I submitted the lyric change to "barley grew" in the second verse.
The lyrics are something like pointillism-with-words. Barrett uses his stream-of-consciousness type of surrealism to paint an impressionistic portrait that only appears to the listener when it's set to the music. Apart from the music, the lyrics are desolate, lonely, explicitly rejected. But with the music, including the aptly placed reverb effect, the song takes on a grand, romantic ode, nearly majestic in scope -- the loneliness, so stark in a face-value reading, becomes a yearning, perhaps not hopeful, but at least wistful in remembrance.
It was Syd Barrett's talent to use the methods and approaches of his "first" art, painting, to achieve what typical lyricists never even conceive. In my mind, when he is called a "genius" -- not unusual when discussing his work -- this type of cross-methodology is what is meant. I can think of no one else who does quite this in songwriting. Kind of like what Jimi Hendrix did with the electric guitar, Barrett blends different worlds that typically don't mix into a synesthetic experience of word-sound-sight.
It's not uncommon for a listener to have to develop an ear to be able to hear music on that level.
I submitted the lyric change to "barley grew" in the second verse.
The lyrics are something like pointillism-with-words. Barrett uses his stream-of-consciousness type of surrealism to paint an impressionistic portrait that only appears to the listener when it's set to the music. Apart from the music, the lyrics are desolate, lonely, explicitly rejected. But with the music, including the aptly placed reverb effect, the song takes on a grand, romantic ode, nearly majestic in scope -- the loneliness, so stark in a face-value reading, becomes a yearning, perhaps not hopeful, but at least wistful in remembrance.
It was Syd Barrett's talent to use the methods and approaches of his "first" art, painting, to achieve what typical lyricists never even conceive. In my mind, when he is called a "genius" -- not unusual when discussing his work -- this type of cross-methodology is what is meant. I can think of no one else who does quite this in songwriting. Kind of like what Jimi Hendrix did with the electric guitar, Barrett blends different worlds that typically don't mix into a synesthetic experience of word-sound-sight.
It's not uncommon for a listener to have to develop an ear to be able to hear music on that level.