Arnold Layne

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 dug 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
Now he's caught - a nasty sort of person.
They gave him time
Doors bang - chain gang - he hates 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
Don't do it again



- Although it was not included on the band's first album, this is the first single released by the band.

- The single reached #9 on the record charts for 1967. Reference

- This is the band's alternative promotional film, which featured the band goofing around in a forest and in front of a church. It is also the only known footage of Syd Barrett lip syncing to the song.



- "Arnold Layne had a strange hobby, collecting clothes, moonshine washing line, they suit him fine" - The song's title character is a transvestite whose primary pastime is stealing women's clothes and undergarments from washing lines. According to Roger Waters, "Arnold Layne" was actually based on a real person, and that this person routinely stole underwear from the mothers of (Syd) Barrett and Waters during their childhood days in Cambridge.

- Despite finding a place in the Top 20, the song's unusual transvestism theme attracted the ire of Radio London, which deemed the song too far-removed from "normal" society for its listeners before eventually banning it from radio airplay altogether.

-It took (Joe) Boyd 40 years to discover the song's origins - too late to include them in his book.

"After the book came out [in England], I was on the phone with Nick Mason from Floyd," Boyd says. "He told me that Syd Barrett's and Roger Waters' mothers used a room in each of their houses as a boardinghouse for students. And girl students in the house means underwear in the washing machine or on the line. So they grew up with this image, and then there was a case in Cambridge of some guy caught stealing lingerie. All of this was going on while Syd and Roger were 13, 14, 15. And they get to be 19, 20, and it turns into a song - "Arnold Layne." Reference