Indeed, the tin can which the Floyd’s joyful flight of fancy most strongly evokes is Lennon and McCartney’s Yellow Submarine, with Peter Jenner on megaphone rather than John Lennon. He tells us that “Stars can frighten” and we hear of a “Stairway scare” but the mock Morse emanating from Richard Wright’s Farfisa is not tapping out a Major Tom distress signal as the general mood is rather one of exhilaration than anxiety, most obviously evident in the childishly infectious descending “Ooh-ooh-ooh-oohs”. Outer space also features on ‘Astronomy Domine’ the first of the eleven tracks of ‘The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn’ (which takes its name from Chapter Seven in Kenneth Grahame’s ‘The Wind in the Willows’) and the first of eight penned solely by Roger Keith “Syd” Barrett. Thus ‘Interstellar Overdrive’, which was recorded in a 16:46 minute version for Peter Whitehead’s ‘Tonite Let’s All Make Love in London’ (aka ‘London 1966/67’), was pared down to 9:41 on ‘The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn’.
In their case this meant obscuring drug references (so that ‘Let’s Roll Another One’ became ‘Candy and a Currant Bun’) and curtailing the length of some of their songs. Just as The Beatles were put into suits and ties and made to bow at the end of performances by Brian Epstein, so Pink Floyd made compromises for commercial reasons when they, too, were poised on the brink of stardom. Reference here is therefore to the original UK release. The original US release included ‘See Emily Play’ but at the cost of removing ‘Astronomy Domine’, ‘Flaming’ and ‘Bike’. Pepper’ at Abbey Road), had included ‘Arnold Layne’ and ‘See Emily Play’ it would certainly be an even more beloved album.
Similarly, if Pink Floyd’s first album ‘The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn’ (coincidentally recorded at the same time as ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ had included ‘Penny Lane’ and ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’, as might well have been the case, then it would undoubtedly be held in even higher esteem.