Pink Floyd – Piper At The Gates Of Dawn (Alternative Version)

As I come to the end of my year of Psychedelic playlists, I thought I would throw a reimagined version of one of the great psych albums. That is ‘Piper At The Gates Of Dawn’, the debut album from Pink Floyd. This was the only album to include original guitar player and main songwriter, Syd Barrett when at the hight of his powers. His tenure in the band was short lived, which if you have seen the recent ‘Have You Got It Yet?” film could have been down to a personality disorder exasperated by his drug intake. The album could only have come out in the late 60s, with its songs covering subjects such as the I-Chang, gnomes, bikes and with references to children’s literature. The psychedelic jams are also very much of their time. 

With the Floyd over the past ten years or so finally given the archives a bit of a clear out, it was nice to see what there was to come up with an album that was in my opinion all killer and no filler. That meant including the single A-Sides of ‘Arnold Layne’ and ‘See Emily Play’. Singles at this time were, for the most part, were left off of albums but not always. There is the exclusive B-Side of ‘Arnold Layne’ as well to consider. ‘Candy and a Current Bun’ was originally known as ‘Let’s Roll Another One’. The lyrics and title were changed after pressure from the record company due to their overt references to drugs. It didn’t stop Barrett from including the word ‘Fuck’ in the re-recording in such a way that it was missed by everyone not listening closely enough. For this what-if album, that originally version is included here and is the one song on this compilation that the Floyd have not released officially. Why not I ask, considering a recording of it does still exist and has been present on bootlegs, in edited form. The instrumental middle section always seems to be missing form the persons I have heard. 

I have always found Pink Floyd’s psychedelic noodling became a little tedious after a couple of listens and ‘Interstellar Overdrive’ is no acceptation. Due to the additional tracks, but wanting something to compliment ‘For R. Too H.” I thought about editing down ‘Interstellar Overdrive’ to a more manageable length but on the 40th Anniversary of ‘Piper At The Gates of Dawn’ from 2007, there were a couple of different versions. The ‘French Edit’ fades out but ‘Take 6’ is complete so I used this instead. It doesn’t have the awesome ending the original LP version has but in this case less is more. I have also included an alternative version of ‘Matilda Mother’ which has completely different lyrics.

The rest of the album is as you were, even though I suspect to get the most out of this release, all the songs would have to have been released in mono. 

Side 1

1. stronomy Domine
2. Lucifer Sam
3. Chapter 24
4. See Emily Play
5. Flaming
6. Pow R. Toc H.

Side 2

1. Arnold Layne
2. Interstellar Overdrive (Take 6)
3. The Gnome
4. Let’s Roll Another One
5. The Scarecrow
6. Matilda Mother (Alternative Version)
7. Bike 

The cover was one that I came across online but did not make a note of who the creator was. Whoever you are, thank you especially as this is considerably more psychedelic than the one the original album had.