See Emily Play is the second single by English psychedelic rock band Pink Floyd. Written by original frontman Syd Barrett and recorded on 23 May 1967, it featured “The Scarecrow” as its B-side.
See Emily Play is also known as “Games for May”, after a free concert in which Syd Barrett’s Pink Floyd performed. The slide guitar work on the song was done by Barrett using a plastic ruler. The song only stayed in the band’s setlist for a few months, and was last played on 25 November 1967 in Blackpool. It was reportedly about a girl named Emily, whom Barrett claimed he saw while sleeping in the woods after taking a psychedelic drug. He later stated that the story about sleeping in the woods and seeing a girl before him was made up “…all for publicity.”
According to A Saucerful of Secrets: The Pink Floyd Odyssey, by Nicholas Schaffner, Emily is the Honourable Emily Young, daughter of Wayland Hilton Young, 2nd Baron Kennet, and nicknamed “the psychedelic schoolgirl” at the UFO Club. An article in Mojo magazine called “See the Real Emily” supposedly shows a picture of Barrett’s Emily.
Record Company: Columbia Records
Catalog Number: DB 8214
Matrix: 7XCA 30214-1 HL 1 KT / 7XCA 30215-1 HA 3 KT (both stamped) (solid center)
[…] Piper at the Gates of Dawn, though it first appeared as the B-side of their second single “See Emily Play” (as “Scarecrow”) two months before. It was written by Syd Barrett and recorded […]
[…] Piper at the Gates of Dawn, though it first appeared as the B-side of their second single “See Emily Play” (as “Scarecrow”) two months before. It was written by Syd Barrett and recorded […]