What’s your favourite song?
Had I but said Baby Lemonade
By Syd Barrett.
And played it maybe.
Or not.
I mean, my wife had the job of
understanding a man
for a fourth-part of her life’s work,
who digs Syd Barret,
a sound she is constitutionally
unable to tolerate or work out.
But why, she might have asked,
But probably not.
Oh, well! I guess I’d have said.
Meaning, what a surprise,
Such a reasonable enquiry.
It might be that it has no
less than three intros.
And that sometimes
he couldn’t be arsed,
And at other times
Played like an angel, sublime.
And other times just
Couldn’t, at all, it seems.
And the fact that the third intro
Keeps changing key
Giving him no entry point
Or perhaps, or not,
looking for the perfect entry point
And then it stops
And the song begins.
And, perhaps,
That the ending is nothing like the
Beginning
And you’re privileged to
Hear it all again
One thing become another
And all the key changes
And guitar fumbles
That no one else would have dared
Leave in, their first take
Immortalised
Knowing, also,
That he never sang the same song
The same way twice
And came upon new words on the spot
And didn’t give the foggiest
About walking his band mates
Through keeping up
Or down
Or around with him
And hence the same authentic first-encounter ineptitude
Or uncorrected false moves
The cosmic rectitude of honest love, art and principle in one.
Zappa had it too
and got ripped off by those who didn’t, like Bowie, but knew who to take what from.
It’s a kind of genius, but not the one I like.
Syd could never be ripped off.
Few, bitterly few, have or had
what he had,
the code to the cosmos,
and were up to it.
He was purely the conduit.
If anyone understood,
They wouldn’t want it.
Who wants to sound like this,
my wife would have asked,
On the right track,
Which is constituonally opposed to the
Way of my world
First principles and hysterical toil.
I couldn’t abide it
So luckily she didn’t

Of the pink Floyd members
Syd was the only one
Who understood
Lennon's legacy.
Hear the music,
But hear it for the first time
Be the child
And play it forward.

Dragging in Robert Gowty who knows a thing or two about experimentation, music and not giving good cahoots.

Play it forward was originally published in The Pro Files on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.