Matilda Mother

Lyrics:

There was a king who ruled the land
His majesty was in command
With silver eyes the scarlet eagle
Showers silver on the people
Oh mother, tell me more

Why'd'ya have to leave me there
Hanging in my infant air
Waiting?
You only have to read the lines
They're scribbly black and everything (shines)

Across the stream with wooden shoes
With bells to tell the king the news
A thousand misty riders climb up
Higher once upon a time

Wandering and dreaming
The words have different meaning
Yes they did

For all the time spent in that room
The doll's house, darkness, old perfume
And fairy stories held me high on
Clouds of sunlight floating by
Oh mother, tell me more
Tell me more

 

"Matilda Mother" is a song by the English rock band Pink Floyd, featured on their 1967 debut album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn. Written by Syd Barrett, it is sung mostly by Richard Wright with Barrett joining in on choruses and singing the whole last verse. It was the first song recorded for the album.

Lyrics and music

The lyrics quote fragments of fairy tales as read from a book to the singer by his mother ("read[ing] the scribbly black", referring to writing in a book as a child sees it), and in the chorus he implores her to "tell me more". "Matilda Mother" represents a common theme in Barrett's work: his nostalgia for childhood and awareness that it could not be regained.

The song begins with a bass and organ introduction in which Roger Waters repeatedly plays the B on the 16th fret of the G-string by varying the lower note from D to F# on the D string. Unlike many older beat and pop songs, the guitar rarely plays chords, and most unusually for Western music, Wright provides an organ solo in the F# Phrygian dominant scale with a natural sixth instead of its typical flatted counterpart. The song ends with a simple E mixolydian-based waltz with wordless vocal harmonies of Wright and Barrett.

Barrett originally wrote the song around verses from Hilaire Belloc's Cautionary Tales, in which a series of naughty children, including Matilda, receive their (often gruesome) comeuppance. He was forced to rewrite and re-record the track when Belloc's estate unexpectedly denied permission to use these lyrics. The original version was released on An Introduction to Syd Barrett in 2010.

Later release

On the Masters of Rock compilation album, the song was misspelled "Mathilda Mother".

Alternative versions

A previously unreleased alternative version was released in a 40th anniversary reissue of The Piper at the Gates of Dawn; parts of this version's lyrics are also from Belloc's Cautionary Tales, i.e. Jim and Henry King, whereas the chorus is the same as in the standard version.

A different, stereo remix of the same alternative version was also released on the Barrett compilation, An Introduction to Syd Barrett in 2010. An extended version of this 2010 mix appeared in the Pink Floyd compilation box set The Early Years 1965–1972, which also contains two live recordings of the song.