• Voto:
Che Barrett fosse un genio sregolato, lo si sapeva. Che Barrett fosse l'anima dei Pink Floyd di fine anni '60, anche questo lo si sapeva già. Ma che proprio quel "crazy diamond" di Syd Barrett riuscisse a realizzare un disco "semplice", non particolarmente ostico all'orecchio umano, questo non se l'aspettava nessuno.
Secondo e ultimo capitolo della discografia di Barrett (in cui le sessions durarono appena quattro giorni) fu prodotto interamente da due illustri ex-colleghi, David Gilmour (che qui suona il basso) e Richard Wright (alle tastiere), ed è un lavoro meno cupo del precedente, il debut "The Madcap Laughs".
"Baby Lemonade", che apre l'album con un bellissimo e lungo intro arpeggiato, sembra uscita direttamente da "The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn", così come la successiva "Love Song". "Dominoes" è forse la canzone che più di tutte ha delle notevoli incursioni psichedeliche, con nastri al contrario stile "Tomorrow Never Knows" e tastiera fissa su una nota che sono decisamente di marca floydiana. Con "Rats" ci si trova ad ascoltare un brano quasi folk, con parti chitarristiche particolarmente caratterizzanti. "Maisie" è un episodio blues di ottima fattura, con parti vocali tipicamente pazze "alla Barrett". Estremamente solari le conclusive "Wolfpack" e "Efferviscing Elephant", che fanno quasi dispiacere della scomparsa di Barrett dal mondo musicale.
Personaggio molto turbolento all'interno dei Pink Floyd, con i quali ha realizzato i primi tre album prima di essere cacciato per far spazio alla grande figura emergente di Gilmour, ha avuto diverse instabilità psicologiche che ne hanno seriamente compromesso il futuro all'interno della band ed anche come musicista solista, e questo è un vero peccato. Negli anni '70 ha intrapreso l'hobby della pittura, poi probabilmente abbandonato. Ora sembra si sia stabilizzato, ma ovviamente nulla è certo riguardo la vita di questo "pazzo diamante". In sostanza, il disco sembra una raccolta di b-sides di "The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn", con il quale i Pink Floyd debuttarono nel 1967. Sicuramente è una spanna sotto l'intera produzione dei Pink Floyd, ma non per questo è un disco da sottovalutare. Merita di essere ascoltato, su questo non ci sono dubbi. E fidatevi, vi stupirà per la semplicità con la quale vi entrerà dentro. Non saranno forse necessari dieci ascolti per comprenderlo ed apprezzarlo in pieno, ma ne potrebbero bastare due-tre al massimo. E non ve ne libererete più, garantito...
NOTA : E' stato messo in commercio un box contenente i tre dischi solisti di Syd Barrett, "The Madcap Laughs" ('70), "Barrett" ('70) e "Opel" (Uscito nell'88 e contenente inediti e b-sides di vecchia data. L'uscita fu spinta dalla casa discografica), con la tracklist originale più alcune outtakes.
Elenco tracce testi samples e video
01 Baby Lemonade ()
In the sad town
Cold iron hands clap
The party of clowns outside
Rain falls in gray far away
Please, please, baby lemonade
In the evening sun going down
When the earth streams in, in the morning
Send a cage through the post
Make your name like a ghost
Please, please, baby lemonade
I'm screaming, I met you this way
You're nice to me like ice
In the clock they sent through a washing machine
Come around, make it soon, so alone
Please, please, baby lemonade
In the sad town
Cold iron hands clap
The party of clowns outside
Rain falls in gray far away
Please, please, baby lemonade
In the evening sun going down
When the earth streams in, in the morning
Send a cage through the post
Make your name like a ghost
Please, please, baby lemonade
02 Love Song ()
I knew a girl and I like her still
She said she knew she would trust me and I, her will
I said, "OK baby, tell me what you'll be
And I'll lay my head down and see what I see"
By the time she was back by her open eyes
I knew that I was in for a big surprise
I knew a girl and I like her still
She said she knew she would trust me and I, her will
I said, "OK baby, tell me what you'll be
And I'll lay my head down and see what I see"
By the time she was back by her open eyes
I knew that I was in for a big surprise
03 Dominoes ()
It's an idea, someday
In my tears, my dreams
Don't you want to see her proof?
Life that comes of no harm
You and I, you and I and dominoes, the day goes by...
You and I in place
Wasting time on dominoes
A day so dark, so warm
Life that comes of no harm
You and I and dominoes, time goes by...
Fireworks and heat, someday
Hold a shell, a stick or play
Overheard a lark today
Losing when my mind's astray
Don't you want to know with your pretty hair
Stretch out your hand, glad feel
In an echo for your way
It's an idea, someday
In my tears, my dreams
Don't you want to see her proof?
Life that comes of no harm
You and I and dominoes, the day goes by
And by, and by...
04 It Is Obvious ()
It is obvious
may I say, oh baby, that it is found on another plane?
Yes I can creep into cupboards, sleep in the hall
your stars - my stars, a simple cock bar
only an impulse - pie in the sky
mumble listen dolly
drift over your mind - holly
creep into bed when your head's on the ground
she held the torch on the porch,
she winked an eye
Reason it is written on the brambles
stranded on the spikes - my blood red, oh listen:
remember those times I could call
through the clear day
time - be there...
braver and braver, a handkerchief waver
the louder you lips to a loud hailer
growing together, they ('re) growing each either
no wondering, stumbling, fumbling
rumbling minds shot together,
our minds shot together...
So equally over a valley, a hill
wood on quarry stood, each of us crying
a velvet curtain of gray
mark the blanket where the sparrows play
and the trees by the waving corn stranded
my legs move the last empty inches to you
the softness, the warmth from the weather in suspense
mote to a grog - the star a white chalk
minds shot together, our minds shot together...
05 Rats ()
Got it hit down
spot knock inside a spider
says: "That's love yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!"
"That's love yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!"
says: "That's love - All know it
TV, teeth, feet, peace, feel it...
"That's love yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!"
"That's love yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!"
like the fall that brings me to
I like the fall that brings me to
I like the cord around sinew
I make a cord around sinew
Duck, the way to least is less
Tea craving of the metal west
'ell tomorrow's rain and test
'ell tomorrow's rain and test
Love an empty son and guess
Love an empty son and guess
pimples dangerous and blessed
Heaving, arriving, tinkling
mingling jets and statuettes
seething wet we meeting fleck
seething wet we meeting fleck
lines and winds and crib and half
each fair day I give you half
of each fair day I give you half
I look into your eyes and you,
flathe in the sun for you...
Bam, spastic, tactile engine
heaving, crackle, slinky, dormy, roofy, wham
I'll have them, fried bloke
broken jardy, cardy, smoocho, moocho, paki, pufftle
sploshette moxy, very smelly,
cable, gable, splintra, channel
top the seam he's taken off
rats, rats lay down flat
we don't need you, we act like that
and if you think you're un-loved
then we know about that...
rats, rats, lay down flat!
yes, yes, yes, yes, lay down flat!
06 Maisie ()
Maisie, Maisie, Maisie, Maisie...
bad luck, bride of a bull
strode out to meet Maisie in the evening light
Maisie, his illuminous grin put her in a spin
Maisie, lay in the hall
with diamonds and emeralds
Maisie, Maisie...
bad luck - the bride of a bull
Maisie lay in the wall with her emeralds
and diamond brooch, beyond reproach
bad luck - bride of a bull
strode out to meet Maisie in the evening light...
Maisie!
07 Gigolo Aunt ()
Grooving around in a trench coat
with the satin entrail
Seems to be all around in tin and lead pail, we pale
Jiving on down to the beach
to see the blue and the gray
seems to be all and it's rosy-it's a beautiful day!
Will you please keep on the track
'cause I almost want you back
'cause I know what you are
you are a gigolo aunt, you're a gigolo aunt!
Yes I know what you are
you are a gigolo aunt, you're a gigolo aunt!
Heading down with the light, the dust in your way
she was angrier than, than her watershell male
life to this love to me - heading me down to me
thunderbird shale
seems to be all and it's rosy - it's a beautiful day!
will you please keep on the track
'cause I almost want you back
'cause I know what you are
you are a gigolo aunt
Grooving on down in a knapsack superlative day
some wish she move and just as she can move jiving away
she made the scene should have been-superlative day
everything's all and it's rosy, it's a beautiful day
will you please keep on the track
'cause I almost want you back
'cause I know what you are
you are a gigolo aunt...
09 Wined and Dined ()
Wined and dined
Oh it seemed just like a dream
Girl was so kind
Kind of love I'd never seen
Only last summer, it's not so long ago
Just last summer, now musk winds blow
Wined and dined
Oh it seemed just like a dream
Girl was so kind
Kind of love I'd never seen
Only last summer, it's not so long ago
Just last summer, now musk winds blow
Wined and dined
Oh it seemed just like a dream
Girl was so kind
Kind of love I'd never seen
Chalk underfoot, life I should prove
Dancing in heat, our love and you
Wined and dined
Oh it seemed just like a dream
Girl was so kind
Kind of love I'd never seen
10 Wolfpack ()
Howling the pack in formation appears
Diamonds and clubs, light misted fog, the dead
Waving us back in formation
The pack in formation
Bowling they bat as a group
And the leader is seen so early
The pack on their backs, the fighters
Through misty the waving, the pack in formation
Far reaching waves on sight, shone right
I lay as if in surround
All enmeshing, hovering
The milder I gaze
All the animals laying trail
Beyond the bough winds
Mild the reflecting electricity eyes
Tears, the life that was ours
Grows sharper and stronger away and beyond
Short wheeling, fresh spring
Gripped with blanched bones moaned
Magnesium, proverbs and sobs
Howling the pack in formation appears
Diamonds and clubs, light misted fog, the dead
Waving us back in formation
The pack in formation
11 Effervescing Elephant ()
An Effervescing Elephant
with tiny eyes and great big trunk
Once whispered to the tiny ear
The ear of one inferior
that by next June he'd die, oh yeah!
Because the tiger would roam
The little one said, "Oh my goodness I must stay at home"
And every time I hear a growl
I'll know the tiger's on the prowl
and I'll be really safe, you know
the elephant he told me so
Everyone was nervy, oh yeah!
and the message was spread
to zebra, mongoose, and the dirty hippopotamus
who wallowed in the mud and chewed
his spicy hippo-plankton food
and tended to ignore the word
preferring to survey a herd
a stupid water bison, oh yeah
I'd much prefer something to chew
He ate the elephant
Carico i commenti... con calma
Altre recensioni
Di nikko89
Questo non è un semplice disco, questo è un flusso di coscienza, è un soliloquio.
Syd sta cadendo in un pozzo ma sembra trovarci godimento, dato che non fa niente per non cadere sempre più in basso.
Di Valeriorivoli
Stamattina ho passeggiato in un sogno: ero tra i crateri oscuri di una Luna fatta di ricordi...
Un pugno di mosche in mano, come poche canzoni opalescenti e monocordi, come l'ultimo album di Syd.
Di rabloto
Grazie Syd per la diacronia buffa e umile e anarchica del tuo cantato.
Ho Fiducia in Syd. E quel che canta adesso è mio. Di chi lo ascolta. Di chi è placido nel godere della vita che arriva senza danno.
Di fuggitivo
Musica stonata per gente stonata.
La voce svogliata e stanca di Barrett coincideva alla perfezione con il mio stato fisico e mentale.
Di luludia
"Barrett è un disco avvolto in una specie di sonno e le canzoni sembrano quasi lottare per venire fuori."
"Waving my arms in the air è un grumo di esile pazzia innocente che tenta di essere una canzone pop, senza ovviamente riuscirci e quindi riuscendoci al massimo grado."
