The Official Syd Barrett YouTube page has released another lyric video, this time featuring Bob Dylan Blues. This was a track Syd wrote in 1965 but not recorded until 1970 for the album Barrett. It was thought to be lost until it turned up in a tape collection at home by David Gilmour.
“Bob Dylan Blues” was written in 1965 and later demoed for inclusion on the “Barrett”, on the Friday 27th of February 1970 at studio 2, EMI studios Abbey Road. This session for the second LP was engineered by Peter Bown, Alan Parsons and John Leckie, with David Gilmour stepping in as producer. This session consisted mostly of Syd demoing new (old?) material including Wolfpack, Living alone, Jigalo Aunt (sic) and “Dylan Blues”. Details of take numbers, false starts etc. are not noted on the recording sheet, but 1 reel of ¼” tape was used in making a 7.5 ips copy tape of the recordings. This was “Taken away by David Gilmore (sic)” on a 7” spool. Unfortunally he (Gilmour) returned and removed the masters as well.
In 2000-2001 David Gilmour mastered and released the track officially on the 2001 compilation “Wouldn’t you Miss Me?” and again later on the 2010 compilation “An introduction to Syd Barrett.
An in-depth look at the story of the song is published on the official Syd Barrett website: https://www.sydbarrett.com/featured_s… For this artistic interpretation of Syd Barrett’s music, Artist on the Border teamed up with Danish artist Jørgen Folmer Neergard Larsen. Jørgen has specialized in high contrast ink drawings “inks” of various cultural domestic and international personalities, including often reoccurring Syd Barrett. Among his accolades the inked tributes have been posted on social media pages belonging to the likes as Elvis Costello, Lou Reed and The Ramones. Artist page JFNL digital & ink: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?…
The Artist On The Border commented “Syd Barrett had, as many other of his peers, an infatuation with the prodigal Robert Zimmerman. This is something that I wanted to reflect in the animation. The various templates had Bob and Syd swap places in respective album covers. Syd would appear on the sleeve of “The Times are a-changing” and Bob would be in the striped bedroom at Wetherby Mansions But as things progressed I started to get a feeling that Syd was not just a fan of Bob’s. Syd and his mates, might actually have tried to mold Syd into a British Dylan character. As described in the “stories behind the songs” on Bob Dylan Blues, there are several links between Bob and Syds lyrics and if one squints, and tips his head slightly to the left, the covers of “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan” and “Bringing It all back home” appear eerily similar to the photos shot at and around Duggie Field’s Wetherby mansions flat. But I digress.
Syd become Bob with his signs and a simple, effective gloomy backdrop made of Jørgen Folmers inkblots, running black paint and stylized faces of the two. He is Mr. Dylan, the king. Free as a bird on the wing“.
===== Listen to the song on spotify https://open.spotify.com/track/7x7aiP…
