Stars Can Frighten

taken from Escimo Chain

It seems almost inconceivable that thirty years on from their UFO days, Pink Floyd would still be playing 'Astronomy Domine' live. Yet there it is on their 'Pulse' live album, standing out a mile amidst the stadium-rock of their more recent material. And not a bad version either, though for my money, the urgent, more intense earlier recording on the flip of the 1994 'Division Bell' single, 'Take It Back', has the edge. But intense or not, nothing can beat the definitive Barrett-driven original that kicks off the Floyd's spectacular debut album, 'Piper At The Gates Of Dawn'.

Starting with an insistent Morse Code S.O.S. tapped out on Syd's guitar and the distorted voice of Floyd manager, Pete Jenner, shouting out star names through a loud hailer, the song kicks into life with a throbbing E Major chord in 12/8 time, dropping to E Flat on the memorable opening hook. Enter Syd's impossibly distant vocals, soaring over a powerful riff that makes generous use of his trademark chromaticism. The effect is one of the most distinctive in his song book, giving the strange effect of the band running through a seemingly endless series of musical gear-changes that never resolve to the dominant B major chord. To add to the dislocation, the decidedly opaque lyrics seem to mix Olympian outer space chanting, with lines that would seem more at home in a book of 19th century Romantic verse. On the surface of it, the most recognisable lyrical element here is the list of heavenly bodies in the third stanza. Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune are gas giant planets in the outer solar system, whilst Titan, Oberon, Miranda and Titania are all satellites of either Saturn or Uranus. Yet although the final 'stars can frighten' line seems to refer directly to this list, it doesn't, as none of them are stars. The names have probably been chosen solely for effect, with the 'stars' reference perhaps being intended to indicate a further leap in scale from the solar system to the unimaginable gulfs of interstellar space.

However, there may also be other resonances in these seemingly random names, as Oberon, Miranda and Titania were all originally named after characters from Shakespeare. Oberon and Titania are the faery King and Queen from 'A Midsummer Night's Dream', and Miranda is the heroine of 'The Tempest', the Bard's most magical and mysterious play in which strange musicks beguile the ears of shipwrecked mariners. Given Syd's tastes and the otherworldly qualities of both plays, I'm sure that the double meaning is intentional. Most of the other lines seem to depict a vast underground space filled with waters, colours and sounds. A remarkable image that is immediately suggestive of Coleridge's opium-induced masterpiece, 'Kubla Khan', with its icy caves and the River Alph flowing 'through caverns measureless to man, down to a sunless sea'. Perhaps the idea was to counterpoint the infinity of space with the mysterious, hidden spaces beneath the feet. Where the third image of flickering signs inducing pop-art acid paranoia fits in is anybody's guess.

These elements may be disparate, but the result is curiously satisfying, making 'Astronomy Domine' one of the purest expressions of psychedelia as a musical form. Unlike many 1967 artifacts that are basically ordinary pop songs with a few psychedelic effects added on, 'Astronomy Domine' is not so much psychedelic as psychedelia itself.

The song was always a key part of the early Floyd's live shows, often being stretched out to half an hour or more, as the band improvised madly around the riff. Indeed, the first mention of it is on the All Saints, Notting Hill gig-list from the 14th of October 1966, where it already formed the climax of a two part performance, with 'Interstellar Overdrive' providing the equivalent closer for the first set. As well as the official album version, there are also at least two other Syd versions available on bootleg. One performance (on video as well as tape) documents their performance on the 'Look Of The Week' show from 14.5.67. Although this cut is very similar to the album version, it normally includes a recording of them being patronised by German musicologist, Dr. Hans Keller. There is also a manic live version on the concert tape from The Starclub, Copenhagen recorded 10.9.67. The recording quality is poor, but the band's performance is excellent, with suitably manic solos from all four players.

Pink Floyd continued playing 'Astronomy Domine' long after Syd's departure and included an excellent version on the live disc of the 'Ummagumma' album, released back in 1969, so it was perhaps not so surprising after all to see the song return to their set list for the two versions recorded on the recent 'Division Bell' Tour.

Although the 'Pulse' version is a perfectly enjoyable cut and uses a keyboard program that is closer to the original, the 'Take It Back' version is a much more exciting take, with some startling lead breaks from Gilmour sounding at his most Barrett-like. For a brief 4'48", the latter day Pink Floyd live up to the cosmic promise of their psyched-out debut album.

Iain Smith