Beatles, Pink Floyd Similarities, and the PID Connection
By Andy Winfrey
Everything in this article operates on the assumption that PID [Paul is Dead], and that the popular theory in regards is correct. I will not rehash all of that here. It is available in a million blogs and can easily be accessed with a Google search.
Anyone who was there at the time or grew up later in the 70’s or 80’s would have no problem recognizing the basic similarities and sounds coming from Pink Floyd and the Beatles. From Roger Waters multiple nods to Paul McCartney on the bass, to the Beatles post Sgt. Pepper output, which owed more than just a nod to the Floyd. In particular, “What’s the New Mary” comes to mind as a glaring example of Floyd’s influence on the Beatles, and could have been written by Syd Barrett himself. It’s also intriguing that Faul is reported in multiple sources to have visited the recording sessions for Floyd’s debut, “Piper at the Gates of Dawn”, that was being recorded in the same studio as the Beatles, as they were finishing up Sgt. Pepper.
Outside of the above mentioned examples, I never really gave Beatles/Floyd any other thought. There was just really nothing there to think about, or so I thought until I made a fairly startling discovery that made me think otherwise, and brought out a couple of other weird similarities that just add more to the whole bizarreness that is PID.
For those well versed in PID, you will be very aware of the section in Revolution No.9 where you can hear someone scream, "let me out." It’s heavily associated with the car crash theme that is inundated throughout Beatles official releases of film and music, and is the widely accepted version of how JPM [James Paul McCartney] died.
The Beatles Revolution #9 REVERSED!!!
Well, one day while listening to PATGOD, my favorite Floyd album, I heard this same voice saying the same thing. I couldn’t believe it. I reviewed it many times and came to the conclusion that, yup, that’s it. The name of the song is, “Take Up Thy Stethoscope and Walk” and the voice can be heard @ 2:09.
Curiously enough, this is the only song accredited solely to Roger Waters, and the only one with no credit to Barrett.
So, now we have this bizarre Beatles' thing inserted into a Floyd song. Why? I really don’t know, but I do have Faul, the King of Cosmania, showing up over at the Floyd recording session. I do have on record Lennon and Harrison obviously digging Barrett, and copying him with a song they advocated putting on an album, but Faul shut it down. So, at this point, it’s getting fairly weird, which naturally brings us to Barrett.
What exactly happened to Barrett? We all know the official story that Syd took too much LSD and went crazy, forcing his removal from the band. Okay, that is the official nutshell, but the official accounts don’t really show that.
Syd, by all accounts, was a super talented, charismatic guy who was on his way to super stardom. His songs were great; he was a fantastic lead guitarist with a really unique style. No doubt he was a star and could have been just as big without Floyd. On record, the Producer of PATGOD wanted to replace Syd with David Gilmour, and as reported, this was well before Syd showed signs of trouble. In the interview, he simply said Barrett was uncompromising and wanted everything his way. This is odd having Gilmour lurking in the corner that early given how events unfolded. So, is it possible Barrett wasn’t down for some nefarious lesser magick being inserted into his songs stemming from the murder of Paul? Conjecture I know, but not soon afterwards, Barrett was being fed tons of LSD in his tea (John and George got the same) which leads to some episodes. But even after that, Barrett put out two great Pink Floyd songs, "Scream Thy Last Scream" and "Vegetable Man" should have landed on their boring second album, which tried to reemulate Syd. So the whole Syd had to go thing is a little suspect. A profit driven record company would have really nurtured Syd's solo work, which was good, but could have been great with the right production.
So, was Syd taken out because he wasn’t down with the dark side? Did Faul have him taken out because of jealousy? Maybe, maybe not, but there seems to be a whole lot of weird, which goes hand in hand with anything Faul touches.
Now we have some deeper similarities between the two bands that I could never have put together before: They both have a voice screaming, “Let me out!” on their albums. An even weirder synchronicity is they both have founding members of their bands being replaced by someone “waiting in the wings” to do so. They also both went on to score huge record setting albums whose themes and lyrics revolved around the condition and circumstance of those replacements.
Is this whole killing someone physically or mentally as some type of sacrifice the way you sell albums? Do you talk about it all the time in song, verse, and interview to reinforce the spell? I don’t know, but if I ever meet Faul, I think I’ll just straight up ask him.
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Tina Foster is the author of
Email Tina at faulconandsnowjob at hotmail dot com.
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Syd was taken out because he didn't meet the criteria. In the book ‘Comfortably Numb: The Inside Story of Pink Floyd’ by Mark Blake a story is told of Dave Gilmour’s pre-Floyd days in London trying to cadge a record deal with his then band, Jokers Wild...“The Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein hadn’t offered the band a deal, but future DJ and musician Jonathan King, then a student at Cambridge University saw them and invited Gilmour to London….’Jonathan King noticed Dave at this club,’ recalls Rick Wills now. ‘He hung out where there were good-looking boys, but he was also on the lookout for musical talent. I went to Jonathan’s flat in London with Dave. He was on the phone talking to someone about getting a song on Radio Caroline, and it happened right while we were there. We were like, wow! We knew someone in the music business who had real power.’”
ReplyDeleteThrough this contact with King the band hooked up with a guy called Jean-Paul Salvatori…”Nevertheless, under Salvatori’s guidance, the band where whisked down the King’s Road, kitted out in bell-bottomed, sailor’s trousers and blue Shetland jumpers, and put on stage at Sybillas nightclub in Swallow Street, where they immediately attracted attention. ‘We were tasty young boys in tight trousers, so we were prime fodder,’ says Rick. ‘The chef took a particular shine to me, chasing us round the kitchen with a meat cleaver.’” http://beaconfilms2011.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/all-our-yesterdays.html
I've felt the undercurrents of a PID/Syd connection niggling at the back of my brain for some long time. Pondered it again the other day, prompting me to visit Peter Whitehead's website for the first time in over a decade. Years ago, the site cryptically hinted at secrets & mysteries, but all that is gone now. Whitehead, director of the film Tonight Let's All Make Love in London, surely holds a generous slice of insider perspective. Watching the film, a document of the legendary happening, the 14 Hour Technicolor Dream, it is impossible to avoid notions of a deeper Beatles/Floyd connection. Back in the earliest PID days, as devoted fans we struggled to account for the obvious changes in our beloved Paul. We looked to his declarations of drug use as a primary reason for the massive change not just in Paul, but all the Beatles. It was a genuinely troubling thing for those of us who had followed the band from the early days. Even before the PID rumor broke, many of us felt we had already lost our beloved Beatles, that this LSD transformation had altered them too greatly. There was a sense of loss. As for the music, yes we loved most of it, but some was distinctly dark & creepy, violating everything we associated with the name Beatles. We knew something absolutely catastrophic had taken place, and struggled painfully to account for it. I have little doubt that especially in the early days there were a number of LSD related casualties among musicians. Speed use was ubiquitous back then. Everybody used it. While LSD on its own, particularly of the pharmaceutical grade, was unlikely to turn one's brain to jelly, taking acid when one had any remnants of speed in one's system would have been lethal. Vince Taylor being probably the most conspicuous example. Stories of Brian Jones wasted on a combo of cocaine & LSD, rendering him incapable of a cohesive performance. Concluding this point, then, I'd like to emphasize that when we consider the drugs issue as a possible factor in 'altering' anyone, we should not consider LSD in isolation, but remember that virtually all the extreme accounts involved drug cocktails, of which LSD was merely a single component. (However for the record I have never bought the LSD meltdown story about Syd, another bright Soul "somebody" tampered with. LSD may have been employed but is absolutely not the sum of the truth there, and Waters is truly a piece of work.) One does wonder how much this was by design, and how much falls under the heading of ignorance and accident. Bear in mind that the entire "rock and roll circus" presented to the public was designed to be a distraction from more important current events at least from the very beginning of Beatlemania, which Fleet Street blew up to divert attention away from Profumo in particular. The Beatles were just the most glaring example of a band owned outright by the Government and explicitly used to promote an agenda. I'm sure efforts were made to "enlist" as many groups as possible. Virtually all the music we loved was contaminated, weaponized, designed for programming & propaganda purposes. Finally, one cannot consider the PID/Syd connection without sensing another presence, and that is Stanley Kubrick. That has been touched upon elsewhere, but cries out for further examination. (There are so many directors, and films, that tried to tell us something nefarious was happening in pop music - I just watched Stardust with David Essex again last night with very fresh astonished eyes. Privilege, Performance, even Kenneth Anger's Invocation of My Demon Brother - ponder that title! - and so many others are all trying to give us a slice of truth.) I'm so glad I remember the real James Paul McCartney. That memory is priceless. He still holds a very tender place in my heart. Somebody has a great deal to answer for.
ReplyDeleteActually I made this connection on my own, regarding how the Two bands sang about members who "left or were replaced", I am thrilled to have made the connection and this narrative puts a clearer perspective to this reality...wondering if Faul had anything to do with Sid being forced out really makes him a dark figure...Like Heather said, a truth so devastating we couldn't handle it...Thank you for this article... Sandra
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