If you love Syd Barrett and the overall tone of The Piper At The Gates of Dawn, then unfortunately you are headed down a road of disappointment. Saucerful was Barrett’s last album with Pink Floyd and while the band would continue down a road of improvisation and strange lyrics, songs like “Astronomy Domine” and “The Gnome” are no more. At best, what you would get are weak imitations of those songs; Barrett truly was one of a kind as a songwriter.
However, if you love David Gilmour and his guitar and vocal work on such classics like “Comfortably Numb,” “Money” and “Young Lust,” then you are in for a treat. This is the first album he appears on and he’s on every single album from here on out. Drummer Nick Mason has described this album as a “crossfade as opposed to a cut” in terms of the transition from Barrett to Gilmour.
It is on that level that makes this an important album in Pink Floyd’s discography and the transition is clear, albeit shaky. This is definitely an album that heralds the new brand of music Pink Floyd would come to embody; intricate compositions and epic storylines instead of experimental improvisations and whimsical lyrics. Judging by how this album sounds, they have yet to perfect that mix (my guess is that they would achieve that on The Dark Side Of The Moon), but they are starting to move in that direction immediately after Piper.
That’s not to say that all the songs on here are bad. “Remember A Day” is a great childhood nostalgia song that boasts some great vocals from Richard Wright and Barrett’s best guitar work. Having heard later songs by Pink Floyd, listening to this song makes me wonder why Wright was not the lead vocalist. His voice is soft and ethereal; the perfect voice to be set against Pink Floyd’s atmosphere. “Set The Controls For The Heart of The Sun” may seem a little boring but it’s quite hypnotic and driving in its repetition. It’s also interesting to note that this is the only song in which all five band members played on. That being said, it’s very hard to hear Gilmour and Barrett’s guitars as they seem to have been drowned out by Wright’s swirling keyboards.
Saucerful also has the same problem as Piper; for every good example you get a bad example. However, I would argue that the disparity is a lot wider on this album. “See-Saw” is another childlike Wright song, but it’s completely forgettable. “Set The Controls” may be boring but at least it has focus, unlike the nearly 12 minute long title track. “Let There Be More Light” almost holds its own next to “Set The Controls” (it’s driven by a cool bass line), so it’s similar to the disparity between “The Gnome” and “The Scarecrow,” but I’ll listen to “The Scarecrow” before “Let There Be More Light.”
Sadly, due to his nervous breakdown that precipitated his leave from the band and later society as a whole (there was one concert where he slowly detuned his guitar), Barrett wrote only one song for the album: “Jugband Blues.” While it has playful lyrics (“And I’m wondering who could be writing this song”) and a crazy instrumental performed by the Salvation Army band, it definitely does not hold its own to any of his songs on Piper. As many critics have noted, this song (which appears last on the album) is the portrait of a man slowly cutting himself off, with lines like “And I’m much obliged to you for making it clear I’m not here.”
For better or for worse, before the release of this album, Barrett was ousted from Pink Floyd due to the difficulty of working with him. Pink Floyd struggled on this album due to the lack of Barrett’s leadership and inventive songwriting, but history tells us they ended up quite well by pursuing this new direction.
Track List (Ranked Strongest To Weakest)
- Remember A Day
- Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun
- Let There Be More Light
- Jugband Blues
- Corporal Clegg
- A Saucerful of Secrets
- See-Saw
