When Red Floyd introduced 2d unmarried See Emily Play on June 16, 1967, it marked the start in their upward push to world luck – but additionally the start in their finish for early chief Syd Barrett.
Launched in March 1967, Red Floyd’s first unmarried Arnold Layne reached Quantity 20 on the United Kingdom chart. It sort of feels tame now – however Syd Barrett’s whimsical story of the moonlit garments thief was once regarded as transgressive via broadcasters, and its airplay quickly dwindled.
Trippy follow-up See Emily Play was once much less contentious, launched in June 1967 and peaking at Quantity 6 the next month. “We had been satisfied we’d move upper,” Nick Mason informed Prog in 2010. “We had been certain A Whiter Colour Of Light would drop out week to week. However in fact it didn’t – it simply caught there!”
As Prog reported in a 2023 rundown of the ten maximum essential Floyd live shows, See Emily Play were written via Barrett for a 1967 display billed as Video games For Would possibly, and shared that identify in its earliest shape. The development at London’s Queen Elizabeth Corridor was once described as “an area age rest for the climax of spring – digital composition, color and symbol projection, ladies, and the Red Floyd.” What was once to not like?
The efficiency integrated “roughly what was once to transform The Piper At The Gates Of Morning time, and premiering Emily.” At one level “any person dressed as an admiral gave out daffodils to the target market, whilst a bubble system stained the seats – allegedly leading to a lifelong ban on the venue for the crowd.”
Alan Freeman presented the band for his or her first look on Best Of The Pops. “I guess we anticipated extra out of it than it will ship,” the drummer displays. “It was once a bit of like going via sheep dip: you’re introduced in, you do the practice session, then mime somewhat than if truth be told play are living.
“My major reminiscence is of going into hair and makeup and discovering all of the highway team having their hair accomplished! No one knew who any person was once, so so long as you had lengthy hair, for those who wandered in to that space any person would wash your hair.
“However the display was once an anticlimax for all of the inevitable causes – you’d been on television tube but it surely didn’t exchange the sector. The essential stuff was once nonetheless to move out and play.”
Syd was once already wandering off into that space of now not in need of to be a pop famous person
Nick Mason
The luck of See Emily Play was once a milestone within the Red Floyd tale, and it’s nonetheless their 2d highest-charting unmarried via an extended chalk, after 1979’s Any other Brick In The Wall (Phase 2). Its 3 performances on Best Of The Pops additionally foreshadowed the bothered instances forward for the music’s mercurial author.
“By the point we went again for the second one display Syd was once now not that satisfied about it,” says Mason. “He was once getting a bit of bizarre, in order that made it all of the harder. He felt that John Lennon didn’t do Best Of The Pops, so why must he? He was once already wandering off into that space of now not in need of to be a pop famous person.
The BBC later wiped all 3 Best Of The Pops appearances, even if a degraded video recording in their first efficiency, on July 6, was once printed in 2009.
As soon as described via Prog as “the very best marriage of Floyd’s psych sound and Barrett’s lyrical genius,” an issue that’s lingered over the a long time is the identification of the music’s titular Emily. It’s ceaselessly assumed to be the Proper Honourable Emily Younger, a political candidate’s daughter who earned the nickname ‘the psychedelic schoolgirl’ at London’s UFO Membership, and who later become a respected artist.
Roger Waters stated in 2004 that “Emily might be any person. She’s only a hung-up chick, that’s all.” However Syd’s female friend Jenny Spires – ‘Jennifer Mild’ in Lucifer Sam – informed Prog in 2022: “Syd beloved the identify Emily; slightly odd then, and used to mention, ‘If I ever have a daughter I need to name her Emily.’ ‘Emily’ was once Syd’s Alice.”
As Barrett increasingly more rejected the theory of being a pop famous person, and become extra erratic in his behaviour, the band would transfer on with out him. “However See Emily Play was once an important stepping stone in our profession,” Mason stated. “It was once a large a part of the adventure.”
