Wolfpack

All discussion related to Roger Keith (Syd) Barrett.
PCM72
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Wolfpack

Post by PCM72 »

These below are my thoughts about this song, from my work "A neatly typed information pack". That is a page full of links with all the information I've found about the song and I think it could be part of an issue discussed here some time ago (http://forum.neptunepinkfloyd.co.uk/vie ... yd#p186622). Just imagine a page like that for other Pink Floyd works. Consider a song as an atomic part of the complete works. When we will have a such page for almost each Pink Floyd related work, included articles, books, concerts, etc. (let's say 50 years :) ) we could start to add this project to the normal wikipedia. Obviously there would need to discuss much more about that issue (e.g. I would prefer a different wikipedia approach), but I think I will not do much more if not to suggest to add new posts in that thread... However it could be possible to make that my page a bit more readable: I'm not an expert in html editing, in fact I've made also a bit more "neatly typed" .doc version. I've made also a video on my thoughts.
So, my thoughts on "Wolfpack":

This is one of my favourite Syd's songs. The other ones could be No Good Trying, If It's In You, Late Night or Milky Way, for the explicit melodies with the lyrics attuned too, that I find also in many other Syd's songs, like the popular Octopus, Terrapin and Dark Globe, the less-known Scream Thy Last Scream or the outro in Vegetable Man too, but with a spell that is different from, for instance, that somehow unitary spell in all songs from The Piper album (see note 1).
But Wolfpack has a strange emotional potential into it, perhaps an odd rage similar to that when I await for the Syd's words of vent "rats, rats, lay down flat!" in the song "Rats", a song that in fact usually has been linked together with "Wolfpack", but the louder sound of "Wolfpack" (since from the shouting word "Howling" as starting) is far more epic, more subliminal to me. I wonder how it would sound with a louder emphatic drumming, like in the more modern rock style.
Another reason why I like Wolfpack so much is personal. Likely Syd figures a "pack in formation" just as a group of wolves (the pack) following a group of persons (the fighters): it's evident in his words "Waving us back in formation" and "The pack on their backs, the fighters". The fighters would go, "Bowling they bat as a group, And the leader is seen, so early..." (although here it's not clear if the subject is "the fighters" or "the wolves", but it's a poem), but their leader would be overcome by the wolves after some "tear" of "growing" dejection, and like torn to pieces, skinned, "Gripped with blanched bones", dying, he moan with "Magnesium, proverbs and sobs...". Since he speaks in first person ("I lay as if in surround...", "The milder I gaze"), the leader might be himself in the real life and then the fighters would easily represent the Pink Floyd, attacked by a not well defined "pack".
If it is so, that pack (of wolves in formation) should likely represent a group or a multitude of merciless persons (gathered together), but I like to figure (and this is my very personal interpretation) that "pack" as a "pack (of) information", since the words "in" and "formation" in the song sounded very good to me if they was the single word "information".
After all when Syd sings "in formatioooooon" he highlight these words more than any other words in the song. And after all what are those "Far reaching waves" which "On sight, shone right"? Do you see them simply as a mass of wolves in a story or some mass of bad people in a true life? Instead, see how would sound the song if it had struck up with "Howling the band in formation appears". I think all the song would be clearer, letting to think immediately to the Pink Floyd in concert, but it would be actually too explicit for a Syd's song (see note 2).
If the song is just a criticism of an howling society "fairily" transposed in wolves as written in the Barrett lyric analysis book by Bratus, just full of games of words, "onomatopoeically" as he says, then very little remains if not to conjecture something like that the Syd's painted insects would be a "transposition" too, of a race candidate to succeed the human race (replying to a question suggested by Luca Ferrari; after all it's based on an old theory which perhaps was known to Syd). I don't think so. I know it was Syd's intention to give more possible meanings to his songs and not either a single one. However, I don't think that pack represents just Pink Floyd or someone in particular, but what could be more terrifying than a pack of hungry wolves to represent an approaching danger of death?
So, I've thought, can that waves represent a mass of "waves" of sounds and lights, perhaps from lightshows with their mirrors, scenic fog and loud percussive intros on the "back" of motionless musicians (thinking to "Diamonds and clubs, light misted fog, the dead", reminding me also that Syd's shining guitar and the "deadly" sound of "Set The Controls"), and from the microphones in front of a singer for hours, as in a "mild" way, in form of "all that" electrical reproductions of audio, video (thinking to "Mild the reflecting electricity eyes...", hearing in my ears "all that" instead of "mild"), songs, poems, works (thinking to "All the animals laying trail, Beyond the bough winds", see note 3), interviews, discussions, comparisons, contests, struggles, pack of lies (noting "pack" as another highlighted sung word), which become too huge, uncontrollable, as a heap of information which can swamp and then kill the art, like the digital world is nowadays for the music too?
Probably it was not Syd's intention to let's imagine something about "information", but I like that thought, because it sounds nice to me, and I know he would be glad of any neatly typed thoughts. Even more unlikely Roger Waters considered this song when he wrote "Who needs information?".
Anyway this above is my "information pack" on this song.

(1) That Piper's spell was for me also in the B-sides of Syd's "explosive sounding" first singles on Arnold and Emily, i.e. in "Candy and a Currant Bun" too, but also in the post-Piper "Apples and Oranges", so I see in that "unitary spell" not exactly a coherent tale, but something more general, perhaps more cheerful and less inner than Syd's solo works.
(2) I like to guess a bit more explicit the demo jealously taken away by Dave. To who say Barrett was writing nonsense: don't make me laugh, any songwriter is able to write sounding explicit lyrics about a story, his life, his mood, the world, and so on, but when one try to describe something less explicit… even I have been able to write here some adjective with the same lot of sense of what Kris DiLorenzo wrote about Syd's songs in his 1978 article, i.e. "simple, direct tunes, strong, catchy melodic hooks with nonsense rhymes and wandering verses", but me, him, and everyone here doesn't need to write the important lyrics for his favourite song as an innovator, a genius like Syd needed in that time.
(3) That winds in the Frazer's bough might include the Piper's inspiring wind, representing how the works are leaved as footprints, including the ones beyond his works. There may be other literary references in the song (a Pushkin's battle?): what I've wrote about the lyrics seems long, but it's much less exhaustive than what was did for Octopus lyrics in 2005. The possible posts below in this forum will be well appreciated.
Last edited by PCM72 on Sat Jan 07, 2012 11:09 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Wolfpack

Post by moom »

Hardly even Syd could tell what was going through his mind at the time. But what can I say - impressive study.
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Re: Wolfpack

Post by Keith Jordan »

Are you the NPF forum user Wolfpack? This same thread was posted over at APFFN http://www.pinkfloydfan.net/t12536-wolfpack.html by Wolfpack who is also a user on here.
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Re: Wolfpack

Post by PCM72 »

No I'm not. Wolfpacks were too busy here :smile:
I used my more general nickname PCM72 here, where I canned not avoid to post the same thread for that same idea you had some years ago: I checked the name wikiproject and I found what you posted. However it was a general idea: do you think it was not too correct to post the same thread in more forums?
Moreover NPF has a rather enciclopaedic character and many well informed features which I like (you can't deny it's probably the most complete, together with PF Archives).
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Re: Wolfpack

Post by Keith Jordan »

You are welcome to post your work on multiple websites, many different groups of people visit each site, spread the word!

What did I post where on wikiproject??

I like your comments about NPF being a quality site. You have won bonus points. 8)
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Re: Wolfpack

Post by PCM72 »

Keith Jordan wrote: What did I post where on wikiproject??
I mean "wikifloydproject", sorry (I often write these minor mistakes, which I would want to edit at once, I hate it :smt093 ).
You wrote about a wikifloyd site (the second link in my post above http://forum.neptunepinkfloyd.co.uk/vie ... yd#p186622), so I realized that the word "wikifloyd" was not original for that project. :)
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Re: Wolfpack

Post by thefinalcut »

It´s really impresive to see how many Syd orientated fans actually come from Italy ! :)
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Re: Wolfpack

Post by Wolfpack »

PCM72 wrote:"Gripped with blanched bones"
Isn't that "fresh spring dripped through blanched bones"?
PCM72 wrote:(2) I like to guess a bit more explicit the demo jealously taken away by Dave.
I think that Gilmour has spoken about this. He only had a copy, he says.
It's still unclear if he has a copy of the entire tape (or the original tape itself), or only 'Bob Dylan Blues'. I'd like to know if 'Living alone' still exists. There's too little attention for this Barrett song.
Keith Jordan wrote:Are you the NPF forum user Wolfpack? This same thread was posted over at APFFN http://www.pinkfloydfan.net/t12536-wolfpack.html by Wolfpack who is also a user on here.
[/quote]
I'm no member of that forum. I see it for the first time, now. I'm the Wolfpack of the Late Night Discussion Room.
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Re: Wolfpack

Post by PCM72 »

Isn't that "fresh spring dripped through blanched bones"?
I've never seen "through" instead of "with" and the two verse seem to me separated.
It's still unclear if he has a copy of the entire tape or only 'Bob Dylan Blues'.
In the link I've reported (you have just to find "taken away" in the text), David Parker wrote:
1 reel of ¼" tape, numbered E95806, was used in making a 7.5ips copy tape of the recordings. This was "Taken away by David Gilmore(sic)" on a 7" spool.
(or the original tape itself)
There he also wrote:
Unfortunately, he returned later and removed the masters as well.
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Re: Wolfpack

Post by Wolfpack »

PCM72 wrote:
Isn't that "fresh spring dripped through blanched bones"?
I've never seen "through" instead of "with" and the two verse seem to me separated.
"Dripped through" has more sense to me. As if spring rain is dripping through bones which might resemble the winter.
PCM72 wrote:
It's still unclear if he has a copy of the entire tape or only 'Bob Dylan Blues'.
In the link I've reported (you have just to find "taken away" in the text), David Parker wrote:
1 reel of ¼" tape, numbered E95806, was used in making a 7.5ips copy tape of the recordings. This was "Taken away by David Gilmore(sic)" on a 7" spool.
(or the original tape itself)
There he also wrote:
Unfortunately, he returned later and removed the masters as well.
Is David Gilmour lying to us? :shock:
Doesn't the biography 'Lost in the Woods' (first version) mention some embarrassment during the recording of 'Wolfpack'? Maybe this was during the demo recording? Did Gilmour take the tapes with him to remove evidence of Barrett being embarrassing? But then, why take away a good recording like 'Bob Dylan Blues'?
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Re: Wolfpack

Post by danielcaux »

Perhaps then it was actually embarrassing for Gilmour than even in that state Barrett was able to write much better songs than his Pink Floyd replacement? [-X
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Re: Wolfpack

Post by my breakfast. »

Please don't tell me what you see in this:

Image
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Re: Wolfpack

Post by Idisaffect »

my breakfast. wrote:Please don't tell me what you see in this:

Image
I don't see, at the very top left and right, 2 ice cream cones flying like missiles into the face of a man who has a long nose and is wearing one of those winter hats with a fuzzy ball on top.
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Re: Wolfpack

Post by danielcaux »

I see a huge cat face and in the middle of it a white blob that looks like an old lady with a bishop hat screaming while spreading her arms and legs, with all her vagina covered in blood... what do I have doctor? 8-[
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Re: Wolfpack

Post by J Ed »

oh oh now I see that too, its so obvious
and she's giving birth to a fixed wing aircraft with lobster claws
a perfectly normal thing to see