Tubeileh

Absolutely love this band. However, I have two things that really annoy me. First, they cannot make an album without getting all deep and philosophical. Of course Dark Side and the Wall are amazing, but then there are albums like Animals, where it just feels like them wanting to be themselves so bad. In truth they just copied Orwell's idea. Waters himself even said he was getting frustrated because they were on a creative low, with only putting on big shows to get crowds. This frustration would of course lead on to the first roots for the wall. Anyways, i am going on a tangent.

The second thing is them running the Syd thing into the ground. They first talk about him in Dark Side, then make a whole ass album on him, and then indirectly reference him again in the Wall, even though it is obviously more directed at Waters. But this all reminds me of one of the most underrated Pink Floyd song, Jugband Blues.

This song is perfect. The last song to be actually be put out by him from the band (A Saucerful), and he starts it right off by making clear that regardless how fried his brain is, he still aware of what is happening to him.
"It's awfully considerate of you to think of me here
And I'm most obliged to you for making it clear
That I'm not here"
Then the song turns happy, reflecting his initial success and promise for a bright career, but then the happiness fades into an abstract chaos. Weird sounds and surreal worlds form itself around the young man, until he completely fries his brain and looses function. So the song ends in a very dreary acoustic strum, which conveys the emotion, but the lyrics are complete nonsense, just like how Syd has become.
It is Syd, perfectly summing up what happened to him. And maybe he was not even fully aware of it when he was writing it. And then the placement of the song could not be any better. Right at the end of the last album he was still in the band. His goodbye song to the world as he fades into the sea that isn't green.

Lisnaholic

I agree all the way, Tubeileh! I have always loved this song too; I like the way it lurches through its unpredictable sections and feels longer than it actually is:-



I couldn't resist playing it again, soaking up that swirling, mysterious air of sad fun that is doomed from the start. People have said that L.A. Woman is a song that sounded the death-knell on the hippies' summer-of-love optimism, and I feel like this song does something similar - regretfully wiping the smile off the chirpy face of 60s psychedelic pop.

I'm probably over-stating the case a little, as, to be pedantic, I think you did as well, Tubeileh: this wasn't really his goodbye song to the world because he went on to make a couple of solo albums. As I'm sure you know, after standing down from Floyd, he continued writing and recording a bunch of material. Here's a sad look at how things stood with Syd two years after Jugband; still going through the motions of pop stardom even as his world began falling apart:-

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"Am I enjoying this moment? I know of it and perhaps that is enough." - Sybille Bedford, 1953