Arnold Layne: The mysterious criminal behind a Pink Floyd classic
After emerging in the mid-1960s as a run-of-the-mill rhythm and blues band, tracing The Rolling Stones’ hot trail across London, Pink Floyd scaled the walls of convention thanks to the enigmatic genius of founding bandleader and songwriter Syd Barrett. Under Barrett’s guidance, Pink Floyd became one of Britain’s psychedelic rock scene’s earliest and most prominent acts.
During the band’s early rise to prominence, a Sunday Times article stated: “At the launching of the new magazine IT the other night, a pop group called the Pink Floyd played throbbing music while a series of bizarre coloured shapes flashed on a huge screen behind them… apparently very psychedelic.”
On July 6th, 1967, Pink Floyd garnered crucial nationwide attention after showcasing the early single, ‘See Emily Play’ on the popular BBC programme Top of the Pops. Before this, however, came the band’s ever-absorbing first-ever single, ‘Arnold Layne’.
As the spelling of the title and the lyrics, “Arnold Layne had a strange hobby/Collecting clothes/Moonshine washing line/They suit him fine,” hint, the song isn’t about a lane. Rather, Barrett wrote the ethereal single about a small-time criminal who lived near Cherry Hinton Road in Pink Floyd’s hometown, Cambridge.
As Capturing Cambridge, a website created by the Museum of Cambridge, notes, a randy thief by the surname Arnold became notably active on Laundry Lane, a road stemming from Cherry Hinton Road. As the name suggests, the road housed the area’s biggest laundry, which took in clothes from local university students.
According to several local sources, the petty thief made his money stealing clothes from the laundry’s drying lines and selling them in the local area. “I was born and lived in Steam Laundry Cottages,” Kevin Arnold, a local man and relative of the thief, recalled. “My father was Leonard Percy Arnold, my grandmother was Cecilia Dora Arnold. So many Arnolds lived and worked at the laundry. John ‘Beefy’ Arnold was my uncle and had many children.”
“One notable small-time criminal in our family, who was well known to the police and an alcoholic, was renowned for stealing high-end garments and linen from the laundry and selling them around Cherry Hinton to feed his habit,” Arnold continued. “Later, he built his own still in a shed at the back of the house, also selling cheap liquor.”
Revealing Barrett’s connection to the mystery laundry thief, Arnold added: “One of his clothing customers and friends was a certain Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd fame who penned a song called Arnold Layne, which became their debut single.”
To this day, the mystery remains as to which Arnold was responsible for Syd Barrett’s rather dashing wardrobe. With his seemingly vast family protecting his identity for understandable reasons, it looks like we may never know.
Listen below to Pink Floyd’s debut angle, ‘Arnold Layne’.