First ten pages into email body

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Opel On a distant shore, miles from land Stands the ebony totem in ebony sand A dream in a mist of grey On a far distant shore The pebble that stood alone And driftwood lies half buried Warm shallow waters sweep shells So the cockles shine A bare winding carcass, stark Shimmers as flies scoop up meat, an empty way Dry tears Crisp flax squeaks tall reeds Make a circle of grey in a summer way, around man Stood on ground I'm trying, I'm trying To find you, to find you I'm living, I'm giving To find you, to find you I'm living, I'm living I'm trying, I'm giving

Introduction

Although Syd Barrett doesn't often write about how he feels, his "loneliness in company" is evident in more than one song. "Late Night":  Inside me I feel alone and unreal And the way you kiss will always be a very special thing to me 

"Dark Globe":  When I was alone you promised the stone from your heart 

"I Never Lied To You":  When I'm with you, to be with you, to be alone, can only think: "Why I am here? What's meant to be?" 

In each of these three songs he simply addresses someone, but look at the differences: in the first song the mood is quite playful, but because loneliness is usually sad, the line about the way to kiss may sound like a "changeable duality", between his loneliness and the strange, whimsically funny mood of "Late Night"; "Dark Globe" is probably the saddest of the songs, but the last line in "I Never Lied To You" turns the playful mood more desperate, with the appearance of his "to be here or not to be here" dilemma.

The same problem appears in "Vegetable Man":  I've been looking all over the place for a place for me But it ain't anywhere, it just ain't anywhere 

And in "Jugband Blues", with the famous opening lines:  It's awfully considerate of you to think of me here And I'm much obliged to you for making it clear that I'm not here 

But the best example of the supposed changeable, volatile playfulness of "Late Night", can be found in these lines from "No Man's Land", where there is a possible place to go:  Just searching you even try I can make you smile If it's there will you go there too? When I live I die 

This problem, this feeling of lack of place which recurs in certain songs, may be the beginning of a desire to escape or to seek refuge somewhere else, as "Opel" probably shows.

Syd was still great to be with and we had some amazing times when he would play the guitar or come down to the beach with us. He would be laughing and telling us a joke one minute and then suddenly go back to his land of never-never. &mdash; Iain "Emo" Moore

To discover the origins of "Opel" we need to know that some notes of the intro already existed in a recording dated 4 th September 1967, the first session after a holiday on the beaches of Formentera, a controversial period where Syd, it seems, had had a breakdown, rather than a break. As his magic songs spun on turntables across Britain, and Floyd’s album sat in the Top Ten, no one outside their immediate circle knew where Syd had gone. Jenny Fabian was told he was sent off on holiday, while rumours spread that he’d left Pink Floyd or was hospitalised. — Julian Palacios, Dark Globe

To understand what Syd's state of mind and feelings might have been back then, I recommend – apart from listening to the above songs – the quotes below, in particular Syd's own words: I feel now that having left art school that there are a lot of things... that I could do. A lot of things I see now, a lot of things went in to me, into my head and thinking that these would, perhaps, changing and altering things. … So... maybe... this would be very valuable, this break. &mdash;  Syd Barrett , August 1967 He couldn't do anything in Formentera. I think he had nightmares – I mean, real living nightmares, trying to climb up walls – and the biggest change for me, his eyes, used to have so much life in him and then his eyes just went dead. I mean, we were all hoping that he was just basically burnt out and needed a complete break, but it clearly was much more serious than that. It was very scary, very upsetting. &mdash; Richard Wright <blockquote style="font-size:11pt; background-color:#dfefff; border:solid 1px #1e90ff; border-left:solid 3px #1e90ff; margin:0px 25px 0px 25px; padding-left:8px; padding-right:8px; width:93.7%">Syd was having a breakdown mostly from raw hypersensitivity to constant industrial quantities of psychedelics with no let up. … Most of us had rests and meditations as suggested by folks like Timothy Leary and Baba Ram Dass, which gave us chance to review and reflect. Syd just jumped back on the merry-go-round with all its yawning chasms before he could touch what we laughingly call reality. Nothing is concrete. &mdash; Dr. Sam "Smutty" Hutt "Opel" was actually recorded almost two years after. Malcom Jones, the producer, assumed it wasn't included in the first LP by Syd's decision, but why the jewel of the "Opel" recording has been jealously hidden in the EMI's land of unreleased songs for 19 years? The reason is common underestimation.

<blockquote style="font-size:11pt; background-color: AntiqueWhite; width: 91%">Gilmour also regrets this part of the album which, given another chance, he'd do differently. … Questioned about the exclusion of 'Opel', Gilmour cannot remember the track and wrongly assumes it to be an alternative title for one of the released songs. Sadly, it appears that during the undignified scramble of the final recording and mixing, this classic Barrett track was overlooked. — Mick Rock, The Mick Rock Photo-Sessions

The beauty of "Opel" is now proved by fans who have stated it is one of their favourites, but while throughout all those years none of the chords were known, the lyrics and a brief opinion given by Malcom Jones in 1982 have been the only preciously known thing for the 6 years before the release.

<blockquote style="font-size:11pt; background-color: AntiqueWhite; width: 91%">It was an extremely haunting song; very stark and poignant. … I still think, to this day, that this is one of his best and most haunting tracks … — Malcom Jones, The Making Of The Madcap Laughs

Before the immersions in the words of "Opel", let's go to introduce the song with a brief overall analysis by Julian Palacios, followed by several people's thoughts found on the internet: <blockquote style="background-color: AntiqueWhite; font-family: Perpetua; font-size:14pt; line-height:120%; padding-left:4px; padding-right:4px; text-align:justify; width:91%; border: solid thin GoldenRod;">  Unreleased for almost twenty years ‘Opel’ is a long dirge with Barrett singing over constant chord changes and semi-tone falls in convoluted farewell. The song began with a reversed chord progression from ‘Arnold Layne’ (A E G D) – a recurrent motif in Syd’s songs. Despite a sinuous cavalcade of chords with complex changes, in ‘Opel’ Syd is trying, finding and giving all at once. Using a passage in Homer’s Odyssey which begins, ‘Have hither come from a far distant shore’ as a springboard, Syd opens with a stark image of a far-off shoreline. In a penumbra of desolate renderings, his phrasing balances on the backbeat in a talking cadence, as his landscape resonates with visions of the fall. — Julian Palacios, Dark Globe

<blockquote style="font-size:11pt; margin:10px 20px 10px 35px">"Opel" illuminates paths that most of us will thankfully never walk, but about which all of us are at least a bit curious. It does so with one of the most leisurely, beautiful chord progressions you'll ever hear. It is one of Barrett's crowning achievements. The long chords he strums as the song’s conclusion gathers its dignified, steady strength will haunt you to the end of your days, even as the abrupt way in which he strums them will make you wonder how hard it must have been for him to maintain self-control. — www.lastplanetojakarta.com

The title

The main issue about the title is whether it should have been "Opal", or actually "Opel". Though Syd presented the title to Malcolm Jones, who wrote it in his book aware of its correct English spelling, the common theory is that the title was misspelled by whoever wrote it on the recording sheet. Besides the gemstone and the car manufacturer, the most common use of both words is as a female name. Both names are from Indian (Asian) origin, so an Indian girl with a totem on her necklace, standing on an island, is already a suggestive theme. After all Syd presented "Opel" as new material together with "Swan Lee" which was about a Native American girl, and later he sang about a girl named Pearl in "Dolly Rocker". An Asian beauty like Syd's girlfriend Iggy might come to mind, * but the images Syd describes in "Opel" don't seem to be written for a girl, nor do they recall a girl any more than a "pebble stood alone" recalls a gemstone. In any case, it's interesting to know more about both the names, leaving aside the gemstone:
 * "Opal" is a fairly popular name in America, birthplace of the charismatic, mysterious writer Opal Whiteley, who lived in an asylum not far from Cambridge and is surely the "Opal" who is the most likely to have been inspirational for Syd.


 * "Opel" as a first name doesn't lead to any famous person as "Opal" does in a normal search. Though there was a talented soul-ska singer-songwriter called Jackie Opel, in this case the Hebrew origin of the word "Opel" fits the song better than the Indian origin.

* Later known as "Iggy the Eskimo", she lived in Syd's house for a couple of weeks and wasn't officially his girlfriend. Probably, according to his former girlfriend Jenny Spires, all his songs were already written.

The following are the main results of two parallel searches made to help the speculation around the two names: the hill Opel and Opal Whiteley.

The Hebrew word "Opel"

The root of the Hebrew word 'ōpel means "hill" and in the Bible it refers to a fortified hill, just south of the Temple area, on which a tower stands. It is often translated "citadel" or "tower". Nowadays the word is conventionally spelt "Ophel" but in some old transliterations it's "Opel", such as this 2009 biblical interpretation of a spiritual journey that may recall "Chapter 24". <blockquote style="width: 91%; font-size:11pt;">… 7 mountains that surround Jerusalem. The 1st mountain that we will consider is Moriah. … place of God's presence. …

The 5th mountain is Mount Opel. The word opel in Hebrew means "a hill, to build a wall, to keep." …

The 6th mountain is Zion. … "to show the way, to be white and to be pure."

The 7th mountain is Ghareb (Calvary). … It is through Ghareb that we are given access to Moriah, the presence of God. — Douglas A. Wheeler

Syd's song "Opel" is probably about a search for a retreat such as the Hebrew hill/tower, but a plausible reference is lacking: only some book on eccentric Anglo-Israelite theories and the novel "The Citadel" (about the ethics of a doctor) were possible references, and the Rolling Stones' song "Citadel" hadn't yet been released. A book of poems needs to be introduced here: <blockquote style="background-color: AntiqueWhite; width: 317pt; font-size:11pt;">…

And mine were the gold and the jewels, bright,


 * Which were reared by a kingly hand,

As the joy and the pride of a people’s might,


 * In the Temple of Judah’s land.

— Mark F. Bigney, The Forest Pilgrims, and Other Poems

Opal Whiteley

Opal Whiteley, born in 1897 in the USA, wrote an extraordinary book in 1920 which continues to be a mystery. In 1962 the book was reprinted with a lengthy commentary from the British point of view of her exotic adventures, while she was in a British asylum, where she died in 1992. Her gravestone bears the inscription 'I spake as a child.' Her saga is one of the most notorious whimsical stories of the century. <blockquote style="width: 91%; font-size:11pt;">It’s a story of innocence and wonder, of a young girl in a young land. It’s a story also of loneliness, tragedy and death, of mental illness and the hard life in rural Oregon at the nineteenth century’s turn. But more than that, it’s a story of faith, of what we believe and perceive to be true. And every time the name of Opal Whiteley surfaces again, more and more people discover what many have quietly felt for some time: Her diary just might be an American classic. — Steve McQuiddy

To see similarities between Opal and Syd Barrett, we can look at her style and her use of something "grey", perhaps due to her interest in nature writing at an early age: <blockquote style="background-color: AntiqueWhite; width: 91%; font-size:11pt;">It calls to me to come go exploring. It sings of the things that are to be found under leaves. It whispers the dreams of the tall fir trees. It does pipe the gentle song the forest sings on gray days. I hear all the voices calling me. I listen but I cannot go. … THE waters of the brook lap and lap. They come in little ripples over gray stones. They are rippling a song. It is a gentle song. — Opal Whiteley, The Story of Opal

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Immersion into two given names