| The Piper at the Gates of Dawn | |
| Type: | studio |
| Artist: | Pink Floyd |
| Cover: | PinkFloyd-album-piperatthegatesofdawn 300.jpg |
| Recorded: | 21 February – 21 May 1967 |
| Studio: | EMI, London |
| Genre: | |
| Label: | EMI Columbia |
| Producer: | Norman Smith |
| Next Title: | A Saucerful of Secrets |
| Next Year: | 1968 |
The Piper at the Gates of Dawn is the debut studio album by English rock band Pink Floyd, released on 4 August 1967 by EMI Columbia.[5] It is the only Pink Floyd album made under the leadership of founder member Syd Barrett (lead vocals, guitar); he wrote all but three tracks, with additional composition by members Roger Waters (bass, vocals), Nick Mason (drums), and Richard Wright (keyboards, vocals). The album followed the band's influential performances at London's UFO Club and their early chart success with the 1967 non-album singles "Arnold Layne" and "See Emily Play".
The album was recorded at EMI Studios in London's Abbey Road from February to May 1967 and produced by Norman Smith. It blended Pink Floyd's reputation for long-form improvisational pieces with Barrett's short pop songs and whimsical take on psychedelia. The album made prominent use of recording effects such as reverb and echo, employing tools such as EMT plate reverberation, automatic double tracking (ADT), and Abbey Road's echo chamber. Part-way through the recording sessions, Barrett's growing use of the psychedelic drug LSD accompanied his increasingly debilitated mental state, leading to his eventual departure from the group the following year. The album title was derived from referencing the god Pan in chapter seven of Kenneth Grahame's 1908 children's novel The Wind in the Willows, a favourite of Barrett's.
The album was released to critical and commercial success, reaching number 6 on the UK Albums Chart. In the United States, it was released as Pink Floyd in October on Tower Records with an altered track listing that omitted three songs and included "See Emily Play". In the UK, no singles were released from the album, but in the US, "Flaming" was offered as a single. Two of its songs, "Astronomy Dominé" and "Interstellar Overdrive", became long-term mainstays of the band's live setlist, while other songs were performed live only a handful of times. In 1973, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn was packaged with the band's second album A Saucerful of Secrets (1968) and released as A Nice Pair, to introduce the band's early work to new fans gained with the success of The Dark Side of the Moon (1973).
The album has since been hailed as a pivotal psychedelic music recording. Special limited editions of The Piper at the Gates of Dawn were issued to mark its 30th, 40th, and 50th anniversaries, with the former two releases containing bonus tracks. In 2012, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn was placed at number 347 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time", moved up to number 253 in the 2020 edition.[6]
Architecture students Roger Waters, Nick Mason and Richard Wright and art student Syd Barrett had performed under various group names since 1962, and began touring as "The Pink Floyd Sound" in 1965. Around 1966, the group began to achieve underground success for their influential performances at London's UFO Club.[7] They turned professional on 1 February 1967 when they signed with EMI, with an advance fee of £5,000.[8] [9] [10] Their first single, a song about a kleptomaniac transvestite titled "Arnold Layne", was released on 11 March to mild controversy, as Radio London refused to air it.[8] [11]
About three weeks later, the band were introduced to the mainstream media. EMI's press release claimed that the band were "musical spokesmen for a new movement which involves experimentation in all the arts", but EMI attempted to put some distance between them and the underground scene from which the band originated by stating that "the Pink Floyd does not know what people mean by psychedelic pop and are not trying to create hallucinatory effects on their audiences."[12] [13] The band returned to Sound Techniques studio to record their next single, "See Emily Play", on 18 May.[14] [15] The single was released almost a month later, on 16 June, and reached number six in the charts.[16] [17]
Pink Floyd picked up a tabloid reputation for making music for LSD users. The popular broadsheet News of the World printed a story nine days before the album's recording sessions began, saying that "The Pink Floyd group specialise in 'psychedelic music', which is designed to illustrate LSD experiences."[18] Contrary to this image, only Barrett was known to be taking LSD; authors Ray B. Browne and Pat Browne contend that he was the "only real drug user in the band".[19]
Pink Floyd's record deal was a £5,000 advance over five years, low royalties and no free studio time, which was poor by today's standards, but typical for the time.[20] It included album development, which was very unusual; EMI, unsure of exactly what kind of band they had signed, gave them free rein to record whatever they wanted.[21]
They recorded the album at EMI's Abbey Road Studios in London and their recording room was next to the Beatles' recording room where the Beatles were recording the album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Pink Floyd sat in on one Beatles session for the song "Lovely Rita".[22] The Piper at the Gates of Dawn was overseen by producer Norman Smith,[23] a central figure in Pink Floyd's negotiations with EMI.[24] Balance engineer Pete Bown, who had mentored Smith, helped ensure that the album had a unique sound, through his experimentation with equipment and recording techniques.[25] Bown, assisted by studio manager David Harris, set up microphones an hour before the sessions began. Bown's microphone choices were mostly different from those used by Smith to record the Beatles' EMI sessions.[26] Because of the quietness of Barrett's singing, he was placed in a vocal isolation booth to sing his parts. Automatic double tracking (ADT) was used to add layers of echo to the vocals and to some instruments.[27] The album features an unusually heavy use of echo and reverb to create a unique sound. Much of the reverb came from a set of Elektro-Mess-Technik plate reverberators – customised EMT 140s containing thin metal plates under tension – and the studio's tiled echo chamber built in 1931.
The album is made up of two different classes of songs: lengthy improvisations from the band's live performances and shorter songs that Barrett had written.[28] Barrett's LSD intake escalated part-way through the album's recording sessions.[29] Although in his 2005 autobiography Mason recalled the sessions as relatively trouble-free, Smith disagreed and claimed that Barrett was unresponsive to his suggestions and constructive criticism.[30] [31] In an attempt to build a relationship with the band, Smith played jazz on the piano while the band joined in. These jam sessions worked well with Waters, who was apparently helpful, and Wright, who was "laid-back". Smith's attempts to connect with Barrett were less productive: "With Syd, I eventually realised I was wasting my time."[32] Smith later admitted that his traditional ideas of music were somewhat at odds with the psychedelic background from which Pink Floyd had come. Nevertheless, he managed to "discourage the live ramble", as band manager Peter Jenner called it, guiding the band toward producing songs with a more manageable length.[33]
Barrett would end up writing eight of the album's songs and contributing to two instrumentals credited to the whole band, with Waters creating the sole remaining composition "Take Up Thy Stethoscope and Walk".[34] Mason recalled how the album "was recorded in what one might call the old-fashioned way: rather quickly. As time went by we started spending longer and longer."
Recording started on 21 February[35] with six takes[36] of "Matilda Mother", then called "Matilda's Mother".[28] [37] The following week, on the 27th,[38] the band recorded five takes of "Interstellar Overdrive", and "Chapter 24".[38] [39] On 16 March, the band had another go at recording "Interstellar Overdrive", in an attempt to create a shorter version,[40] and "Flaming" (originally titled "Snowing"), which was recorded in a single take[41] with one vocal overdub.[42] On 19 March, six takes of "The Gnome" were recorded.[42] [43] The following day, the band recorded Waters' "Take Up Thy Stethoscope and Walk".[43] [44] On 21 March, the band were invited to watch the Beatles record "Lovely Rita".[45] [46] The following day, they recorded "The Scarecrow" in one take.[47] [48] The next three tracks – "Astronomy Dominé", "Interstellar Overdrive" and "Pow R. Toc H." – were worked on extensively between 21 March and 12 April,[49] having originally been lengthy instrumentals. Between 12 and 18 April,[50] the band recorded "Percy the Rat Catcher" and a currently unreleased track called "She Was a Millionaire".[51] [52] [53]
"Percy the Rat Catcher" received overdubs across five studio sessions and then was mixed in late June, eventually being given the name "Lucifer Sam".[54] Songwriting for the majority of the album is credited solely to Barrett, with tracks such as "Bike" having been written in late 1966 before the album was started.[28] [55] [56] "Bike" was recorded on 21 May 1967 and originally entitled "The Bike Song".[28] By June, Barrett's increasing LSD use during the recording project left him looking visibly debilitated.[29]
In June 1967 before the album was released, the single "See Emily Play" was sold as a 7-inch 45 rpm record, with "The Scarecrow" on the B-side, listed as "Scarecrow".[57] The full album was released on 4 August 1967, including "The Scarecrow".
Pink Floyd continued to perform at the UFO Club, drawing huge crowds, but Barrett's deterioration caused them serious concern. The band initially hoped that his erratic behaviour was a phase that would pass, but others, including manager Peter Jenner and his secretary June Child, were more realistic:
To the band's consternation, they were forced to cancel their appearance at the prestigious National Jazz and Blues Festival, informing the music press that Barrett was suffering from nervous exhaustion. Jenner and Waters arranged for Barrett to see a psychiatrist – a meeting he did not attend. He was sent to relax in the sun on the Spanish island of Formentera with Waters and Sam Hutt (a doctor well-established in the underground music scene), but this led to no visible improvement.[58] [59] [60] [61]
The original UK LP was released on 4 August 1967 in both monaural and stereophonic mixes. It reached number six on the UK charts.[62] [63] The original US album appeared on the Tower division of Capitol on 21 October 1967. This version was officially titled simply Pink Floyd, though the original album title did appear on the back cover as on the UK issue, and Dick Clark referred to the record by its original title when the group appeared on his American Bandstand television program on 18 November.[64] [65] The US album featured an abbreviated track listing,[66] and reached number 131 on the Billboard charts. The UK single, "See Emily Play", was substituted for "Astronomy Dominé", "Flaming" and "Bike".[66] Released in time for the band's US tour, "Flaming" was released as a single, backed with "The Gnome".[67] The Tower issue of the album also faded out "Interstellar Overdrive" and broke up the segue into "The Gnome" to fit the re-sequencing of the songs. Later US issues on compact disc had the same title and track list as the UK version. The album was certified Gold in the US as a part of A Nice Pair with A Saucerful of Secrets on 11 March 1994.[62]
About being handled on Tower Records, Jenner commented that: "In terms of the U.K. and Europe it was always fine. America was always difficult. Capitol couldn't see it. You know, 'What is this latest bit of rubbish from England? Oh Christ, it'll give us more grief, so we'll put it out on Tower Records', which was a subsidiary of Capitol Records [...] It was a very cheapskate operation and it was the beginning of endless problems The Floyd had with Capitol. It started off bad and went on being bad."[68]
Up-and-coming society photographer Vic Singh was hired to photograph the band for the album cover. Singh shared a studio with photographer David Bailey, and he was friends with Beatles guitarist George Harrison. Singh asked Jenner and King to dress the band in the brightest clothes they could find. Singh then shot them with a prism lens that Harrison had given him. The cover was meant to resemble an LSD trip, a style that was favoured at the time.[69] In 2017, the lens was displayed at the Victoria and Albert Museum, as part of the exhibition.
Barrett came up with the album title The Piper at the Gates of Dawn; the album was originally titled Projection up to as late as July 1967.[70] The title was taken from that of chapter seven of Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows[71] [72] which contains a visionary encounter with the god Pan, who plays his pan pipe at dawn.[73] It was one of Barrett's favourite books, and he often gave friends the impression that he was the embodiment of Pan.[34] [74] The moniker was later used in the song "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", in which Barrett is called "you Piper".[75] The cover was one of several Pink Floyd album covers used on a series of Royal Mail stamps issued in May 2016 to commemorate 50 years of Pink Floyd.[76]
In 2018, the album was reissued in its mono mix. With this version came with a new packaging box with the original record cover inside. This new design was done by Hipgnosis' Aubrey Powell and Peter Curzon and includes a gold-embossed version of the graphic by Syd Barrett which features on the back cover of the original LP.[77]
At the time of release, both Record Mirror and NME gave the album four stars out of five. Record Mirror commented that "[t]he psychedelic image of the group really comes to life, record wise, on this LP which is a fine showcase for both their talent and the recording technique. Plenty of mind blowing sound, both blatant and subtle here, and the whole thing is extremely well performed."[78] Cash Box called it "a particularly striking collection of driving, up-to-date rock ventures".[79] Paul McCartney[45] and Pink Floyd's previous producer Joe Boyd both rated the album highly. Some voiced the opinion of the underground fans, by suggesting that the album did not reflect the band's live performances.[15]