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Originally Posted by This Is Not Here
This track [Here I Go] is probably the most coherent of all on Madcap, it’s a lovely Carnaby Street pop song, and a rarity for Syd’s solo songwriting, it has a narrative instead of the usual stream of consciousness lyricism. The result of a more clear-minded recording session, the story is very uplifting – about ditching that bitch and shagging her sister, and provides some welcome relief – with this, it also includes a veiled stab at Pink Floyd- “she said a big band is far better than you”. Yep, the singings out of tune, the guitar is amateur – and I fucking love it.
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It's interesting that you see the track like that. I tend to see Here I Go, and The Madcap Laughs in general, more as a kind of decidely bitter post-party come down from the whole Carnaby Street thing, which was largely dead by 1967 anyway, rather than an evocation of its heyday. Barrett was, as we all know, a casualty of that era and, for me, part of the greatness of the album is the way in which it bears its war-wounds so openly. In this sense, I think it's only equal from that no-longer-Swinging London era is maybe Lennon's debut solo album, 'John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band' - which also came out in 1970.
It's usual, and not entirely incorrect, to mention the Velvets in the same breath as Barrett, but I always feel that Lennon is a far better comparison, especially during that brief period - two rather fragile figures, damaged by inter-band rivalries as well as being alienated from a scene they were both so pivotal in creating. The Madcap Laughs and John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band are, in many ways, Britain's first real post-'sixties' albums and certainly paved the way for themes that would emerge later, on, for example, ex-Fairground Convention guitarist Richard Thompson's solo work in the early seventies.
With this in mind, it's interesting how Barrett remains a massive influence on artists that've gone solo following earlier periods of success with more popular bands (most notable examples being Julian Cope, Graham Coxon and, ahem, Captain Sensible)