397. Lucifer Sam by Pink Floyd 1967

From the great Psychedelic album "Piper at the Gates of Dawn" which I didn't get around to buying until I think around 1980 because as a punk I hated Pink Floyd. Even though I loved some of the stuff on the Relics album the name Pink Floyd just couldn't be uttered in polite company. They also had a number one single in that dreadful Another Brick In The Wall song which was on the radio all the time.
Anyway I was in one of my favourite second shops when I came across a copy of their first album. I knew I had to have it. I had read so much about it. So I took it home and it was fantastic. Couldn't stop playing the thing for weeks. Put me right in that sixties frame of mind I loved. The song Lucifer Sam was the first one that really stuck out for me. A song about Syd's cat seemingly. At first it reminded me of the descending guitar line in our song "Take Me , I'm Yours" never did get round to asking Rob if that's where he got it from. Whatever the ancestry of ours, I guess it was the most straightforward song on the album in a pop guitar kind of way.
And I liked the way Syd sang. I could connect it to some of that early Bowie stuff I had laying round the house. A voice that Bowie came back to. Even covering Arnold Layne with Dave Gilmour live in concert.
Later on it would be one of the songs I would play before everyone turned up at the Lizard Lounge. And when there was just a few in I was playing songs like that I used to get guys come up and want to discuss music. I used to love the quiet before the storm. You could play favourite songs and they would come blasting out of these huge speakers. With flashing lights and swirling images. And really great songs. It was a bit like having your own radio show for a hour. Then the crowd would come in and then you're playing stuff you might have played hundreds of times before. Come On Eileen or Love Shack or Groove is in the Heart.
But then it was all over and you went home and listened to Syd's Piper or Dylan's Blonde on Blonde.
By the way I did manage to get to enjoy the Dave Gilmour Pink Floyd in the end. They had some top songs. But I still can't stand Another Brick in the Wall. Okay I like Comfortably Numb.