Mini Blog; Pink Floyd: Matilda Mother

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Band: Pink Floyd

Song: Matilda Mother/ Matilda Mother (Alternative Version)

Genre/s: Psychedelia/ Psychedelic Pop/ Psychedelic Rock

Year:1967

I was totally unprepared for my first encounter with Pink Floyd’s debut album, ‘Piper at the Gates of Dawn’ (1967) when I first heard it almost thirty years ago at the age of sixteen. With it’s slightly scary psychedelic songs of Space, Ship’s Cats, Gingerbread Men, Gnomes and Scarecrows, I always credit ‘Piper’ as the album which essentially rewired my ‘music brain’ and made me more open-minded to all manner of alternative music. It’s always been a favourite, although I think ‘Interstellar Overdrive’ isn’t the best tune to play on a first date.

One of the songs that always stuck with me was ‘Matilda Mother’, with it’s children’s storybook & nursery rhyme-like lyrics. The tune for me, conjures up childhood memories of being read bedtime stories, or perhaps a book read enthusiastically by a teacher at primary school, or the nonsense poems of Edward Lear, or getting home in the late 70s/early 80s after school and watching and listening to a celebrity such as Kenneth Williams or Bernard Cribbins reciting another tale on classic UK Kids’ story show ‘Jackanory’.

Here is an alternative version of ‘Matilda Mother’. I had been aware of this version for a number of years, but didn’t realise the lyrics for this version were lifted directly from ‘Cautionary Tales for Children: Designed for the Admonition of Children between the ages of eight and fourteen years’ by author Hilaire Belloc. Apparently, Belloc's estate refused permission for Pink Floyd to release this version and so it was rewritten for ‘Piper’. I like both versions. They equally have a childlike innocence to them, coupled with a slight melancholia, reminding the listener that we can never return to childhood, but we can revisit it! ⭐️

🎼Listen to: Matilda Mother (Alternative Version): https://youtu.be/dp4DjDxpdTk

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