The best Syd Barrett song out of his 2 official solo albums

funniest is def Here I go Again

best maybe Baby Lemonade...?

this is hard

hard is an understatement

my college band covered "dark globe", I still have a soft spot for it.

Terrapin for me.

"Here I Go" is just tremendous but I think my favorite songs here are "Wined and Dined" and "Wolfpack" - "Howling the pack in formation appears. In formation!" -- just amazing

i'm thinking of choosing No Good Trying or No Man's Land, but the fact that Syd stop singing somewhere in the middle of the song (WHY? too short) makes me wanna go with Dark Globe instead

Dominoes

"Gigolo Aunt"

'Baby Lemonade'

gotta just click Dark Globe before I get perplexed. Most arresting use of rubato in a rock recording ever.

Late Night over Terrapin.

Voted for 'If It's In You', not because it's in any way a great song, or a great vocal performance (far from it in both cases), but because it's raw and seems to capture an honest aural portrait of what I imagine Syd was like at that particular time. It's almost difficult to listen to. Try this one day: play Floyd's 'Arnold Layne' and 'If It's In You' back-to-back and you hear a guy go from a young, promising star-in-the-making to a mentally frazzled young, tragic wisp of a man.

"to a mentally frazzled young, tragic wisp of a man"

maybe in the vocals performance , but it's a funny song!

Maisie and Wolfpack are even more evocative for me of someone faced with the boundary zone

xpost:

I dunno, man. I don't even know what the hell his intention was when he wrote it. All I know is that I don't find mental illness funny at all.

of course it's not, but other songs, as Lewis said, are more evocative imo of a mentally ill person (dark globe..)

Dominoes.

This is one where I'd be open to the idea that almost every single choice as correct. My favorite is Rats, just for the way it coalesces and then expires.

I'd usually vote Terrapin but "Feel" just has this haunting quality to it, swinging violently from one emotion to the next. It sort of starts out in some heartbroken place of loss and then gets sucked down into this cavern of some other place and then coming up back to the light again wrapping up that original thought with a nice little old fashioned melody. It's a bit like someone writing 2 or 3 songs at once. Plus it has the gorgeous line "A gasp, shringing". Syd's lyrics are some of the most beautifully poetic to come out of all of 20th century pop music.

I'm glad "Opel" wasn't on this poll otherwise the title track would probably run away with it.

i'm thinking of choosing No Good Trying or No Man's Land, but the fact that Syd stop singing somewhere in the middle of the song (WHY? too short) makes me wanna go with Dark Globe instead

Pretty sure the instrumental section afterwards is Syd backed with the Soft Machine, which is one of the best possible psych jam lineups you could imagine.

Late Night over Terrapin.

Late Night is the only song (other than maybe the coda of Jugband Blues) where the fear and desperation hiding behind the psychedelic Syd "persona" is laid bare.

"Octopus" is the only song that he ever explained in interview, it's the one song I'd play to anyone.

No way I can possibly choose.

I think matt if you want to add another track to that particular canon, Opel is intense. I'm tryyyyyyyyying.....to fiiiiiiiiind youuuuuuu.

Possibly. I know Opel a lot less well than the two official records.

I hope "Terrapin" runs away with this. "Cos we're the fishies and all we do / the move about is all we do / well oh baby my hairs on end about you"

I sang "Terrapin" as a lullaby to my son until he was about two years old.

Took me forever to choose but Golden Hair over Last Night by the tiniest hair.

" Late Night" is my all time favorite among many favorite Syd songs.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

but I think my favorite songs here are "Wined and Dined" and "Wolfpack" - "Howling the pack in formation appears. In formation!" -- just amazing

Hmmmmmm, I think I'm with you on that one. Still don't know what to vote for though. Can I confess that I've always found "Terrapin" a bit boring?

and smiled and gazed all over my arm

The key to Terrapin is to focus v v closely on the sound of his pick scraping the strings

To focus very closely on everything, every little sound and syllable. I love that song!

It's kind of a trance tune is the thing. For swaying.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

It's some kind of sign of quality that all the songs with zero votes are really great.

Yes. Should have voted "Wolfpack"!!!!!!

I always feel bad for "Maisie", by all accounts it was 'busked up' during a warm-up, kept for posterity, reasonably funny..

I have to assume Robyn Hitchcock's daughter is named after 'Maisie', not sure if that constitutes a vote for it

great cover:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s__QsvhTlTg

Here's my cover of "Terrapin" from a few years ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nTf2Ygge-U