Pink Floyd released the single “Apples and Oranges” in the UK on November 17, 1967. The Columbia seven-inch paired Syd Barrett’s A-side with “Paint Box,” written and sung by keyboardist Richard Wright. It was the band’s third UK single, arriving after two chart hits and the release of their debut album.
“Arnold Layne” had reached No. 20 in Britain, while “See Emily Play” climbed to No. 6. The album The Piper at the Gates of Dawn followed in August. “Apples and Oranges” continued the band’s run of standalone singles, with Barrett again supplying the lead vocal and the song. Its subject was everyday attraction: a narrator watching a woman shop, with the supermarket providing the setting for his fascination.
Making another hit out of that idea proved difficult. In his memoir Inside Out: A Personal History of Pink Floyd, quoted by Ultimate Classic Rock, drummer Nick Mason recalled believing the song would have worked well as an album track. The pressure to produce a successful single led the group and producer Norman Smith to add overdubbed choruses and echo. Mason liked the composition but questioned the role it had been given: a song he considered suited to an LP was being pushed toward the singles chart. The additional studio work didn’t turn it into a UK chart entry.
Barrett’s response to that result was less concerned with sales figures than with who should control the music. Speaking in the December 9, 1967, edition of Melody Maker, he said, “All we can do is make records which we like.” He also argued that groups should be able to record, manufacture, distribute and sell their own records, cutting out the businesses between musicians and listeners. A conversation about an unsuccessful single became an argument for artistic and commercial independence.
The other side of the record gave Wright a different role from the one he played behind Barrett. On “Apples and Oranges,” he supplied keyboards; on “Paint Box,” he was both songwriter and lead singer. That pairing put two distinct writing voices on the same seven-inch. Wright’s song later appeared as “Paintbox” on the 1971 compilation Relics, giving the B-side a place in the band’s album catalogue.
The single’s promotional history also crossed a change in personnel. Barrett was still fronting Pink Floyd when they mimed “Apples and Oranges” on American Bandstand during their first US visit in November 1967. By January 1968, David Gilmour had joined, briefly making the band a five-piece before they began performing without Barrett. A Belgian promotional film from February 1968 features Gilmour with the group and Roger Waters mouthing Barrett’s recorded vocal in a fruit market. The film preserves the old recording with the new performing lineup.
“Apples and Oranges” became Barrett’s final Pink Floyd single as songwriter. When the band issued its next UK single, “It Would Be So Nice,” in April 1968, Gilmour was part of the lineup and Wright had moved from writing the previous B-side to writing the A-side.
