Have You Got It Yet? The Story of Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd (2023)

[bunniefuu]

"Fame requires every kind of excess.

I mean true fame.

A devouring neon.

Long journeys across grey space.

Danger.

The edge of every void.

Understand the man who must

inhabit these extreme regions.

Even if half-mad, he is absorbed

into the public's total madness.

Even If fully rational,

a bureaucrat in hell,

a secret genius of survival,

he is sure to be destroyed by

the public's contempt for survivors."

What are you working on

at the moment inside yourself?

I can't really say.

Maybe this break

would be very valuable

to try painting again after

a break of going into pop music.

I don't know.

If I wanted to say nothing,

or if I want to act

in an extraordinary way,

then I feel that

that too is justified.

Syd Barrett, one of the tounding

members of Pink Floyd,

has died at the age of 60.

A statement from the band

described him as a guiding light

who leaves a legacy

which continues to inspire.

He left the Pink Floyd in 1968

and lived as a recluse

in Cambridge For three decades.

How would you describe,

now in your maturity...

Thank you.

His contribution to Pink Floyd?

Well, it wouldn't have existed

if it hadn't been For Syd.

We would have been one of those

thousands and thousands of bands

who come up and they play

blues and "Louie Louie".

They might write the odd crappy

song and then they disappear.

They get proper jobs

and that's the end of it.

I discovered Pink Floyd's music

through the music

they made in the late '70s.

For people that got

into Pink Floyd at that point

and were listening

to those records first,

they knew that there had been

this guy Syd in the band.

The story was always,

"Oh, he went mad and left the group.

That's all we knew about it

There was religious

acid taking at that time.

Syd was one of the sort of

saints of that underground cult.

Literature and the Bible

For example, is full of people

who deliberately isolated themselves.

The hermits who went into the desert.

People who had visions,

who preferred to be on their own.

And others,

who having those experiences,

were determined

to preach to the multitude.

The romantic ideal is

that a creative person is drawn

by something so powerful

that he, or she, will tollow that

regardless of the price

that has to be paid.

These people are out there in front.

They're not looking

over their shoulder,

they're just gonna do it.

Syd is the ultimate kind of loner.

It's the same a little bit

with Brian Jones or something.

I suppose what is sad

ls about somebody

who is still extremely relevant,

Just decides to stop.

It's OK when someone carries on

into irrelevance and then stops.

No one cares.

The last thing he was interested in

was explaining himself.

And consequently, he became a figure

of intense-tocused interest,

because there was a mystery there.

He's the perfect god, you see.

A god must actually

be k*lled and eaten,

but then he must be reborn.

The life of Syd Barrett,

tounding member of Pink Floyd,

is full of unanswered questions.

Though he named the group

and wrote their first two hit songs,

Barrett was later pushed out

of the band by its members,

who were convinced he was having

an LSD-induced psychotic breakdown.

But to examine the complex

story of Syd Barrett,

one needs to take a trip.

A trip back to the picturesque

and historic

English university town of Cambridge.

Roger Keith Barrett was born in

Cambridge on January 6th 1946.

One of five children,

closest to his sister Rosemary.

He was always

wanting the next bit of fun.

And if it didn't arrive,

then he'd make it.

I can remember

once at the dinner table,

when he had a little bit of cabbage

sticking out of his mouth.

He knew it was there and he kept it

there For the whole meal

and pretended he didn't know.

Of course, everybody was

giggling because his face was,

"I know it's there,

I know you're laughing at me

but I'm going to ignore it."

Barrett's father,

a pathologist and avid botanist,

encouraged the artistic

leanings of his son,

who loved to write and draw.

By the age of 13 or 14,

Roger had acquired the nickname 'Syd'

from his friends at school.

As legend has it

after a local jazz bass player,

Syd 'the beat' Barretft.

At home he remained Roger or Rog.

I'm speaking at this level.

I'm speaking at this level.

Ok. This is slate three.

I believe Storm's interview,

it's 08:10.

Big clap.

My name is Storm.

I knew Syd in the early '60s.

We were both at the same school

as Roger and Dave,

who became Pink Floyd obviously.

The peer group in Cambridge

that Syd was part of

was full of aspiring artists.

Not businessmen,

not medical, not lawyers.

Syd was not unusual

and seemed to be

as he were one of the g*ng.

The group evolved by itself.

Nobody was really the leader.

The centres of Seamus and Storm

was simply because their mothers

were very indulgent

towards teenage boys.

The start came at Cherry Hinton

Road at your mother's house.

I tended to be into

beer and jazz and students.

Your lot were more into drugs

and rock music and cool people.

I deny it totally.

I went to the county high school,

Cambridgeshire High School For boys,

and was in the same year as Syd.

We had to choose between

woodwork, metal work and art.

So I went into the art class

and there I discovered a bunch

of people who were useless.

A teacher who was equally useless,

but one student

by the name of Roger Barrett,

had a flare way beyond his years.

The Christmas holiday of 1961

was overshadowed

by his father's death from cancer,

Just a month

beFore Syd's 16th birthday.

Syd's family moves to 183 Hills Road.

Libby Gausden lives

several houses up the street.

I met Syd, I think, in 1961.

We'd have both been 15.

Where did you meet?

I met him at Jesus Green,

which is a wonderful place

in Cambridge.

I'd been swimming and diving

actually with Dave Gilmour.

After the swimming,

I came out with some friends

and we were messing

about on the see-saw outside.

And I met Syd there.

He was kind,

he was gentle, he was generous,

he liked buying presents.

He wrote to me all the time.

I had always thought of you

as Syd's first major girlfriend.

We were always together.

When you went out with him how was he?

It always looked like he was full

of the joys of spring, which he was.

Let's go back,

way back to the early '60s.

What is your abiding memory of Syd?

Just a guy who was fiercely

intelligent and loads of fun.

Life was just too easy

For him really in a way.

He had huge gifts

which were natural to him

so he didn't see them as huge.

Everything he turned

his hand to worked.

The girls worked, the painting

worked, the music worked,

the friendships worked.

I always remember Syd's hair.

- Do you?

- Yeah.

- Curly, black.

- Yeah, lovely.

And I also remember his walk.

- He smelled nice.

- Sorry?

He smelled nice.

You could see

this extraordinary buoyancy

which was most clearly

evidenced in the way he walked.

He walked with a bounce,

he walked on the front of his feet

with his heels

off the ground all the time.

You could spot him several

hundred yards away in Cambridge

wandering up the street.

We used to go on my Vespa

down to Hills Road

For these Sunday afternoon

jam sessions,

where I saw Syd playing

guitar For the first time.

The music side of the story

really begins

with Geoff Mott And The Mottoes,

of which Syd was an august member.

I remember when Syd

bought his first Futurama.

It was bright red as I recall

and he used to learn

Duane Eddy things on it

like "Walk Don't Run".

We'd started to go to shows in London

and I remember sitting on the train

having seen Gene Vincent.

We sat there with a piece of paper

and figured out

the amplification For the band

that we were going to be.

It had two VOX AC30s drawn on it.

And we were going,

"Well, the vocals and the bass

and then this can go through this one.

The rhythm guitar...

Will we have a keyboard?

Don't know, maybe."

He used to appear at parties

of which we had quite a lot of

in Cambridge at that time.

He used to play a lot of the songs

that later became songs on his album.

But because he was just

as he were one of the g*ng,

I don't think anybody

thought anything about him.

He had this grin

you could mistake For a smirk

but it wasn't.

It was almost like he knew

something you didn't know.

He was one of those people

that was part of the crowd very much so

and then the next minute,

he'd slipped away from a room.

And it'd be, Where's Syd?

Nobody knows.

Syd's enthusiasm for painting

sees him enrol at the Cambridge

School of Art in 1962.

Simultaneously, he discovers

Beat poetry, Kerouac

and rhythm and blues.

He gets into The Beatles

and sees

the Rolling Stones in concert.

He drew very often

with a lovely kind of whirly

twirly drawing quality.

Very refined line I would say.

He seemed to me a born painter

and to have really the temperament

of a born painter.

Slightly recessive and contemplative.

! had taken up painting.

David Gale suggested that

we have an exhibition together.

It is our first venture

into commercial art.

A total failure.

- Did you sell anything?

- No, we sold nothing.

We used to have

jam sessions with the guitar

in the art school,

and later, joined by Dave,

in the common room

to the whole technical college.

We loved Beatles

and Stones and blues stuff.

Chuck and Bo.

I can remember learning "Come On".

- The Stones.

- By the Stones.

And "Off the Hook".

I can see in my mind the back bench

against one of the walls

and people sitting there

at probably 10:00 o'clock in

the morning just strumming away.

Do you remember whether you were

impressed by his paintings

or by his personality?

I was more impressed

by his personality.

He just looked like somebody

who was going places.

He was quite a star in our small

firmament as it was at the time.

He was very unusual,

very interesting.

The complete package

I believe you'd say.

The complete package.

Jenny dear,

when did you first meet Syd?

And how was he?

I met him in the Cambridge

Student Union Cellars.

He was playing with

a band called Those Without.

He came up and said hello

and introduced himself.

When did you start going steady?

Well, a week later,

a week after that,

he phoned me and said

he would like

to meet up and have coffee.

So I met him in the Guild.

He wrote to me and said

that he'd drawn a picture

of me leaning against the bar.

He sent this picture

with a beautiful piece of pink

tissue paper written on it,

"I love you, I love you.

I can't stop thinking about you."

How long did you go out with him?

I probably saw him nearly

every day from 61 to '63.

I think he went

to art school in London in '64,

so that was a bit of a messy year.

In September 1964,

Syd moves to London.

In 1960, whatever it was,

he duly arrived

and he moved into the apartment

that I was already sharing

with Nick Mason and Rick Wright.

- Mike Leonard's place?

- Mike Leonard's place.

We were Leonard's Lodgers.

Bob Klose was in the band.

As soon as Syd arrived things changed

because Syd had other aspirations.

Syd tuned into

that whole west coast thing.

If you asked me, "What did Love do?"

I'd go, "I have no f*ck' idea."

But I know Syd did.

He was one of the most

emotionally and intellectually

curious people

that I've ever met.

Gigging under various names,

the Architectural Abdabs

and The Tea Set,

Syd renames their band

the Pink Floyd Sound

by combining the names

of two obscure blues men,

Pink Anderson and Floyd Council.

Bob Klose leaves the band

as they start moving

towards more improvised music

largely as backing tracks to their

increasingly elaborate light shows.

Syd starts to write songs

including "Let's Roll Another One,

which later becomes

"Candy and a Currant Bun"

and "Bob Dylan Blues".

The band becomes solidified

with Syd on guitar,

Roger Wafters on bass,

Rick Wright on keyboards

and Nick Mason on drums.

When you were at Camberwell with Syd,

what kind of guy was he?

The thing that I really remember

ls his innocence.

All this very glamorous

dark curly hair, very alive eyes

and a general air

of glamour about him.

But he had this innocence

almost like a child.

He painted with great energy,

terrific sense of colour.

And what I remember is big,

very painterly abstract paintings.

Towards the end of that first year,

he went to Robert Medley,

who was head of painting.

He said to Robert,

"At the moment with my group

I'm getting 200 pounds a week."

- A lot of money.

- A fortune really.

He said, "Could I possibly have

the year off, have a sabbatical?"

His college work was important

and he'd write to me and say,

"I've got to do a painting this size

so / can stay on next year,

but I wrote this really nice song.

So did Syd then leave for a year?

He left and he didn't come back.

Having left art school there are

a lot of things that I could do,

a lot of things I see now,

a lot of things that went into me,

thinking that these were perhaps

changing and altering things.

Roger Keith Barret,

aspiring painter,

drops out of art school so that Syd

Barrett, pop star, may be born.

Before long, Barrett would find

himself at the epicentre

of the biggest underground

movement ever to hit Britain.

You've got a bright future.

There's a general

sea change that goes on

in English music anyway

during 1965, '66.

You get a band like The Paramounts

turning to Procol Harum

and stop doing

cover versions of Poison Ivy.

And within two years they're

doing "A Whiter Shade of Pale".

I think Syd is aft the very

cutting edge of that movement.

I think Syd's one

of the first ones who transforms

from just copying R&B to actually

doing something utterly new.

We were reading

Alan Watts, Marvel comics,

Kerouac and Cybernetics,

all at the same time.

Syd was an extraordinarily

quick absorber.

It was just a series of, "Look at this.

Listen to this.

What about this?"

And it was just

going on and on and on and on.

All of the arts, all simultaneously

and then we can just throw

LSD into the mix if you feel like it.

There was a lot of rumours

going around

that acid can damage your brain.

And hippies would say,

"It's just the CIA, man.

They're just saying that

to stop you taking acid,

to stop you eating live kittens."

According to all the accounts

that I've read,

everybody was on acid

in my parents back garden.

This is not true.

! think the only person

there who was on acid...

Maybe two people were,

Paul Charrier and Sunny Syd.

I believe there was a water fight.

The bathroom window

on the top floor banged open.

There were shouts of joy

and we saw water

coming out of the window.

Paul Charrier wielding the rose

of the shower spraying Syd.

They were just mucking about

like six-year-olds.

People were hanging

around in the garden.

Syd went into the kitchen

of the house, tound a box of matches,

an orange and a plum,

sat down and looked at them.

Most of the time, what I remember

is Syd sitting quietly

in the back garden

of Dave Gale's house

holding and examining these objects.

At that time, everybody

was dropping acid in London.

But not everybody's

dropping acid like he was.

But he wasn't the only one.

And there was a lot of

discussion about how to take it.

Is there a big difference between

50 milligrams a day or 100 or 2507

How many times a day?

Once, twice or three times?

Is there a real difference between

250 milligrams and 500 milligrams?

Acid was the drug of the time.

Self-realisation,

speaking to God through acid,

is the danger of opening doors

before you've spent

30 years in solitude

and preparing your soul

and your spirit ready

for the big meeting with Big G.

That was one

of the problems with acid.

It whooshed you right through

that 30 years of preparation,

opened the door and bang!

There you are at the centre

of the celestial universe.

Deal with it my son.

And two hours before you were eating

fish and chips down the corner.

He really did feel

that the psychedelic revolution

was flowing right through his body.

He did feel he was almost

possessed against his will.

You know that story, "If you can

remember the '60s you weren't there.

It was the destruction of the rational,

predictable, material world.

So called reality

was only one of many.

1966 is the year

the doors come off the hinges.

Fuelled by experimentation

with mind-expanding drugs

flowing through the counter culture,

the seismic upheaval

of post-w*r British society

spreads from politics and an',

f0 fashion and music.

Everybody was taking lots of drugs.

People liked these long things

that you could really get into,

which strung you out

and took you very slowly through

various climactic trajectories.

We all liked Love's album

which was really good.

I was just saying to him, "I really love

that song which goes..."

Da-da-da-da-da da-da-da.

Done in the "Little Red Book,

or something like that.

I can't sing in tune to save my life.

Syd said, "You mean like this?"

And he played it.

That's what became

"Interstellar Overdrive",

It was that riff mangled by me

and then reinterpreted by Syd.

The big thing in those days was

Friday night at the Uto club.

Not only did you have Pink Floyd,

you had The Soft Machine

and the Crazy World of Arthur Brown.

"Fire."

Da-da-da, da-da.

Pete would have been supplying

a psychedelic projection apparatus

to the increasingly

gigging Pink Floyd.

Were you as excited by this

as were the audience?

I don't know about the audience,

I never gave them a thought.

I remember being in the audience

thinking this was probably

the centre of the universe.

Yes it was, indeed.

The only time [I've ever deliberately

missed a gig with The Who,

was I heard that Pink Floyd

were doing a concert

and didn't tell the band.

So the band went and I went

to the Uto club with Eric

and took some acid

and danced like a hippie.

The band had come out

with this interesting rig,

which was two Binson Echorec units.

They were considered to be

an echo box from the era of...

Dow-dow, dow-dow-dow.

Nobody used them.

Certainly Jimi Hendrix

did not use an echo box

and neither did I, and neither did

Eric Clapton or Jimmy Page.

Nobody used them.

But Syd had not just one but two.

He came out he had a shock of

black hair, black makeup on his eyes

and the clothes he was wearing

were proper psychedelic outfits.

And he was beautiful.

He plays a chord

and it just goes, jang!

And then nothing happens.

So he pushes

some buttons on this machine,

plays another chord, jang!

Nothing happens, he pushes another

couple of buttons on the machine

and suddenly it goes...

Da-na-na, da-da-da WO-WO-WO-WO...

His analogue echo degrades.

He pushes another button

on the other machine,

and it goes into, what we call

in the music business, syncopated echo.

It goes...

Pow-pow-pow-pow, pa-pa-pa-pa,

pow, pa-pa-pa-pa, pow.

Pa-pa-pa-pa, pow,

pa-pa-pa-pa, pow.

Nick Mason starts to play

and then Roger Walers starts to play

and it just turns into

what can only be described

as spectacular

psychedelic heavy metal.

Something suddenly kicks in.

I don't think it's even gradual.

Yes, you can say it's LSD.

Yes, you can say it's the echoplex,

it's the light shows.

There's all these interesting

environmental things going on

in and around the music,

but really it's Syd.

The way the act's developed

in the last six months

has been influenced by the fact

that we've played in ballrooms.

I think concerts have given us

a chance to realise

that the music we play isn't

directed at dancing necessarily

like normal pop groups.

Syd defined the whole

of that moment in the '60s.

The colour, the vivacity of it,

the psychedelic freedom.

Without Syd, something

might have happened eventually.

You couldn't over emphasize

his importance

because he was the creative genius.

I remember sitting with him

while he was looking

into the stars book

and getting "Astronomy Domine" thing,

which I had to read in the studio,

which he just took out

of a book, and I love that.

They were so totally

and unbelievably original.

You could say that the various

technologies were available,

like Hammond organs

and this and that and the other,

which gave them the opportunity

of mixing popular music

with metaphysical ideas

and science fiction ideas.

The Floyd were never doing

"19th Nervous Breakdown"

or "I Can't Get No Satisfaction".

Why has it all got

to be so terribly loud?

For me, frankly it's too loud.

I just can't bear it.

I happen to have grown up in the string

quartet which is a bit softer.

If one gets immune

to this kind of sound,

one may find it difficult to appreciate

softer types of sound.

Syd, yes, no?

- I don't think that's so.

- No?

Everybody listens, we don't need it

very loud to be able to hear it.

And with some of it

is very quiet in fact.

Do you in your turn feel aggressive

towards your audiences?

No, not at all.

In spite of all the loudness?

- No, not at all.

- Sorry?

There's not many young people

who dislike it.

- There's no shock treatment intended.

- No, certainly not.

When Syd Barrett

started writing for Pink Floyd,

he seemed to give it

this very English voice,

which was quite unusual at the time.

The Kinks were doing that,

I guess, as well.

He had a big attachment

to more intellectual realms,

to the whole Hilaire Belloc thing

and to Lewis Carroll.

He has a strange bridge

between Edwardian musical,

Vaudeville,

and his own particular

brand of English psychedelia.

When you heard that music,

it was in colour.

Everything else

was in black and white.

He's the Lake Poets.

He's an English romantic

of the 19th century.

He was not London 1966.

But he was London 1966.

He happened to be,

but that was a cloak he wore.

In his lyrics, there's a lot

of animal references.

There's a mouse called Gerald,

there's the elephant,

there's fairies, there's scarecrows,

there's cats.

It's a world that I was

always fascinated with.

In his songs

we have a painterly vision.

He evokes very strongly

references to sun,

to shining, to sea,

to sparkles, to Water.

All these things

run through his songs

like a perpetual continuous thread.

Syd is a nature poet.

I heard at one point

that his whole diet

consisted of hash and poetry.

I think I tried to do that

at some point in my 20s.

He's the original punk rock icon

in what punk rock meant to me,

which was sort of breaking all

the rules and having fun with it

and the spirit of play.

To look good, to be able to play guitar,

to invent good melodies,

and also to produce lyrics

that made you think.

It's a very powerful set of tools

to have at your disposal.

Syd had all this

churning around in his Mina,

like the rest of us did,

but he makes connections that

are so unexpected and strange

that no one else in the world

could have made those connections.

Even early songs

like "Bike" for instance.

He'd written about a bike,

which of course is not a subject

that most lyricists write about.

They write about love

or death or illness or loss.

"I've got a bike,

you can ride it if you like."

"It's got a basket, a bell, a ring

and things that make it look good."

"I'd give it to you if I could,

but I borrowed it."

Where does this come from?

Every verse is like that I think.

I suppose things like "Bike"

was more of a structured

thing happening,

but sonically towards the end,

I've never really heard

anything like that.

A sort of over saturation

of sounds, clocks,

and then this

kind of repetitive sound

that sounded like a goose

attacking you.

- Like a what?

- Like a goose attacking.

Going into attack mode.

Quite disturbing.

The way LSD works, we now know,

is it stimulates

receptors in the brain

called serotonin receptors.

But a particular subtype

of serotonin receptor

called the 5-Hor serotonin 2A receptor.

Psychedelic drugs like LSD

all work on those receptors

and what they do is

to interrupt the traditional way

in which the brain is organised.

Everything we do is orchestrated

in a very reflexive habitual way.

LSD, by turning on

those receptors disrupts that

What then happens is that

your brain rather than doing

what it's been told to do by habit,

Starts to do its own thing.

If you have regular conversations

with God, or the angels

and they're saying

pleasant things to you,

telling you how great you are,

you don't want to lose that.

On the other hand,

if you're tormented by devils

or other persecutors,

you may nevertheless feel

that you're important enough

for the devil to take

an interest in you.

And that might give you enough kudos

to carry on with this situation

without telling other people.

There's a lot of interest in balance

between right brain and left brain.

In very simplistic terms,

the right brain is

the more creative, whole picture side.

The left brain is

the more tocused, analytical side.

There's a little saying that

the problems in psychology are

when the right brain's got nothing left

and the left brain's got nothing right.

And there is a lot

of inferesting discussion

about the link between

creativity and mental illness.

Carl Jung, the psychologist,

had this great insight

where he talked about,

from his studies,

of breakdown, mental illness,

he called it a "failed initiation".

What he meant by that,

which I think was a really

interesting thing to say,

was that often a breakdown

is an attempt at a breakthrough.

It's an attempt to come into

a new form of consciousness.

And it's either premature

or in some way it falters.

I remember one particular interlude

where We Went to see the Master,

that's Charan Singh Ji.

Which was a guru that we were

all thinking of tollowing

in the heady days of psychedelia.

A few people there and then said

they wanted to become 'initiated'.

I don't like the word but anyway.

Syd had asked for initiation

and the Master

had said it's too early.

Did you know why he said that?

Well, there's quite of a lot

of commitment in Sant Mat,

which is vegetarianism,

and abstaining

from mind altering substances.

Is it possible

that the rejection affected Syd?

Rejection affects us all.

! think Charan Singh...

[ don't know how deep

his insights were,

I think he had a lot,

but maybe he could see

what was going to happen to Syd.

When you broke up,

did you do it or did he do it?

It was me, I'm afraid.

He was a great lover, a good

boyfriend and you got rid of him?

Yeah.

Explain this to me, Jennifer Spires.

In the early days, he was lovely

cause he was very calm,

he was an artist.

I got on the train

at Cambridge at one end

and Syd got on the train

at the other end.

That's how we started living

at number 2 Earlham street.

The whole clan went

from there to 101 Cromwell Road.

101 Cromwell Road!

A den of iniquity if ever there was.

Extraordinary place.

They'd just puff away

at these enormous joints

and get completely

out of their heads.

I feel woozy even thinking about it.

You see Syd, and the Pink Floyd

were really beginning then

and things were taking off.

! think then, he was just

losing the plot slightly.

I remember we had a cat called Rover.

Well, that was Syd, wasn't it?

The Pink Floyd sound

was a perfect match

for the spontaneous underground

and its multimedia events.

With Barrett's

song writing output flourishing,

the Pink Floyd were on their way.

Gigging a punishing

tour or five nights a week,

the group is approached

by Peter Jenner and Andrew King,

who promising to buy the band

some new equip men,

become their managers.

King and Jenner scheme o get

the band a record contract

by recording a few demo tracks

with American producer Joe Boyd,

who also runs the legendary Uto club

with John 'Hoppy' Hopkins.

The plan works and Pink Floyd sign

to EMI Records in February 1967.

The very next day they begin

recording for their debut album,

"The Piper at the Gales of Dawn"

with Norman Smith at Abbey Road.

In the studio next door,

The Beatles are making

their landmark LP "Sergeant Pepper.

There were a few casual songs

he'd written early.

But the one

which I'd call the first real,

showing 'where we were going song'

was "Arnold Layne".

"Arnold Layne" is released as

a single on the 10th of March.

Syd worked very hard

at "Arnold Layne".

He told me it had taken him

a couple of months

to write the lyric, to get it

just the way he wanted it.

- Really? It wasn't spontaneous?

- No.

This idea that Syd

rolled out of bed at lunchtime,

took some acid and Wrote

a couple of genius songs

ls just absolute crap.

There's no such thing

as easy art, Storm, is there?

Otherwise we'd all be doing it.

Despite being banned

by Radio London for obscenity,

"Arnold Layne" reaches

number 20 in the singles chart

with the album

"Piper at the Gates of Dawn"

reaching number six.

He was spectacular at the beginning.

From that Christmas,

through to the summer

when they released "Arnold Lao ye

and then "The Piper,

Syd, and of course Hendrix,

were kind of the two

big psychedelic stars.

In May 1967, Pink Floyd announce

a multimedia psychedelic concert

"Games for May,

at the Queen Elizabeth Hall.

Barrett has written

a new song for the event,

whose title also "Games for May",

changes to become

the era defining "See Emily Play.

He started innovating his music

with the Zippo lighter

on his Stratocaster

sliding it up and down.

In gigs, suddenly

he was using this Zippo lighter

to create these

incredibly eerie sounds.

"See Emily Play" becomes

the second Pink Floyd hit single,

earning the group

several crucial appearances

on the primetime BBC music show

Top of the Pops in July.

When "See Emily Play" went to

No. 5 or got into the top ten...

[I remember it well.

I was really excited

and I'm wearing

all these stupid clothes.

Yeah, but it was exciting,

for God's sake.

It was very exciting

but I remember Syd

in the dressing room

sitting there and he looked a bit glum

and I went, "Come on, what's up?"

He looked at me and he said,

"John Lennon

doesn't have to do this."

Even when things were going

as well as they could,

the band actually was stressful.

I remember we were in Trafalgar Square,

we'd been in Green Park,

and then it was time

to go to Top of the Pops.

Syd said, "I don't really fancy it."

I said, "Well, yeah,

but it's a bit of a big deal.

There was the famous three weeks

that we did "See Emily Play"

on Top of the Pops.

The first week was fine,

Syd looks really good.

He's sitting cross legged

on a great big Indian cushion.

The second week, he arrived late,

looking very shambolic indeed.

Third week,

we couldn't find him anywhere.

I opened the door and Syd was there

looking totally freaked out.

His feet were bare and he said,

"Hi, can I come in?"

I said, "Of course you can come in."

And he didn't say anything.

Then there was a bang on the door

and somebody was like,

"Is Syd in there?"

Whoever this person was, came in

and just literally grabbed him

and dragged him out.

I think Syd Barrett was

interested in this total freedom

almost like a jazz, really.

A kind of 'divertimenti'.

I suppose frying to structure

or rein in this kind of energy

might have been

fairly difficult for him.

There'd been

a lot of weird stuff on stage

with Syd detuning guitars

and turning it

into a mind-numbing sound.

We were committed to being a pop group

and Syd was absolutely

on the way to being,

"No, I don't actually

want to be a pop star."

The relentless gigging

and demands of stardom

are taking their toll

on Barrett's psyche.

I was living in France in '67,

and I came back to England.

[ went to see them recording

and something

had changed quite radically.

He had lost his spark and his bounce

and that was a very odd

and uncomfortable moment.

The three songs I think

that are really important,

'Jugband Blues',

"Scream Thy Last Scream

and "Vegetable Man".

"Vegetable Man',

he wrote it in my room.

He sat in a corner and he just

wrote those lyrics down.

It was scary.

You had this skinny guy

who's just crying his heart out,

"That's why I am vegetable man."

You go, "Oh God.

Is that what you really think?

Is that how you feel

about yourself now?"

It was all that classic

music business bollocks.

"Come on Syd,

where's the next single?

He was a sensitive chap,

he wasn't hard boiled.

He didn't like all that pressure.

And he had a hell of a lot of pressure.

It's like if you look

at Van Gogh's later pictures,

you get the same thing.

You can see the manifestation

of the turmoil in his brain

and all those things.

I think, in the same way

you can see the confusion

and everything within Syd's brain.

Both "Vegetable Man"

and "Scream Thy Last Scream

are deemed uncommercial

by the record company.

And "Jugband Blues is held over

for the next Pink Floyd album.

"Apples and Oranges,

a song written by Syd

about his girlfriend

Lindsay Korner shopping,

is finally chosen by EM

as Pink Floyd's third single.

It is released

in November and is a flop.

Did you ever see him perform

with Pink Floyd?

Yeah, I did once.

I went to the Roundhouse

but it wasn't any fun.

It wasn't.

He didn't look as if he was enjoying it

and so it wasn't anything I did again.

Do you agree in any way

about the family's view

which is they blame

rock and roll for Syd's decline?

I think that's not

an unreasonable position.

I don't think he would

have liked not to have done it.

He got into it,

he was very happy doing it.

It was good fun.

It was sad to see him go downhill.

You could see by his eyes.

He would be looking sort of...

He wouldn't look at you,

he'd be looking into space.

With hopes of breaking America

and despite concerns about Syd,

the band set off

for a mini tour of the US.

You're there with Syd who was

Just an artist who wrote songs

and was having a good time

and liked listening to music,

playing in a band

and, "Wow, isn't this groovy?

Able to go and buy a new shirt,

have your hair frizzed

and do all these things

that you could do.

- Buy some new boots.

- Yeah, all that stuff.

Gosh, got some money

coming and, "Oh wow."

Then, people started

asking him the meaning of life.

He was as it were

the pin up boy of the revolution.

That was probably very strange

going to America

cause, "Wow, I'm in America now.

I'm doing the Fillmore.

Wow! And these guys give me

this nice acid.

Wahey!

Oh, wow." You know.

Are you felling me

you and Syd got picked up

by a couple of Californian blondes?

Exactly that,

with those straight eyebrows.

Yes, everybody would dream

about this story.

- And this happened to you.

- It happened to Syd and I.

But we were young kids from England

where this sort of thing

was f*cking...

There was lots of dope

and lots of everything

and Syd was very happy.

Until we returned.

I think, then, it would be

the gig in Los Angeles

which was probably

the worst gig of all.

These gentlemen you're about to meet

are on their first visit

to the United States.

They've only been here less

than a week as a matter of fact.

Would you greet them warmly please,

The Pink Floyd!

- Rick lip-synched it.

- Because?

Because Syd wouldn't sing,

couldn't sing, wouldn't sing.

He just stood there.

That was a tricky tour.

- Syd, did you write this?

- Yeah.

I noticed on the album you wrote

most of the songs, is that true?

Yeah, that's right.

We did a TV show in Los Angeles,

he just walked out of the studio

and disappeared.

- For a reason?

- No.

Let me wish you, gentlemen,

all very good luck.

I hope you enjoy your stay,

get some sleep

and get something other than

cheeseburgers during your stay.

Thank you very much.

Nick, nice to see you.

When Syd became unreliable,

! think we really almost hated him,

because we were so dependent on him.

By the time Andrew came back from

America, it was definitely a problem.

One of the more

contentious rumours is the idea

that he might have been given acid

every morning in his coffee.

Did Rick say something?

He reckoned that Syd's downfall

came about by his hangers-on.

Then, people who are writing

books or doing interviews,

they think, "Who were

his friends at that time?"

"So and so."

- Jock and Sue in this case?

- Yeah.

Apparently we're living in Richmond,

we used to get up every morning,

we all sit around the breakfast table,

we would then spike Syd.

It's absolute f*cking bollocks.

Maybe that's also

a quality of rumours.

It's quite good if your hero is flawed

because of somebody else's

rather than their own.

Better for him to be spiked

than to have him gone to them and said,

"Oh, can I have some acid now?"

In a way, it would have been

much easier for all of us

if Syd had said,

"I'm really f*cked up.

I'm really sorry, I can't cope

any more. Can you help me?"

So we were always trying to help him

without him giving any indication

that he had any desire

or need for help.

I remember taking Syd

to Ronnie Laing's

and him refusing to get out of the car.

Not that I'm convinced Ronnie Laing

would have been able

to do a huge amount for him.

As psychiatrists and psychotherapists

who profess to be able

to be of some service to people

in distressed states of mind,

we cannot expect to be of any help

beyond pulling people

back to this side.

Into this socially reinforced,

totalitarian,

egalitarian, quantitative,

dequantified,

de-experientialised dead world.

Where there's no fun or joy

or any genuine

celebration of anything

because all that is life

and science is studying death.

You could argue that some forms

of so-called madness

are strong moves to retain freedom.

You could also argue

at a certain level,

he could see that the success of

the Floyd was reducing his freedom.

He was playing us

this song in a rehearsal

and the song was called

"Have you got it yet?".

And basically, the song would alter

so that the chorus was, "No, no, no."

Syd would alter the rhythmic pattern

or do whatever was necessary to ensure

that no, they hadn't got it yet.

- Or couldn't.

- Or couldn't get it.

Or might never have got it.

Stories are legion

about Syd's alarming behaviour

on stage during this period.

Playing one note for an entire show,

or slowly detuning his strings

until they fell limp on the guitar.

Live bootleg recordings however,

capture several

inspired performances.

Nevertheless, on a small

package tour with Jimi Hendrix,

The Move and a few other bands,

Barret would sometimes

need to be replaced

by David O'List from The Nice.

As far back as 1965, Syd himself

had written to Libby Gausden

suggesting his old friend

David Gilmour should join the group

referring to him as 'Fred"

What became known as the Fred plan'

was now put into effect.

Looking back on it,

I can see that

they all played a distinct part

in the success of Pink Floyd.

You had Roger who had

this massive determination,

Rick's musical sophistication

and you've got Nick's showmanship.

For several shows, the band

performs as a five-piece

in the hope of keeping Syd around.

We'd alreadly tried three

or tour gigs as a five-piece.

It was a very uncomfortable feeling

but I think we were

absolutely geared to this idea.

It wasn't a matter of trying Dave out,

[ think we loved the idea

of having him in the band.

Do you recall what happened

on what I called 'The day'?

I can't remember where

Syd was living at the time.

- We were all...

- Were you on the way to a gig?

Yeah, we were absolutely

on the way to a gig.

Everyone else had been picked up,

SO we were on the way to pick Syd up

and someone said,

"Shall we bother?" more or less.

There was this sort of moment

and we went,

"Do you know what?

Let's not."

Syd's last gig with Pink Floyd

was on the 20th of January, 1968

at Hastings Pier.

Do you think it's understandable then

that they had to move on as it were?

That's the way it works.

It's animal husbandry.

I'm amazed

that they managed to recover

from losing

their main creative drive.

No, it's not amazing they recovered,

they became the pop group

that they always desired to be.

Once David Gilmour's in there,

that's the beginning of something else.

It's the beginning of the Pink Floyd

that became very successful

later on with "Meddle',

"Dark Side of the Moon"

and "Wish you Were Here.

When the Floyd broke up,

you and Peter, as Blackhill,

as I understand,

elected to continue with Syd.

We made a particularly astute

commercial decision.

That's two verses.

Sorry, I'll do it again.

Syd came to live with us

at Egerton Court

which is the flat that we had

in the centre of London in South Ken.

I went there,

you were there and Po was there,

Nigel and Jenny, they had

the smart room at the front.

How was Syd doing those days?

Do you remember?

He was unpredictable then.

He was very unpredictable.

I don't think anybody

in the flat realised

Just how bad Syd had become.

He began locking himself in his room

for several days with Lindsay.

There were rows,

all sorts of things going on.

I had the small room

adjacent to the large room

in which he and Lindsay lived.

I could hear him tickling her,

which sounded harmless enough,

and then she'd scream at him

to stop tickling and he wouldn't.

I can't remember what happened but

he pushed me over and jumped on me.

That's when I called out

and you came in.

Syd decided that presumably the

relationship was not as it should be

and seemed to be

attacking her with a mandolin.

Then the next day

you took me home to Cambridge.

- Don't you remember?

- Yeah.

But was this the end of you and Syd?

Oh yes, that was it.

Syd's apparent malaise, shall we say,

didn't appear initially.

[ thought he was charming

and good company.

This was his very room.

Dave Gilmour lived in Richmond Mansions,

one street away.

We could see from our kitchen

into his kitchen.

Syd goes back into Abbey Road studios

to begin recording some demos.

With the support

of Peter Jenner, Malcolm Jones,

David Gilmour and Roger Waters,

these sessions, though difficult,

would result in his first solo album,

"The Madcap Laughs.

In the first lot of sessions

you couldn't get an honest

answer to an honest question.

"Shall we do that again?"

No reply.

"I think that was really good,

can we try that again?"

No reply.

"Would you want to go

and play a bit more?

Then, he would go out and maybe

play a bit more or maybe not.

Is it on?

There'd been quite

a considerable amount of time

and money gone into it

and EMI had decided

to more or less pull the plug.

Roger and I asked them

if we could finish it off

and they gave us

something like three days.

We stuck him in the studio and

recorded everything and anything

that we could get him to do.

The end result is a pretty fair portrait

of him at the time.

And I think his writing

probably was better

than the writing

on "Piper at the Gates of Dawn".

"Where are you now p*ssy willow

who smiled on this leaf?"

You go,

"What the f*ck is that about?"

He's still making

these extraordinary connections

with the deepest feelings of,

"Can I or can I not make contact

with other human beings?"

Which is the stuff of all our lives.

Storm and I had a company

called Hipgnosis

and we were asked

to do the album cover.

Storm went to photograph

Syd with Mick Rock.

He had a flat in which he'd painted

the floorboards blue and red,

I think for the photo session,

which is pretty amazing.

What was interesting about the floor

is there was all this rubble

because he'd paint

over the cigarette butts

and various bits

of debris in the room.

I took a photo of Syd crouched

a bit like an animal really.

I took a ton of them too,

it wasn't just Storm.

And Iggy the Eskimo, who was

never really his girlfriend

because these were hippie times.

I think she lingered

for a couple of weeks.

On the back cover

was a picture of a naked woman

who was an Eskimo,

but liked, whether Syd was there or not,

to walk around naked.

He said, "This is Iggy, why don't you

put her in the picture?

I said, "Fine."

"The Madcap Laughs" is released

on EMI's new progressive imprint,

Harvest, in January 1970.

It reaches number 40 in the UK charts.

Successitul enough for EMI

to finance the recording

of Syd's second

solo album, "Barrett".

There was more time

so we could relax a little bit more

and try and do things

in a slightly different way.

We lived around the corner

from each other,

we being myself and Willie Wilson.

He and I shared a flat in Chelsea.

Syd lived around the corner.

We'd try and get him

to play along with the band,

but he'd never do it the same twice.

So usually it meant we'd cut

a backing track without him

and then get him to put

some stuff on it afterwards.

Rick came along

and helped a bit on that one.

All I ever saw was Dave wanting

to get the best out of Syd

he could possibly get,

which was not easy.

We just tollowed him

wherever he went.

Sometimes, it just kept falling down

and falling over itself

and sometimes it got interesting.

He wrote some pretty

unusual chord sequences

and tound some unusual melodies

to sit on the top of it

and wrote fascinating lyrics.

Even though some around that

Wetherby Mansions time are very moody,

there's quite a lot of them

he's laughing in.

Released in November, Barrett

would be Syd's final studio album.

It fails to chart.

Can you recall when you first met Syd?

He came running up

looking like a rock star

with his velvet jeans on,

his velvet jacket

and his Chelsea boots on.

He looked and I thought,

"Ooh, wow, it's Syd Barrett."

He had a spare room.

I wasn't sure

at that stage whether it was,

"Come and live with me," or...

- "Would you like a room?"

- "I've got a room."

- "Give us some money."

- Yeah, "Give us some money."

He was pretty strange.

He'd just open the door

and come in the room

and that would be it.

I thought it was kind of great

to have a boyfriend like that

rather than a bloke

working in Barclays Bank.

In support of the "Madcap Laughs"

and "Barrett albums,

Syd records a session for influential

Radio 1 DJ, John Peel.

And on the 6th of June 1970,

he plays a gig,

his first for two years,

at the Olympia Exhibition Hall

with David Gilmour on bass guitar

and Jerry Shirley on drums.

After just a few songs, however,

Syd abruptly walks off stage.

He decided at one stage that

he no longer wanted to be a pop star.

He went out and bought canvases,

tons of pots of paint and brushes

and he locked himself in that room

and painted day and night.

Every time

I was allowed to see a canvas,

the next time [ saw It

it would either be destroyed

or he'd painted all over it.

Try and keep up with Duggie,

'him next door'.

He never used his name, it was

'him next door' or 'that painter'.

You've got two aspects of

his personality though, haven't you?

You've got Roger and Syd.

Syd was the musician,

Roger was maybe a would-be artist

but Roger never tound his way.

He put a layer of hessian

over the curtains

so he had this darkened room

that he lived in.

People would stand outside

his door knocking and going,

"Syd, let me in,

for hours sometimes.

I moved back to Cambridge

and Duggie had called me and said,

"This is getting crazy."

I don't know what he was doing but he'd

been in his room for days and nights

and hadn't come out.

I contacted Syd and I said,

"Why didn't you come to Cambridge?"

And somehow it was like

we were back together again.

So, I moved in.

- Into Hills Road?

- Into Hills Road.

- Into the cellar?

- Into the cellar with Syd.

It was all dark,

it was originally a coal cellar.

It had all his bits and pieces

from his childhood there,

his drawings,

his paintings and his guitar.

And it was all very normal.

Mrs Barrett would come

rushing out and say,

"Oh, hello dear, hello dear.

What about a cup of tea?

Rog, would you like a cup of tea?

We became engaged.

Mum organised this big Sunday lunch.

This is the time when Syd threw

a bowl/ of tomato soup over me.

It was a normal Sunday lunch

and Syd just went, whoops!

Then, he stood up from the table,

laughed, disappeared,

and came down,

and he'd cut all his hair off.

I'd gone back to my parents.

The next day, a letter arrived

saying that the engagement

was officially off.

"Yours sincerely, R.K. Barrett."

I got another lefter

from him two days later

saying, "Dear Gala,

! think we should get married.

Ignore the letter

I sent you yesterday.

Lots of love, Syd."

We went up to London and bought

another engagement ring.

So there's always two.

Two rings and two parts of Syd.

Two rings and two letters.

Syd's relationship

with Gala Pinion would end

when he became convinced

she was having an affair

with a colleague

in the local department store.

Gala would be the last

of Barrett's girlfriends.

He became more reclusive

when he returned to London

and he was living

in Chelsea Cloisters.

Sightings of Syd become less frequent

with just the odd lurid story

in the papers

and occasional

visits to the local pub

or to the office

of his music publishers.

When we were still at NEMS,

which was early '70s,

and he started coming

to those offices,

that's when we realised he didn't have

any money or very little money.

We talked about it and he said

he didn't know where his money

and his royalties were.

So we said, "That's easy, we'll write

to Essex, we'll write to EMI,

we'll write to PRS and find out

where your royalties are."

I use the phrase

very loosely, "Poor Syd."

Of course, Brian being a money man,

he went "Poor Syd?

He made two and a half

million quid last year.

I said, "God, where do you keep

all your guitars? You've got loads."

He said, "I've got

another flat for them."

He said, "John Lennon's got

lots of guitars.

With royalties from Pink Floyd sales

and David Bowie's cover of

"See Emily Play" on his "Pin Ups" album,

Syd would move

back and forth between London

and the small back bedroom in

his mother's house in Cambridge

for the next 12 years or so.

While in Cambridge, Jenny Spires

Introduces Barrett to her husband,

bass player Jack Monk and drummer

Twink from The Pink Fairies.

After several impromptu jam sessions,

the trio formed the group Stars

and play a handful of gigs locally.

We'd like to bring Syd Barrett

up to the band stand.

Would you come on?

How about a hand for Syd Barrett?

All appears to be going well

but tollowing

a disastrous gig with MC5

and a negative review

in Melody Maker, Syd leaves the group.

He will never play in public again.

A year later, Pink Floyd release

"Dark Side of The Moon"

and hit the top of

the US Billboard album charts.

It remains one of

the best-selling records of all time.

As Pink Floyd's success

and fame grows,

Peter Jenner persuades Syd

to return to Abbey Road

After three days in the studio

producing just a handful of riffs,

the sessions are abandoned.

In 1975, Pink Floyd records

their ninth studio album,

the concept record

"Wish You Were Here",

again reaching number one

on the Billboard charts.

Written as a tribute to Syd,

Shine on You Crazy Diamond"

a 25-minute-long track

made up of nine parts

book ends the album.

The last personal abiding memory

I have of Syd was at Abbey Road

when he turned up, remarkably,

at the recording

of "Shine on You Crazy Diamond"

but I didn't realise it was him.

[ was sitting in my usual place

in the control room of Studio 3.

! heard the door go, looked round

and there was this chap

standing in the back of the room

who was slightly portly,

with a shaven head and a raincoaft on.

I just assumed he was something

to do with the studio.

You would occasionally

get odd people popping in.

I had been doing

something in the studio.

I don't know what

but I'd been in the studio.

So I came into the control room

to find the band all looking

a little bit weird.

It took a little while.

I don't recall whether it was Roger

or David who realised that it was Syd.

I was waiting for someone to

either say, "This is so and so."

Or for someone to say "Security

are coming any minute now."

for someone

who'd come in off the street.

Dave looked at me and he said,

"Do you know who that is?"

I went, "No."

And he said, "It's Syd.

He hadn't been seen for six years.

He asked if he could help.

Syd came in and sat down,

David and Roger

started talking to him.

I then took this opportunity

to snap a couple of photos

with the camera that

I'd only had a couple of days

as a present from the band

after we'd done Knebworth.

It turns out I was using

a slow speed outdoor film.

So pictures indoors

are a little bit grainy.

Roger had Brian Humphries, the engineer

play him the end of "Shine On",

which features the melody line

of "See Emily Play".

Roger asked him afterwards

if he recognised it

and Syd just said no.

Very blank, "No."

Syd did pick up the Martin,

the D-35 guitar

in the control room there.

I don't think he played

anything in particular.

Then what happened?

Nothing, we carried on working,

as far as I remember.

Probably a little bit shell shocked.

Rick was terribly upset

and Roger cried.

Often people forget that

although Syd was a huge talent,

this is a talent that was

all too soon lost to us.

And that the band, had loved him.

Remember when you were young,

you shone like the sun

Shine on you crazy diamond

Now there's a look in your eyes

like black holes in the sky

Shine on you crazy diamond

You were caught in the crossfire

of childhood and stardom

Blown on the steel breeze

Come on you stranger,

you legend, you martyr and shine

In spite of his now cult status

in the eyes of a new generation

of fans and musicians,

in 1978 Barrett sells the rights to

his solo albums to the record company.

By 1981, he's facing

bankruptcy proceedings.

In 1982, Syd walks the 50 miles

from London back to Cambridge,

returning home for the last time.

He had enormous blisters on his feet

and he was lying

on the sofa with his feet up

trying to get these blisters mended.

He just wanted to get home

and he hadn't got any money.

You've got to remember that he never

did a day's work in his life,

getting a salary or a wage packet.

He never had that, so he never

actually grew up to be responsible

because he never needed to.

And I suppose all of us,

if we didn't need to, we wouldn't do it.

It's more fun being a child, isn't it?

We used to go out in the car,

go lo areas where he could

photograph for a painting.

So we spent a lot of time

at Grantchester, which is just nearby.

He went back to Cambridge and

his art very much reflects that.

You could say

it's a return to landscape.

- What happened to the work?

- He wasn't keen on keeping his works.

It's not that he didn't care

for them afterwards

because he did take photos of them.

But he did tend to destroy work.

Syd made things and then seemed

to destroy them, or so we're told,

and I'm wondering what that means.

Maybe he didn't like

too much clutter.

It's called 'Syd's Feng Shui'.

He needed a lot of support.

He was distressed.

For 25 years or so

he was my responsibility.

I cared for him.

He'd come on his bike and

he'd got a canvas shopping bag,

very much an old person's thing.

I said to him,

"Do you know who I am?"

And he said, "Yes, I do.

It's Libby isn't it?"

I said, "Yes, it is."

And we talked for a little while.

That's a strange question to ask,

"Do you know who I am?"

I know who you are,

you don't have to ask me.

I did have to ask him,

he looked different.

He totally moved on

and didn't like that person,

he didn't like that world

and didn't want to be reminded of it.

When people car me

lo he door, he'd say,

"Syd doesn't live here anymore."

Because he didn't.

He wasn't Syd anymore.

I think it's most unlikely

that you can reinvent yourself

that you can become an ordinary bloke

who goes down the pub and plays darts

when you've been a rock star,

when you've been in the hit

parade and then you're not.

Do you think people like

to embroider and romance things?

He's perfect for rumours.

A magnetic person

who's had so much impact

and the band went on going on

being more and more successful.

And where was Syd?

Perfect for rumours.

I know the Daily Mail

on a quiet celebrity period,

would rediscover him

every three years, you know.

"The mad genius of Pink Floyd."

I have a feeling that underneath

a lot of this is a sadness.

Yes, but you don't know, you see.

What was he thinking on his

bicycle in Cambridge on his own?

We can talk about it forever

but we won't know.

It's not for us to say

how people should be.

Of course, it would have been

great if he'd gone on

to produce stuff all his life,

but he didn't

And why?

You could say

he was in a weather system,

something bigger than him

that turned him over.

And it was sunny

for the first two weeks

and it rained for six years.

There was a tragedy being played out

partly self-induced.

In the end, it's a tragic tale

and tragic tales resonate

with us in a different way

and perhaps more

acutely than tales of triumph.

Out in Idaho,

they know who Pink Floyd are.

They probably don't know

who Syd Barrett is.

He's the old singer in the band

that I love, which is Pink Floyd.

The band we know Floyd to be now,

wouldn't be here without Syd.

But it doesn't really bear

much resemblance

to the band that Syd was in.

What would it have sounded like

if he had stayed in the band?

I would hope

that he would be able to see

what a beautiful thing

it ended up being.

He did things for their own sake

and he depended heavily

on his own childhood memories.

But I think that's also

a good lesson to us all,

to go back inside yourselves

and see what you can find.

Now [ don't understand

how boring music can be,

when at one point

somebody was trying to put

so much into tour minutes

worth of listening

and the ear was entertained.

I hope that young people think twice

because look what can happen.

It'd be nice to think

that people could learn a bit.

There are some people who must

have a weakness of some sort

that is like a switch

waiting to be turned.

And that switch will go and

they'll never quite come back.

! think it's really hard

to not feel something.

We probably did

about as much as we could.

We were all very young.

- But I have a regret or two.

- In what form?

That I never went to see him.

His family kind of discouraged it.

Maybe we should have.

I regret that I never went up

to his house in Cambridge.

- In the '80s you mean?

- '80s, '90s, 2000s.

I didn't go either.

None of us did,

but I think, in retrospect,

both Syd and I

might have gained something

out of one or two people

popping around to his house

for a cup of tea.

There's this bloke who changed the lives

of everyone around him.

- Yeah, I think...

- It's a terrible story.

- Sorry?

- It's a terrible story, Storm.

- It's a sad story.

- It's a very, very sad story.

Is it a sad story?

I wonder.

I don't think so, Storm, no.

- Sorry?

- I don't think so.

I hope not.

I suppose it's because

I partly feel he was unfulfilled

but that's just my projection

rather than what he felt.

Yeah.

Well, all right, it's sad in this way.

We thought We were moving

in this wonderful direction to utopia.

We were fully engaged in the hip dream

and it was a dream.

We had spiritual heights

in our sights and Syd too.

Do you have anything to tell me?

Yeah.

OK, Syd.

I can't, I sort of...

I can't really say.

If you were, hypothetically,

to write a letter to Syd...

Writing to him now? Yeah.

It would take me ages, I think.

I would say that he was a good man.

"You were a good man.

And it's terribly sad

what happened to you.

Sorry about all the rubbish

that gets written about you

and the silly stories that get told."

"I'm glad that you managed

to get away from all that madness

that was going on

in London around your life.

And I hope that you were happy."

I'd say, "Syd come back,"

because he became Roger

and I don't think

Roger was any happier.

A lot of people think my career

started with David Bowie

and I'd have to say, well, of course,

really the beginning was Syd Barrett.

So, thank you Syd.

I always go back, revisit his work,

and it's always as good as I get

older and my understanding grows.

For me, he's like the perfect artist.

So, I'd like to give him a hug.

It's very interesting

that you bring up memory.

And clearly this whole story

that you're trying to tell about Syd

depends upon the memories

of people of our age.

Slippery memories, aren't they?

Well, we all know that we make up

memories to suit our egos.

- Thank you very much.

- No.

That was great.

It was nice to be led gently back.

It's actually quite emotional

standing up here with these

three guys after all these years.

Standing to be counted

with the rest of you.

Anyway, we're doing this

for everybody who's not here,

and particularly, of course, for Syd.

Syd, are you ready?

- Yeah.

- Off you go.

I'll do it on top, right?

I'll start again.