Relics

Arnold

Arnold Layne

The Pink Floyd's first single, a manic song about a convicted crossdresser. Reached #20 in the UK, put the Pink Floyd on the map. The first manifestation of Barrett's songwriting talents was a bizarre little classic called 'Arnold Layne'. A sinister piece of vaguely commercial fare, it dealt with the twilight wanderings of a transvestite/pervert figure and is both whimsical and singularly creepy. \[David Gilmour speaking about Syd Barrett\] "It wasn't just the drugs, we'd both done acid before the whole Floyd thing, it's just a mental foible which grew out of all proportion. I remember all sorts of strange things happening - at one point he was wearing lipstick, dressing in high heels, and believing he had homosexual tendencies...." -- Nick Kent, New Musical Express, 1974. Roger Waters' mother noticed that washing, particularly underwear belonging to her female lodgers, kept vanishing from her line during the night. The Cambridge Knicker Snatcher became the cause of much local gossip and Roger would keep Syd abreast of events as more laundry disappeared from his garden. Amused, Syd began work on a song about the story. It took him three weeks to perfect during frequent train journeys between London and Cambridge.... -- Jones, "Wish You Were Here". 'Arnold Layne' was a true story from the group's Cambridge days. "Both my mother and Syd's had students as lodgers because there was a girl's college up the road," says Waters. "So there were constantly great lines of bras and knickers on our washing lines. Arnold, or whoever he was, took bits and pieces off the washing lines." -- Mike Watkinson & Pete Anderson, "Crazy Diamond: Syd Barrett & the Dawn of Pink Floyd", edited by Chris Charlesworth, Omnibus Press, 2001; p. 51 Roger Waters says, 'Both my mother and Syd's mother had students as lodgers because there was a girl's college up the road so there was constantly great lines of bras and knickers on our washing lines.' In one curious incident, the bras and knickers that hung on the washing lines in the Barrett's garden proved irresistable to a local underwear fetishist. This character, whom Barrett would later immortalise in song as Arnold Layne, made off with many of poor nursing students' undergarments, presumably to indulge his fantasies. 'Arnold or whoever he was, had bits and pieces off our washing lines. They never caught him. He stopped doing it after a bit, when things got too hot for him.' 'I was in Cambridge at the time I started to write the song,' Syd Barrett told \*Melody Maker\*. 'I pinched the line about "moonshine washing line" from Roger because he had 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 just happened to dig dressing up in women's clothing.' -- Julian Palacios, "Lost in the Woods: Syd Barrett and the Pink Floyd," Boxtree, 1998; p. 27. Syd's eccentricity also surfaced from time to time such as when he appeared before \[Ronnie\] Salmon in the foyer \[of Chelsea Cloisters\] wearing a dress, his head newly shaven. "He had on a Crombie coat with a dress underneath and a pair of plimsoils. I ran after him because I couldn't believe what I'd seen, and there he was walking down Sloane Avenue." Syd had brought 'Arnold Layne' to life and the disarming display no doubt appealed to his creator's dark sense of humour. -- Watkinson/Anderson, Crazy Diamond, p. 118. [Read more on Last.fm](http://www.last.fm/music/Pink+Floyd/_/Arnold+Layne). User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.

The Pink Floyd's first single, a manic song about a convicted crossdresser. Reached #20 in the UK, put the Pink Floyd on the map. The first manifestation of Barrett's songwriting talents was a bizarre little classic called 'Arnold Layne'. A sinister piece of vaguely commercial fare, it dealt with the twilight wanderings of a transvestite/pervert figure and is both whimsical and singularly creepy. \[David Gilmour speaking about Syd Barrett\] [Read more on Last.fm](http://www.last.fm/music/Pink+Floyd/_/Arnold+Layne).