of my birthday wish-list were Sgt. Pepperâs Lonely Hearts Club Band and The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn. I certainly got both albums,
although as I had left school and was working by then, I may have had to cough up some of the price of them out of my wages. I think albums cost 32s/6d each â in modern money, a combined sum of £3.25p. I doubt if Iâve ever since had such value from that amount of cash. No wonder that Pepper and Piper are forever linked in my mind. Incidentally, the recording of both albums overlapped in the studios at Abbey Road during the first half of 1967.
