How 'See Emily Play' Became Pink Floyd's Most Successful Early Single and the Guitar Riff's Secret

The most interesting thing about “See Emily Play” isn’t just that it hit No. 6 on the UK charts in 1967 – it’s that Syd Barrett played the riff in an open E tuning (E-B-E-G#-B-E) while running his Fender Esquire through a Binson Echorec tape echo unit. That combination of a drone-heavy open chord and the watery, delayed repeats gave the guitar a lopsided, floating quality that no one had heard before. He wasn’t using a slide; he simply fretted the melody over the open strings, letting the sympathetic vibrations ring out.

The song was originally called “Games for May” after a UFO club show, but manager Andrew King and producer Norman Smith pushed for a catchier title. Barrett wrote it about a girl he saw floating through