Matilda Mother (3:05)

The songs were full of fairy-tale images. Matilda Mother is a beautiful evocation of being read a bedtime story by mother. When it was first played live, Syd would sing verses lifted straight from Hilaire Belloc’s Cautionary Tales. When it came time to record the track, Andrew King approached the Belloc estate but was refused permission to use the poem, so Syd wrote his own version.

— Jones, “Wish You Were Here”.

here is the Belloc version of

Matilda Who told Lies, and was Burned to Death.

Matilda told such Dreadful Lies,
It made one Gasp and Stretch one’s Eyes;
Her Aunt, who, from her Earliest Youth,
Had kept a Strict Regard for Truth,

Attempted to believe Matilda:
The effort very nearly killed her,
And would have done so, had not She
Discovered this Infirmity.
For once, towards the Close of Day,
And finding she was left alone,
Went tiptoe
to
the telephone
And summoned the Immediate Aid