165 Hello Pink Floyd - Arnold Layne

Chart  entered :  30  March  1967

Chart  peak : 20

Number  of  hits : 10

Anomalies  abound  here. We  only  get  to  talk  about  the  'Floyd  due  to  the   brief  charting  of  a popular album  track  in  the  download  era. No  other  band  is  so  badly  represented  by  their  singles chart record. Only  two  of  their  ten  hits  feature  what  most  people  ( sorry  Syd  fans )  would  consider the classic  line  up. Yet  this  is  is  a band  whose  stock  never  seems  to  stop  rising  - despite  the  fact their last  new  record  was  released  20  years  ago ( much  longer  than  that  if  you  take  Roger  Waters's part )  -  and  you  could  make  a  credible  case  that  they  have  been  more  influential  than  the  Beatles.

The  band  started  to  coalesce  in  1963  amongst  architecture  students  at  London  Polytechnic. The  story  is  quite  tortuous,  involving  various  unrecorded  bands  and  unfamiliar ( to  us )  bandmates  and  well-covered  elsewhere  if  you're  interested. By  mid-1965  they  had  boiled  down  to  the  four  guys  on  the  sleeve  above  ( Rick  Wright - keyboards, Roger  Waters - bass, Nick  Mason- drums  and  Roger  "Syd"  Barrett - lead vocals  and  guitar )  and  were  about  to  change  their  name  from  The  Tea  Set  to  The  Pink  Floyd Sound , honouring  two  bluesmen  from  Syd's  record  collection. Roger  and  Syd  were  childhood  friends  in  Cambridge.

Accordingly  they  played  mainly  R &  B  covers  at  this  point  albeit  stretched  out  by  lengthy  soloing. In  1966  they attracted  two  managers  Peter  Jenner  and  Andrew  King  and  the  six  became  partners in  a  management  company  Blackhill  Enterprises  to  promote  the  band. The  band  lost the  "Sound" tag, joined  the  London  underground  scene  and  caught  attention  with  their  crude  but  effective  light shows. Syd  started  writing  his  own  material  which  he  would  then  improvise  on  stage. At  the  UFO  Club  in London  they  started  attracting  their  own  fanbase  and  the  record  companies  came  calling.

The  UFO's  manager  Joe  Boyd  co-financed  a  recording  session  which  produced  "Arnold  Layne" and three  days  later  they  were  signed  by  EMI  for  a  hefty  advance. "Arnold  Layne"  is  like  nothing  that had  gone  before  save  perhaps  some  of  Joe  Meek's  more  outre output ( it  was  recorded  just  four days  before  his  death ) .  Chosen  for  a  single  because  it  was  the  easiest  of  their  lengthy  songs  to whittle down  to  three  minutes,  it  concerns  an   actually  unidentified ( Arnold  Layne = Rolo  Tomassi ) underwear  thief   who  used  to  steal  bras  and  knickers  from  the  lines  of  Syd  and  Roger's  mums when  they  had  female  lodgers. The  oddness  of  the  subject  matter  is  underlined  by  Syd's  droning sneer  of  a  vocal  and  the  reversion  to  nursery  rhyme  simplicity  - "Doors  bang, chain  gang" - wherever  possible. The  music  adds  to  the  queasiness  with  Syd's  one  note  Eddie  Cochran  riff  that doesn't  go  anywhere  and  Rick  Wright's  macabre  organ  textures. EMI's  decision  to  use  the  Boyd session  version  rather  than  their  re-recording  means  the  organ  break  still   sounds  a  bit  bolted  on. It was  too  much  for  Radio  London  who  led  the  way  in  refusing  to  play  it   and  it's  generally   accepted  that  some  chart  hyping  by  their  management  helped  it  up  to  number  20.