Synopsis & pp.1-5 into email body

SYNOPSIS: A descriptive synopsis within 250 words could be obtained reducing the foreword I wrote for the back cover, and adding a few sort of "catchphrases" like they were from a commercial presentation. There has been much speculation about Syd Barrett's feelings, but what does Syd himself say about how he feels? In his song "Late Night" he says: Inside me I feel alone and unreal And the way you kiss will always be a very special thing to me

You have to get inside the song: he feels sad and witty at the same time, whether he is with someone or not. From the starting point of this duality, also quoting some of the other songs he wrote, we can set off on a journey to immerse ourselves in the lands Syd evokes in our imagination with "Opel", while he searches for someone or something in his own land.

Reading between the lines of intriguing lyrics, enjoy the evergreen poetry of the past and enrich your personal knowledge of the Australian precious stone, the opal, the Spanish enchanting island Formentera, the terrible Louisiana's First Great Storm, and many other things to add mind-blowing connections to Barrett’s work, like the coincidences, with the film Shine or with the poems by the American poet Mark Bigney, or like the deep connections with the philosophy around Sisyphus, adopted by Albert Camus, in his famous 1942 essay The Myth of Sisyphus, and even by a funny Indian mythological character, Naranath Branthan. I did my best to select the samples on pp. 15-20 of the proposal, but a correct introduction is much more important. For instance, I like the words used by the skilled author Julian Palacios for a much briefer essay: ''Pioneering research by Paul Belbin proved the Rosetta stone in decoding Syd Barrett’s song writing inspirations for one of his most beloved songs, ‘Octopus’. Belbin’s original 1996 essay, ‘Untangling the Octopus’ provoked a sea change in understanding Barrett’s work. Palacios has expanded on Belbin’s essay to further delve into the myriad origins of ‘Octopus’.'' Too often dismissed as a fantasist who collated drug driven word salad imagery, Barrett in time will assume his rightful place in the canon of English poetics, to which he made vital contributions.

-

FIRST FIVE PAGES: 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 <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%">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