Pink Floyd – Jugband Blues
There are dark places within the human psyche some are fortunate enough never to visit. Then there are others that can never escape. Syd Barrett was one such casualty of the human mind’s vociferous self-destructive capability. It can’t be said when first Barrett took his initial tentative steps into the darkness of this windowless room of despair, whether there was always something lurking just beneath the surface awaiting the right set of circumstances to free it or if it was simply excess that took its toll, but what seems certain is that too much LSD definitely played a part in closing the door behind him.
Photograph: Dezo Hoffmann/Rex Features
‘Jugband Blues’ was Barrett’s final song for the band he’d fronted and given the name to, psychedelic space-rockers Pink Floyd, and appeared on their second album, 1968′s A Saucerful of Secrets.
The first thing that hits you about ‘Jugband Blues’ is that something isn’t quite right. Is this the composition of a man trapped in the throes of delirium, or the frustrated ventings of a lead singer and writer alienated from the rest of his band, fully aware that the gig is up and the other members are about to oust him? Barrett’s lyrics and mood could be interpreted as either. Whichever it is, ‘Jugband Blues’ makes for a disturbing, if eclectic three minutes.
The fragmented structure mirrors the erratic behaviour of Barrett prior to his unceremonious dismissal from the band and demonstrates why this song is widely regarded as an expression of pained anguish, dragged screaming from the deepest pit of his mental turmoil. A third of the way in, what sounds like a brass band disrupts the proceedings, throwing the song completely off track and into the realms of jaunty ragtime as though the Salvation Army has sent the everyone packing with a fearsome blast of a tuba. It finishes with Barrett’s ghostly voice drifting off into the ether, quite possibly taking his sanity with it.
This is dark territory. Territory that would turn even blacker on Barrett’s first solo album The Madcap Laughs, particularly on the traumatic ‘Dark Globe’ – a song that literally sounds like a scream for help from the wilderness of mental deterioration.
In the case of ‘Jugband Blues’, Syd Barrett’s eerily disjointed vocal sounds like a lost soul – as Roger Waters would go on to describe him in ‘Wish You Were Here’ – alone and afraid in that dark, windowless room, hoping his words will somehow find a way out and relief from the torment will find its way in.
Scary stuff!
‘Jugband Blues’ appears on A Saucerful of Secrets and is available from Amazon.co.uk
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