Several months before releasing their debut album The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, Pink Floyd released their first single on March 10, 1967. Written by frontman Syd Barrett, “Arnold Layne,” which was never released on any of the band’s albums, told the story of a cross-dressing man who stole women’s bras and panties off the clotheslines where Barrett and bandmate Roger Waters grew up in Cambridge, England.
Barrett and Waters knew “Arnold Layne” well since both of their mothers lost clothing to the garment-stealing culprit. “Both my mother and Syd’s mother had students as lodgers because there was a girls’ college up the road, so there were constantly great lines of bras and knickers on our washing lines,” said Waters in 1967, “and ‘Arnold’ or whoever he was, had bits off our washing lines.”
Videos by American Songwriter
[RELATED: Watch: First Trailer for Syd Barrett Documentary ‘Have You Got It Yet?’]
“Arnold Layne was a Nice Name”
Though the song was called “Arnold Layne,” the real-life garment thief may have had another name. “I thought ‘Arnold Layne’ was a nice name and fitted well into the music I had already composed,” said Barrett in a 1967 article in the British weekly Melody Maker.
“I was at Cambridge at the time I started to write the song,” Barrett added. “I pinched the line about ‘moonshine washing line’ from Rog [Waters] our bass guitarist, because he has an enormous washing line in the back garden of his house. Then I thought, ‘Arnold must have a hobby,’ and it went on from there.”
Arnold Layne had a strange hobby
Collecting clothes
Moonshine washing line
They suit him fine
On the wall hung a tall mirror
Distorted view, see-through baby blue
He done it
Oh, Arnold Layne
It’s not the same, takes two to know, two to know, two to know
Why can’t you see?
Arnold Layne, Arnold Layne, Arnold Layne, Arnold Layne
[RELATED: Behind Pink Floyd’s Syd Barrett Tribute: “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”]
Disclaimer
Along with the “controversial” subject matter of the song, the band’s then-label EMI also printed a disclaimer in the promotional materials around the single release, which read “Pink Floyd does not know what people mean by psychedelic pop and are not trying to cause hallucinatory effects on their audience.”
Radio Ban
Though the song peaked at No. 20 on the UK Singles chart, soon after its release it was banned by radio stations, including BBC Radio London, which objected to its transvestite theme.
“‘Arnold Layne’ just happens to dig dressing up in women’s clothing,” said Barrett defending this song. “A lot of people do, so let’s face up to reality.”
When the single began dropping on the charts, it affected Pink Floyd’s debut appearance on Top of the Pops in April of 1967. The performance never aired, but the band later appeared on the show that July to perform their second 1967 single, also written by Barrett, “See Emily Play.”
Photo: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
