Last year Saucerful Of Secrets’ guitarist and co-founder Lee Harris wrote a really great piece on one of Syd Barrett’s tunes “Here I Go” from The Madcap Laughs with the help of Willie Wilson and David Gilmour. The piece was for a feature on the Syd Barrett website called Stories Behind The Songs. It is a really great read worth checking out, especially today as we remember Syd on what would have been his 78th birthday.
“Here I Go” is on the album The Madcap Laughs and was recorded on April 17, 1969 at Abbey Road in Studio 2. According to the late Malcolm Jones who produced the session it took Syd “a matter of minutes” to write.
However, Joe Boyd remembers hearing the song on a demo tape in 1967 and it originally being called “Boon Tune” – “what a boon this tune” is part of the lyric. Boyd was producing a band called The Purple Gang at the same time as he was working with Pink Floyd on “Arnold Layne”. Syd had put forward “Boon Tune” to Joe Boyd and The Purple Gang as their next single but their record company was not happy with them getting involved with other writers/publishers so the idea was shelved – although they did put a version out many years later.
The fact that the song was already written at least 2 years before it was recorded probably explains why Jones presumed it took minutes to write. I reckon those minutes must have been Syd going through it off the top of his head to remember it.
Malcolm Jones also said “Syd nearly always had lyrics with him on a stand in case of the occasional lapse of memory. This one was the only one I remember him having no cue sheet at all”. Perhaps he even changed something but we’ll never know this as the demo tape no longer exists.
Whilst writing this piece, I contacted the drummer Willie Wilson who is credited as the bass player on the song. Willie hails from Cambridge and played in Jokers Wild which was the band David Gilmour was in before Pink Floyd(he would later play drums alongside Nick Mason on The Wall tour). Willie told me he didn’t know Syd when growing up but that he got to know him when he would occasionally get up and play at Jokers Wild gigs. The band even ended up playing on the same bill with the Floyd who were still known as The Tea Set along with a then-unknown Paul Simon at a friend’s party in 1965. – continues
You can read the full story by using this link: https://www.sydbarrett.com/featured_songs/here-i-go-by-lee-harris-co-founder-of-the-saucerful-of-secrets/
