Syd Barrett (Official)

4 days ago

“I thought it was lovely. I loved the fact that it had the words included, and also all the 'little boy Rog', shots. Magical and fun!” – Ruth

“A wonderful example of Syd’s childish energy, I think this video demonstrates it so well.” - Rosemary

Recorded in 1970 for Syd’s final solo album Barrett, “Effervescing Elephant” is a delightful throwback to the lyrical styles from his Pink Floyd days. The recording sessions came at the later part of the Barrett sessions, at which point David Gilmour had begun requesting Syd to demo whatever he had lying around. The song, however, had made an earlier outing in February when Syd had performed it on BBC’s Top Gear. The song was recorded over a period of four days in July 1970 and consisted of Syd performing acoustically, accompanied by Vic Saywell on tuba. Saywell, a well-known and respected session musician, had previously worked with the Beatles, and it’s thought that Saywell also worked on Atom Heart Mother with Pink Floyd.

“Effervescing Elephant” is a story sung in two parts. The first part is that of a conversation between the Elephant and a smaller being, “one inferior.” The being is by some thought to be a mouse. It may very well be that the “one inferior” is a child—a Mowgli figure. In the first three verses of the song, the Elephant warns the little one that the tiger will kill him, specifically with the phrase “That by next June he'd die, oh yeah!” This seems to stir the “one inferior” to go through the jungle, warning all the other animals of the dangerous tiger. Eventually, the tiger catches up with the little one with the assurance that he wouldn’t eat the “one inferior” simply because it is “too scant,” upon which the tiger eats the Elephant.

There is a connection between Syd’s songwriting and the cautionary tales by Hilaire Belloc, or perhaps The Boy Who Cried Wolf by Aesop. Or maybe the story is simply a caution not to tell lies, as the titular Elephant does.

Artist on the border: For me, as a visualizer, it had to be portrayed as a children’s book, and for that purpose I repurposed an existing story about two children on a jungle trek: 1934’s A Jungle Picnic by Clifford Webb. In my parallel universe “Effervescing Elephant” is a chapter with in a story where siblings Rog and Roe go to Africa. Maybe one day we can tell that story?! Either way here’s a bedtime story for the young at heart.

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Syd Barrett (Official)

1 week ago

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