Sadly Syd Barrett isn't around any more. He died earlier this year.
I used to know a friend who said that Opel was the worst album he had ever heard. I think it is probably one of the best I have ever listened to. However, it takes a while to become accustomed to Syd Barrett's strange world. This is a record which will grow on you.
Opel starts off with the haunting title track, which has a wistful melody, and sparse, intense lyrics:
A bare winding carcass, stark shimmers as flies scoop up meat, an empty way... dry tears... crisp flax squeaks tall reeds make a circle of gray in a summer way, around man stood on ground...
I'm trying I'm trying to find you! To find you I'm living, I'm giving, To find you, To find you, I'm living, I'm living, I'm trying, I'm giving
The final verse is particularly poignant - it comes across as a desperate scream for help.
Often Barrett employs stream of consciousness techniques, which suit the mournful, introspective, abstract qualities of his songs. At the same time, you are left with an aching sadness, that such a talented musician, who penned the wonderful "Piper At The Gates Of Dawn" with Pink Floyd, had lost so much of his former joy for life. Opel is a collection of tracks lost for years in EMIs vaults and made after Syd's tragic mental breakdown. It seems that the combination of drugs and pressure to deliver album
success was too much for him. Unlike other casualties of the sixties counterculture, however, with the exception of Brian Wilson, Barrett portrayed his breakdown on vinyl.
The next track is a slower and to my ear superior version to Octopus than was released on "Madcap Laughs". It contains the wonderfully childish refrain "Please leave us here / Close our eyes to the octopus ride" - reflecting, I guess, the tingle of excitement of a child at a fairground. Barrett was heavily influenced by the Beatles in the simplicity of much of his songwriting, yet his output is much more dazzlingly original and daring than even Lennon and McCartney's.
This is followed by "Rats" - again, I think, a superior, and darker, song than the official version on "Barrett". This is a more aggressive, harder track, with a metronomic, staccato beat, yet it is still underpinned by Barrett's frailty and lack of confidence:
Bam, spastic, tactile engine heaving, crackle, slinky, dormy, roofy, wham I'll have them, fried bloke broken jardy, cardy, smoocho, moocho, paki, pufftle sploshette moxy, very smelly, cable, gable, splintra, channel top the seam he's taken off
- here words are employed purely as a soundscape, rather than for any meaning.
rats, rats lay down flat we don't need you, we act like that and if you think you're unloved then we know about that... rats, rats, lay down flat! yes, yes, yes, yes, lay down flat!
- a very angry, spiteful chorus
Golden Hair is Barrett's adaptation of a James Joyce poem and, while it is effective, beautiful and evocative, for me it is one of the weaker tracks on the album.
Dolly Rocker is a relatively cheerful love song, with a typically sixties feel. However, towards the end Barrett's insecurities seep through:
Oceans may travel, away too long senses in the gravel, to see yourself at home nice to be at home
(The last line seems to me to be delivered sarcastically. "Nice" is such a meaningless word; here it seems to convey contempt for the banality of everyday life).
Word Song is completely wonderful. A simple, abstract collage of words which build on each other. It is a completely unique experience and no-one but Syd Barrett could pull it off.
Wined and Dined is yet another bitter-sweet song about longing and regret for past love:
Wined and dined, oh it seemed just like a dream! Girl was so kind, kind of love I'd never seen. Only last summer, it's not so long ago... just last summer, now massed winds blow...
This is followed by Swan Lee - a Hiawatha-esque tale, again reflecting Barrett's love of the childish and inane. I like the rhythym, echoing Swan Lee's journey, which contrasts with the simple refrain, "the land in silence stands"
Birdie Hop is a completely brilliant, mad evocation of a "hoppy bird" on a window sill. It is wonderfully silly and yet it ends with the line "I see the flies" - the same, dark undercurrent which pervades the whole album.
"Lets Split" - I don't think this is a very effective song. It is simply an angry rant, which does not work as well as the other, more complex songs on the album. However, I like the repitition of:
Nobody is right tonight, night, height, right, tight, it isn't right Me out, you out And everything is out out, out, out, out, out, out Let's split!
- giving an interesting rhythmic texture to the lyrics.
Dark Globe (Wouldn't You Miss Me) is my favourite track on the album. Hauntingly atmospheric, and very depressing, this burrows into your psyche. It is a brutally honest exploration of unrequited love:
Oh where are you now, Pussy willow that smiled on this leaf? When I was alone you promised the stone from your heart. My head kissed the ground I was half the way down. Treading the sand. Please, please, lift a hand. I'm only a person whose armbands beat and his hands hang tall. Won't you miss me? Wouldn't you miss me at all?
This mood is thankfully relieved by Milky Way, a cheerful and optimistic song, with simple, childish lyrics:
Give a gasp of life today when you're in the Milky Way. Oh won't you please, knock on wood of the trees. Glad you, hold you, mold you and hold you, means five miles and everyway for you...
The final track, is merely an instrumental of Golden Hair and isn't particularly special.
Opel is a stunning album. It is best played quietly and contemplatively, late at night, with the lights down low. Available at a low price in shops (you should be able to get it for about £8), it is essential listening. This is an album which gets under your skin.
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