# In 1967, Pink Floyd’s Pink Floyd’s manager hummed a tune. Syd Barrett turned it into psychedelic history

- URL: https://talkfuse.com/story/in-1967-pink-floyds-pink-floyds-manager-hummed-a-tune-syd-barrett-turned-it-into-psychedelic-history/
- Published: 2026-10-28T17:00:00+00:00
- Updated: 2026-11-04T01:40:13+00:00
- Original publisher: Far Out
- Original article: https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/in-1967-pink-floyds-pink-floyds-manager-hummed-a-tune-syd-barrett-turned-it-into-psychedelic-history/
- Topics: Entertainment, Music, Offbeat, Weird & Viral

## Key points

- A manager’s casual humming reportedly inspired “Interstellar Overdrive”.
- Syd Barrett turned the tune into an experimental instrumental.
- The nearly ten-minute track featured on Pink Floyd’s debut album.

## Summary

Peter Jenner, Pink Floyd’s manager, reportedly hummed a tune in 1967 that caught Syd Barrett’s attention and inspired the band’s instrumental “Interstellar Overdrive”. The chance moment helped shape Pink Floyd’s early psychedelic sound, as Barrett and his bandmates moved beyond their R&B beginnings towards more experimental music.

The article says Jenner may have been humming Love’s cover of Manfred Mann’s “My Little Red Book”, though the exact tune is uncertain. Barrett developed the idea into a nearly ten-minute improvisational piece, which appeared midway through the band’s debut album, *The Piper at the Gates of Dawn*, opening its second side.

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Summarised by TalkFuse (https://talkfuse.com/). Quote the original publisher for the reporting and link this page for the summary and discussion.