Pink Floyd - A Saucerful Of Secrets

7.5 - England - 1968

The transitional album: reeling from the forced departure of the insane Syd Barrett, the group played on – with mixed results, but at least they get points for trying.  The album opener (the nicely titled “Let There Be More Light”) starts out with a great riff, but the rest of the track doesn’t quite live up to the high bar set by its opening section.  Keyboardist Richard Wright’s “Remember A Day” is the psychedelic pop everyone thought Barrett traded in, but, “See Emily Play” excepted, didn’t (it also features a rare glimpse of a five-man Floyd what with both Barrett and Gilmour sharing guitar duties on the track).  “Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun” features another great title, but is all atmosphere and no point.  “Corporal Clegg” is somewhat light-hearted anticipation of the anti-war themes that would dominate the later albums The Wall and The Final Cut (and features some nice guitar noise from Barrett). 

The lengthy title track forms the album’s centerpiece, and there’s a certain bent appeal to the idea that a major label act would fill up their album with twelve minutes of noise (apparently, they made a deal with EMI that they would fill most of the album with (relatively) accessible pop songs provided they could do what they like with the rest of the record). 

Finally, “Jugband Blues” is the track that justifies the canonization of Barrett’s madness: a truly affecting lyric in which Barrett tries to trace the outlines of his lost mind.  However, the considerable emotional impact of the track depends on a familiarity with the metanarrative of Barrett’s descent into insanity.  “See-Saw” sucks, though.  Perhaps it would have been better if it actually were about incest.