
Trouser Press
February 1978
p. 26-32
by Kris DiLorenzo

SYD BARRETT: CAREENING THROUGH LIFE...

    The color black is not a solitary real color.  Nor is it the
total absence of color.  A black hole in space, in fact, is a
concentrated area so densely packed that nothing, not even light,
can penetrate it.  Blackness is actually all colors at once, so
many colors merging at such intensity that the riot of their
profusion produces, to the superficially perceptive eye, only
nothingness: black.  Try it with your crayons or magic markers:
everything at once, too much simultaneous input layered
repeatedly, gives you blackness.
     You all know who Syd Barrett is even if you think you don't. 
Without him there would have been no Pink Floyd.  Barrett
dominated the band during their first years, writing most of
their material, singing lead vocals and playing lead guitar.  He
left the band (or the band left him) for reasons of mental
health, and in 1970 with the aid of his replacement in the Floyd,
David Gilmour, recorded two solo albums: The Madcap Laughs and
Barrett.  Syd then performed with Stars, an ensemble in the
Cambridge area, but left them after three gigs and virtually
vanished from the public eye.
     For the past five years Barrett has generally been written
off as an acid casualty, but more often lamented as a musical
visionary whose interior landscape became too disorienting for
him to handle.  Some of the stories one hears about Barrett are
disconcertingly true, others only sound like Syd, but most of his
acquaintances express the same conclusion: intuitive and fragile,
Barrett was a unique  talent and an erratic mind on the edge of a
different type of existence - as well as a man who indelibly
affected those who came into contact with him.
     Several people close to Syd at various times in his life
offer their perspectives in this article, and the resulting
portrait is Picasso-like: a profile viewed simultaneously in
different dimensions of seeing.  Many thanks go to the following
for their help:
  Glen Buxton (formerly guitarist with Alice Cooper);
  Duggie Fields (designer, artist and Barrett's flat-mate for
several years);
  Lindsey Korner (Barrett's girlfriend during the Pink Floyd
days);
  Bryan Morrison (former Pink Floyd manager and publisher, still
Barrett's publisher);
  Mick Rock (photographer for Hipgnosis in London during the
60's);
  Jerry Shirley (formerly with Humble Pie and Natural Gas,
drummer on Barrett's albums and currently with A&M's Midnight);
  Twink (drummer for Pretty Things, Pink Fairies, Tomorrow, Stars
and Rings, who still believes in Syd);
  and David Gilmour, for devotion above and beyond the call of
rock 'n' roll.
     There is no question that Syd Barrett was one of the "umma"
(the brotherhood of prophets - see Herbert's "Dune") and "just
mad enough to be holy." Barrett's madness was not quite a sudden
explosion, however, but rather a gradual implosion, the clues to
which he articulated in his music long before his behavior
signalled distress.  Syd's songs contained warnings from the
beginning: he dealt with instability and the primal need for
comfort via authority's fairytales ("Matilda Mother"), the desire
for control of a situation and the outsider/observer role
("Flaming").  The lyrics of "Jugband Blues" (on Floyd's Saucerful
Of Secrets) also spelled out some of his conflicts.  By the time
of The Madcap Laughs and Barrett, Syd's songs clearly revealed
raw spots in his psyche amid the poetically jumbled voodoo of his
writing.
     Ten years since the release of Pink Floyd's first album, The
Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, it's difficult for those unfamiliar
with Pink Floyd's music or the burgeoning British music scene of
the 60's to attribute great importance to Syd Barrett.  All it
takes to be convinced of Barrett's significance, however, is a
careful listen to Piper, A Saucerful Of Secrets (the second LP),
and the singles he wrote for the group (on Relics and Masters Of
Rock, a Dutch collection).  What Syd created in sound and imagery
was brand new: at that time America hadn't even heard of
Hendrixian feedback and distortion as part of a guitar's
capabilities, and the Beatles were just recording Sergeant Pepper
(at the same time and in the same studios) as Pink Floyd were
cutting Piper.  Barrett's music was as experimental as you could
get without crossing over entirely into freeform jazz; there
simply were no other bands extending the boundaries of rock
beyond the basic 4/4 sex-and-love themes.
     Syd certainly listened to American jazz, blues, jug band
music and rock, as did most young British rock 'n' rollers of the
time.  He used to cite Bo Diddley as his major influence, yet
these inputs are no more than alluded to in his music, which
contains every style of guitar playing imaginable: funky rhythm
churns up speeding riffs that distort into jazzy improvisation. 
At times an Eastern influence surfaces, blending vocal chants,
jangling guitar and devotional hum in tunes like "Matilda Mother"
and the lovely "Chapter 24," based on the I Ching.
     Barrett's guitar work maintained a psychedelic, dramatic
ambience of incongruous contrasts, violent changes and inspired
psychosis.  No technician a la Eric Clapton, Barrett simply knew
his own particular instrument well and pushed it to its limits. 
Compared by critics to Jeff Beck, Lou Reed (in his early Velvet
Underground days) and Jimi Hendrix, Barrett lacked only the
consistency to match their achievements.  His trademark (and
Achilles heel) was sudden surprise: trance-like riffs would slide
abruptly into intense, slightly offbeat strumming ("Astronomy
Domine"), choppy urgency gives way to powerful, frightening peaks
("Interstellar Overdrive"), harmless lyrics skitter over a fierce
undertow of evil-sounding feedback and menacing wah-wah ("Lucifer
Sam").  Stylized extremes made Barrett's guitar the focus of
Floyd's early music; his instrumental mannerisms dominated each
song even when Syd merely played chords.  Barrett's rhythms were
usually unpredictable; one never knew what process in Syd's brain
dictated when to speed up or slow down the pace, when to sweeten
or sour the sound, and when to wrench the tempo totally out of
joint, shifting gears to turn rhythms inside-out.  As a result,
Barrett's playing was variously described by critics as "clumsy
and anarchic," "adventurous and distinctive," "idiosyncratic,"
"revolutionary" or "brilliant and painful."
     Indisputably Barrett was an innovator.  Whether he was
entirely conscious or in control of his art is impossible to
determine; perhaps it's enough to say that he was indeed
effective.  His work with Pink Floyd still ranks as some of the
most expressive, sensational playing recorded by a rock
guitarist.  Even 10 years later Barrett's solos stand as fixed
entities in the overall scope of Pink Floyd's music; it's a rare
long-term Floyd fan who doesn't know every note, each frenzy of
feedback and electronic eccentricity.  Yet Syd borrowed no
familiar blue licks as the young Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and
Jimmy Page were wont to do.
     Barrett's songwriting genius was original and extremist as
well.  His singing was highly stylized; obscure chanting vocals,
high-tension verses and explosive choruses alternating with
deadpan storytelling and hypnotic drawls.  He utilized fairytale
technique, surrealistic juxtaposition of psychedelic detail and
plain fact, childhood experience and adult confusion.  Like the
Beatles, Barrett combined dream imagery and irony with simple,
direct tunes, strong, catchy melodic hooks with nonsense rhymes
and wandering verses that sound like nothing so much as what goes
on inside people's heads when their minds are running aimlessly.
     Although some of Barrett's songs seem to be straightforward
stories, one always discovers a twist: multiple meanings to a
line that belie the childlike wonder of the words ("Gnome"),
innocuous lyrics devastatingly undermined with a questing guitar
or unlikely special effects ("Scarecrow," "Jugband Blues"). 
Certainly psychedelia asserted its influence on Barrett's
writing; there are descriptions and perceptions one can attribute
only to drugs or hallucinatory schizophrenia, but others are
strictly the products of his unaffected imagination.
     As a songwriter Barrett has been compared with Pete
Townshend and Ray Davies.  Dave Gilmour echoes that evaluation:
"Syd was one of the great rock and roll tragedies.  He was one of
the most talented people and could have given a fantastic amount. 
He really could write songs and if he had stayed right, could
have beaten Ray Davies at his own game."
     Syd's influence on Pink Floyd continued to manifest itself
long after he left the band.  Carrying on without him was
difficult at first, since the public and music business obviously
thought Syd was all the band had.  Initially Gilmour's style
conformed to the Barrett prototype established on the first
album, and their music retained Syd's spirit, but their
songwriting gradually changed.  In the years following Syd's
departure he remarked that the band wasn't progressing, and in a
real sense this was true.  Even Pink Floyd's three most recent
albums to a large extent expand and develop themes and riffs Syd
laid down with them in 1967.  The point of view Barrett used in
his songs, an alternation (and occasional fusion) of second and
third persons, still predominated Pink Floyd compositions; pieces
of his solos find their way into Gilmour's, tracks from Saucerful
rearrange themselves on Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were
Here.  Even 1977's Animals displays Barrett's dark humor and
takes off on his "Rats" premises.  The dramatic mixes Syd applied
to the Floyd's early recordings are now magnified by 16-track
studios but employ the same technique: whole walls of sound
rocket from one side of the room to the other, the guitar careens
in and out of different speakers, submerged speech and incidental
sounds chatter beneath instrumentals; their use of sound as an
emotional tool is absolutely Barrettonian.
     The most obvious impact of Syd Barrett-in-absentia has been
on the concerns of much of Pink Floyd's music since 1969.  They
began dealing with the politics of reality in the outside world
and became obsessed with the internal world of madness.  The
lyrics to "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" are in perfect context on
an album that clearly expresses the band's outrage at the whoring
business of rock and roll and its toll on a human being like
Barrett:

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 on the crossfire of
  childhood and stardom,
blown on the steel breeze.
Come on you target for far away laughter,
  come on you stranger,
  you legend, you martyr and shine! *

* Copyright 1975 Pink Floyd Music Publishers, Inc.

     Syd did indeed wear out his welcome with Pink Floyd.  He
became nearly impossible to follow musically as he reached for
more abstract constructs, constantly re-phrasing, shifting and
re-writing as he performed, expressing a compulsive need for
uniqueness without considering logic.  He worried about being
considered "redundant," was anxious about growing older without
accomplishing everything he wanted, and at one point said in
exasperation to his roommate Fields, "Duggie, you're 23 and
you're not famous!"
     By 23 Syd was already internationally famous and began the
rollercoaster ride to oblivion.  Onstage he often found it
inconceivable to play, standing among the amps with his back to
the audience, staring at his guitar as if he'd never seen one
before.  Occasionally he exhibited flashes of virtuosity that
dazzled audiences and made them hope for more, but Barrett was
incapable of performing for its own sake.  He wanted to achieve
something indefinable each time he set out to play, and
frequently this Olympian vision prevented Syd from producing
anything at all for fear it not be perfect, brilliant and
innovative.  Paralysis generated fear, and many Pink Floyd
concerts found Barrett treating his guitar as if it were a
treacherous grenade; at other times he would simply disappear for
the duration and a substitute would have to be called in. 
Barrett's musical ideas were metamorphosing, too; as he became
more withdrawn personally, his songs tended to deal only with
internal reality and became more obscure.  He was becoming more
of a conceptual artist than a musician, and eventually broke the
barrier between form and content (and genius and insanity) by
becoming what he had sung about.
     Why didn't anyone see Barrett metaphysically waving his arms
in the air ?  Perhaps because during London's turbulent '60s
scene it was difficult, especially in a love-and-drug stupor, to
distinguish incipient dementia from contrived brinksmanship. 
Barrett, as a genuine innovator and avant-gardist, probably had
more leeway to act peculiar than most of the artiste/intellectual
crowd he hung out with.  Certainly no one around Syd was in a
stable enough state to estimate the strength or weakness of his
grasp on ordinary reality.  Most of Barrett's craziness was
accepted as "just Syd" until it became impossible for the Floyd
to perform with his spells of onstage paralysis and offstage
freakouts.  The incredible struggle Gilmour and Waters of Pink
Floyd endured during the recording of Barrett's solo albums, the
sheer energy and patience it took to motivate Syd and keep him on
the track, was the final straw.  When Barrett dissolved Stars, it
was apparent that he could not continue musically until he
recovered from his shell-shock.
     By all accounts Syd Barrett's career began like thousands of
others among the crowd of young people during the first
psychedelic rush of the '60s.  He attended art school, became
involved with other art and architectural students (among them
the nucleus of the embryonic Pink Floyd) and finally left school
for music.  Syd's home in Cambridge, where his mother ran a
boarding house, was the local social hang-out for the Cambridge
students and drop-outs who later moved to London to form their
own artistic enclave; until just a few years ago Barrett was
still oscillating between his flat in London and his mother's in
Cambridge.
     Like all local "freak" scenes, the Pink Floyd crowd had a
nexus; flats in London's Cromwell Road and Earl's Court became
mecca for Cambridge hippies and budding mods.  Mick Rock
remembers one of Syd's flats as "a burnt-out place, the biggest
hovel, the biggest shit-heap; a total acid-shell, the craziest
flat in the world.  There were so many people, it was like a
railway station.  Two cats Syd had, one called Pink and one
called Floyd, were still living in the flat after he left.  He
just left them there.  Those were the cats they used to give acid
to.  You know what heavy dope scenes were like."
     When Pink Floyd "made it," Syd Barrett was about 21 years
old. "They used to rehearse in the flat," Duggie Fields says,
"and I used to go downstairs and put on Smokey Robinson as loud
as possible.  I don't know where they all arrived from, but I
went to architecture school so did Rick [Wright, the Floyd's
keyboard player] and Roger [Waters, bassist].  I don't quite
remember how I met them all.  I just remember suddenly being
surrounded by the Pink Floyd and hundreds of groupies instantly."
     Barrett felt ensuing changes keenly.  Within a few months
after his "Arnold Layne" and "See Emily Play" (the first Floyd
singles) made Pink Floyd stars, Lindsey Korner says "chronic
schizophrenia" set in.  It wasn't drugs particularly that set Syd
off, she insists; from the time she first met him Korner
considered Syd one of the sweetest, most together people, even
though Syd's previous girlfriend says he was off the wall a
little even then.  According to Lindsey "it got a bit crazed"
during the fall of '67; by Christmas Syd had started to "act a
little bonkers."
     "Oh, he went more than slightly bonkers," Fields affirms. 
"It must have been very difficult for him.  I think the pressures
on Syd before that time must have upset him very much, the kind
of pressure where it takes off very fast, which Pink Floyd did -
certainly in terms of the way people behaved towards them.  I
used to be speechless at the number of people who would invade
our flat, and how they would behave towards anyone who was in the
group; especially girls.  I'd never seen anything like it.  Some
of the girls were stunning, and they would literally throw
themselves at Syd.  He was the most attractive one; Syd was a
very physically attractive person - I think he had problems with
that.
     "I saw it even when he was out of the group (by the
beginning of 1969).  People kept coming around and he would
actually lock himself in his room.  Like if he made the mistake
of answering the front door before he'd locked himself in his
room, he found it very difficult to say no.  He'd have these
girls pounding on his bedroom door all night, literally, and he'd
be locked inside, trapped.  He did rather encourage that behavior
to a certain extent, but then he didn't know what to do with it;
he would resent it."
     In 1967 Pink Floyd toured America for the first and last
time with Syd Barrett.  During their LA stay the band was invited
to visit the Alice Cooper entourage, quartered in a house in
Venice during their stint as the Cheetah club's house band. 
Cooper and his band had heard the Floyd's Piper at the Gates and
their reaction, guitarist Glen Buxton recalls, was, "Wow!  These
guys should be reckoned with!"  So Pink Floyd came to dinner.
     "Syd Barrett I remember," Buxton says emphatically.  "I
don't remember him ever saying two words.  It wasn't because he
was a snob; he was a very strange person.  He never talked, but
we'd be sitting at dinner and all of a sudden I'd pick up the
sugar and pass it to him, and he'd shake his head like 'Yeah,
thanks,'  It was like I heard him say 'Pass the sugar' - it's
like telepathy; it really was.  It was very weird.  You would
find yourself right in the middle of doing something, as you were
passing the sugar or whatever, and you'd think, 'Well, damn!  I
didn't hear anybody say anything!'  That was the first time in my
life I'd ever met anybody that could actually do that freely. 
And this guy did it all the time."
     If leaving Pink Floyd were hard for Barrett, so were his
last months in the band.  Shirley explains: "When he plays a
song, it's very rare that he plays it the same way each time -
any song.  And some songs are more off-the-wall than others. 
When he was with the Floyd, towards the very end, Syd came in
once and started playing this tune, and played it completely
different.  Every chord change just kept going somewhere else and
he'd keep yelling (the title), 'Have you got it yet ?'  I guess
then it was Roger (who kept yelling back, 'No!') who kind of
realized, 'Oh, dear.'"
     Similar episodes became more frequent until the Floyd
reached breaking point.  "It was getting absolutely impossible
for the band," Shirley recalls.  "They couldn't record because
he'd come in and do one of those 'Have you got it yet' numbers,
and then onstage he would either not play or he'd hit his guitar
and just turn it out of tune, or do nothing.  They were pulling
their hair out, they decided to bring in another guitarist to
complement, so Syd wouldn't have to play guitar and maybe he'd
just do the singing.  Dave came in and they were a five-piece for
about four or five weeks.  It got better because Dave was
together in what he did.  Then the ultimate decision came down
that if they were going to survive as a band, Syd would have to
go.  Now I don't know whether Syd felt it and left, or whether he
was asked to.  But he left.  Dave went through some real heavy
stuff for the first few months.  Syd would turn up at London gigs
and stand in front of the stage looking up at Dave; 'That's *my*
band.'"
     Syd had probably met Dave in the early '60s when Gilmour
played in a Cambridge band.  "They used to play things like 'In
the Midnight Hour,'" Rock recalls, "and Syd would go watch Dave
play 'cause I think Dave had got his chords down a bit better
than Syd in the early days.  Syd was always a bit weird about
Dave.  That was his band, the Floyd."
     Even before Pink Floyd returned to England from their
American tour, Barrett was proving more than merely eccentric. 
Buxton remembers "the crew used to say he was impossible on the
road.  They'd fly a thousand miles, get to the gig, he'd get up
onstage and wouldn't have a guitar.  He would do things like
leave all his money in his clothes in the hotel room, or on the
plane.  Sometimes, they'd have to fly back and pick up his
guitar.  I didn't pick up that he was a drug casualty, although
there were lots at the time who would do those exact things
because they were drugged out.  But Syd was definitely from Mars
or something."
     Fields and Gayla Pinion, Syd's girlfriend during the
difficult years after Pink Floyd, were most continuously exposed
to Barrett - crazies, and Duggie recalls trying periods of life
with Syd.  "When he gave up the group he took up painting again
for a bit, but he never enjoyed it.  He didn't really have a
sense of direction.
     "He used to lie in bed every morning, and I would get this
feeling like the wall between our rooms didn't quite exist,
because I'd know that Syd was lying in bed thinking, 'What do I
do today ?  Shall I get out of bed ?  If I get out of bed, I can
do this, and I can do that - or I can do *that*, or I could do
that.'  He had the world at his feet, all the possibilities, and
he just couldn't choose.  He had great problems committing
himself to any action.  As for committing himself to doing
anything for any length of time - he was the kind of person who'd
change in the middle.  He'd set off, lose his motivation, and
start questioning what he was doing - which might just be walking
down the street."
     Fields attempted to alter Barrett's pattern, but nothing
quite worked.  "Sometimes he'd be completely jolly and then just
snap - you could never tell what he was like.  He could be
fabulous.  He was the sort of person who had amazing charm; if he
wanted your attention, he'd get it.  He was very bright.  After
he left the group he was very much aware of being a failure.  I
think that was quite difficult, coming to terms with that."
     At one point when Gayla moved out of the flat, Syd rented
her room (the smallest) to first three, then five people.  Fields
despaired; eventually Syd couldn't deal with them either because
they were always underfoot, wanting his attention, as did many
slightly younger people who idolized him.  Fields recalls
visitors constantly bringing pills to Barrett: "Just give Syd
mandrakes and he'll be friendly."  More visitors came "with their
hounds as well" and Syd, unable to tolerate the situation any
longer, went back to Cambridge.  "He just left them," Duggie
recalls, "and then rang me up and said that I had to get rid of
them.  I said *he* had to get rid of them, bit I actually did in
the end.  I said, 'Look, Syd wants you out; he's coming back!' 
They were a bit frightened of him because he did have a violent
side."
     Barrett's first solo album, Shirley says, was a result of
the Floyd finally convincing Syd "that he should get off his ass
and make an album."  Gilmour and Waters co-produced the LP, but
after the experience Waters gave up ("That's it!  I can't cope
with that again!") and Rick Wright joined Dave as co-producer for
the second one.
     The two albums, release later in America as a double
package, are curios even seven years after their appearance.  Syd
wrote all the material (some of it years before) except the
lyrics to "Golden Hair" (a James Joyce poem), and every symptom
of his personal problems is in it evidence.  The tone is somber
and unsettling, with only three frivolous songs.  Many tunes end
abruptly or with contrived instrumental fades when Syd runs out
of lyrics.  Barrett's singing is a deep-pitched melancholy
monotone.  There are painful moments when his voice cracks or
careens out of control reaching for notes he once could sing; he
shouts the higher notes, not believing he can make them.  His
acoustic guitar playing is mainly arhythmic strumming full of
arbitrary and often clever tempo shifts and reversals, punctuated
with extreme dramatic bursts and tenuous pianissimo.  There are
no brilliant solo flashes, but several tunes display his
instrumental ability: "Wined and Dined" and "Effervescing
Elephant," with which Barrett was familiar enough not to have
trouble with the chords; "Wolfpack," Syd's temporary favorite and
demonically energized number; "Gigolo Aunt," recorded in one take
on a good day; and "Dominoes," the track on which Syd's spacey,
chaotic playing most resembles his Pink Floyd style.
     Syd's changes were foreshadowed musically on "Apples and
Oranges," a late '67 Floyd single.  That tune resembles the work
on the solo albums: background drone, rushed verse and slow
chorus, and intense vocal line ascending and descending uneasily
became stock characteristics of Madcap and Barrett.  The
transformation in Barrett's self-image and confidence is evident
if one compares the brashness and electricity of the early Floyd
albums with the dead-sounding Syd of 1970, chanting rather than
singing, vocal sometimes estranged from his rhythms, unnerved by
his mistakes; literally falling apart several times, incapable of
performing properly at that particular moment, but unwilling to
give up entirely.  He music is stark, eerie and often depressing
despite some genuinely funny lyrics and the efforts of Syd's
musicians to add lively touches to the bleakness.
     Some Barrett traits, however, didn't change.  His simple
stories trade off with surrealistic half-sense and nonsense;
nursery rhyme structures are bent with restless time signatures
and startling chord progressions.  Choruses switch tempos and
lyrics (often unintelligible) function more as sound.  Words
become less communicative elements than instruments of sensation
as Barrett meanders through inexplicable mental territory,
sometimes resolving into straight songs and sometimes dissolving
into multi-rhyming babble.
     Despite some incredible songwriting, complicated structures
and stunning sonic/verbal images, there's no way to avoid feeling
that the two albums are the portrait of a breakdown.  Scattered
throughout the nightmare/fantasy lyrics are whispers and screams
from a confused Syd, trying to carry on in the midst of utter
disorientation and emotional turmoil.  In "Long Gone" he sings:

  And I stood very still by the window sill
  and I wondered for those I love still
  And I cried in my mind
    where I stand behind... *

* Copyright Lupus Music Inc. (BMI)

     "Waving My Arms In The Air" recalls Syd's early Floyd days
when, attired in a long cape, he would stand onstage with his
image projected onto a screen behind him, and do exactly that. 
"You shouldn't try to be what you can't be," he sings, and sounds
quite human, but when he shifts into the love song "I Never Lied
To You" the voice goes flat and lifeless.  In "Late Night,"
however, Barrett articulates clearly: "Inside me I feel alone and
unreal."
     Was Barrett as out of control in reality as he sounds on the
albums ?  "Well, yes and no," Fields says.  "He really didn't
have to have that much control before, but when you have to
provide you own motivation all the time it is difficult,
certainly in terms of writing a song.  When it came down to
recording there were always problems.  He was not at his most
together recording the album.  He had to be taken there
sometimes, and he had to be got.  It didn't seem to make any
difference whether it was making him happy or unhappy; he'd been
through that, the excitement of it, the first time around."
     Jerry Shirley agrees that Barrett was bizarre during the
sessions.  On the day the backing tracks to "Dominoes" (a
beautiful song with a haunting arrangement) were recorded with
great success, enthusiasm was running high.  Dave was with Syd
trying to get a lead guitar track, but Barrett couldn't play
anything that made sense.  In a brainstorm Gilmour turned the
tape around and had Syd play guitar to the tracks coming at him
backwards.  "It played back," Shirley says, "and the backwards
guitar sounded great; the best lead he ever played.  The first
time out and he didn't put a note wrong."
     Shirley refers to "If It's In You," the track on which Syd
can't find the melody and fllounders, breaking stride throughout
the song.  "That's a classic example of Syd in the studio. 
Between that and talking in very obscure abstracts.  It's all
going on in his head, but only little bits of it manage to get
out of his mouth.  And then the way he sings he goes into that
scream - sometimes he can sing a melody absolutely fine, and the
next time 'round he'll sing a totally different melody, or just
go off key.  'Rats' in particular was really odd.  That was just
a very crazed jam, and Syd had this lyric that he just shouted
over the top.  It's quite nuts.  But some of his songs are very
beautiful."
     To ease the process for Syd, before they went into the
studio to cut, Gilmour would sit with him and wither make up demo
tapes of the songs or, if possible, learn the song with him. 
Then he'd explain it to the other musicians and play along with
Syd, although he made Syd do the leads instead of taking them
himself.  If it weren't for Gilmour, Shirley feels there would
have been little semblance of togetherness; working with Syd was
mainly playing it by ear.  "You never knew from one day to the
next exactly how it would go."
     Could Barrett have been pulling some numbers on purpose ? 
Shirley answers with a baffled squeak, "I honestly couldn't say. 
Sometimes he does it just to put everybody on, sometimes he does
it because he's genuinely paranoid about what's happening around
him.  He's like the weather, he changes.  For every 10 things he
says that are off-the-wall and odd, he'll say one thing that's
completely coherent and right on the ball.  He'll seem out of
touch with what's gone on just before, then he'll suddenly turn
around and say, 'Jerry, remember the day we went to get a burger
down at the Earl's Court Road ?' - complete recall of something
that happened a long time ago.  Just coming and going, all the
time."
     Barrett's one public appearance during the LP sessions was a
brief set during a 3-day festival at the Olympia in London.  Syd
eventually even managed to play his guitar instead of holding it
as if it were about to explode.  Barrett's initial decision to
play, however, kept unmaking itself.  "He was going to do it, he
wasn't going to do it, it was on and off, so finally we said,
'Look, Syd, come on, man - you can do it!'  We got up, I played
drums, Dave played bass and he managed to get through a few
songs.  It got good, and then after about the fourth song Syd
said, "Oh great; thanks very much' and walked off!  We tried, you
know."
     For Barrett the solo albums didn't change things much.  He
left London for Cambridge when he decided to become a doctor. 
"Yes, a doctor," Duggie affirms, "and he and Gayla were going to
get married and live in Oxford.  He had a bit of the suburban
dream.  That was a very bizarre sort of thing underlying him.  He
had lots of concepts that he found very attractive like that; he
didn't really like all the one-night stands; he wanted the
marriage and that bit, in the back of his head."  Syd and Gayla
became engaged and left the flat to Fields, who never saw Barrett
after that.
     Drummer Twink, then with the psychedelic band Tomorrow, met
Barrett in '67 when Pink Floyd played a European festival.  The
band brought gifts with them; Twink's, from Syd, was a hash pipe. 
Though they remained friendly afterwards, it wasn't until 1972
that they got together musically.  "I didn't know him closely for
that long," but I was in the same space and I could understand
exactly where he was at.  I thought he was very together, you
know.  As a friend it was a very warm relationship; no bad vibes
at all.  We didn't have any crazy scenes."
     Stars was originally brought together by bass player Jack
Monk's wife Ginny, who took Barrett down to a Cambridge pub to
jam with Twink and some others.  A few days later a more
permanent arrangement coalesced, and Stars began rehearsing for
their first gig, an open air May Day celebration in Market
Square.  Their material, mostly Syd's, included some for the Pink
Floyd days; Barrett recorded practice sessions and one coffeebar
gig, and seemed genuinely interested in working again when a
promoter friend of Twink's booked Stars into the Corn Exchange. 
At that gig everything that could possibly go wrong did:  the PA
sabotaged Syd's vocals, Monk's amp acted up and somehow Barrett
cut his finger open.  Added to Syd's memory blanks and hesitant
playing, the result was bad press and immediate depression for
Syd.
     "We just weren't ready for it," Twink concedes.  "It was a
disastrous gig, the reviews were really bad, and Syd was really
hung up about it; so the band folded.  He came 'round to my house
and said he didn't want to play anymore.  He didn't explain; he
just left.  I was really amazed working with him, at his actual
ability as a guitar player."
     After Stars, Syd Barrett made no more public appearances. 
Anecdotes from the years following are rife; one acquaintance
reported Syd carrying his dirty clothes into the London boutique
Granny Takes a Trip because he thought it was a dry-cleaners. 
Duggie Fields ran into Barrett in London's Speakeasy club.  "I
wasn't sure he recognized me.  I was with some people he'd known
for years; we talked for about five minutes, but did he really
know who we were ?  That was when he was starting to get heavy,
and he didn't look like the same kind of person at all."
     In 1975 a strange reunion took place at EMI Studios,
attributable, Jerry Shirley feels, to Syd's uncanny sixth sense
of timing.  "The last time I saw him was possibly the last time
the guys in the Floyd saw him, too.  They were putting the
finishing touches on Wish You Were Here.  Earlier that day Dave
Gilmour had gotten married and they had to work that night, so
EMI had this roundtable dinner in the canteen for them.  Across
the table from me was this overweight Hare Krishna-looking chap. 
I thought maybe it was just someone who somebody knows.  I looked
at Dave and he smiled; then I realized it was Syd.  The guy had
to weigh close to 200 pounds and had no hair on his head.  It was
a bit of a shock, but after a minute I plucked up enough courage
to say hello.  I introduced my wife and I dunno; I think he just
laughed.  I asked him what he was doing lately. 'Oh, you know,
not much: eating, sleeping.  I get up, eat, go for a walk,
sleep.'"
     That night the band finished the album and were playing back
the final mix of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond."  "When the song
ended Roger Waters turned to Syd and said, 'Well, Syd what do you
think of that ?'  He said, 'Sounds a bit old.'  I believe Syd
just got up and split not too long after that.  After two years
of nobody seeing him, of all the days for him to appear out of
nowhere!"
     Jerry Shirley is less then optimistic about the possibility
of Barrett recording again.  "The last person to make that sort
of effort was Dave, and they barely got him to do it; it was like
pulling teeth.  Since then I don't think there's anybody close
enough to him to get him to do it.  He would have to return to
the planet long enough for someone to believe that he's got it in
him to actually get through the sessions.  And that would just be
the first step.  The guys really did persevere through those
sessions, god!  Especially Dave, particularly in light of the way
Syd was to him before.  But I don't know if anybody - if he
showed that he really wanted to try for it, then maybe one of
them would make the effort."
     Have any of Barrett's friends made a serious effort to sit
down and talk with him about his future ?  "Oh yeah," Shirley
says.  "No chance.  You'd get some sort of sense out of him, and
then he'd just laugh at you.  Lots of people tried lots of
different things."
     Bryan Morrison cleared up a few of the mysteries surrounding
Barrett.  He explained Syd's departure from Pink Floyd: "He
didn't leave of his own free will, really.  I mean, he kept
threatening to leave.  I think in the end it was by mutual
agreement, because he was having some personal problems.  He
wasn't able to get it together anymore, and by agreement he left
the band."
     Did a similar thing happen with Stars, or did Barrett have
any reason for leaving that band ?  Morrison hesitates a bit
before answering.  "Have you ever met Syd ?  Well, one of the
main things - he had psychiatric problems, and was actually in a
sanitorium."  This was about eight years Morrison estimates, in
Cambridge: Syd's parents had him committed.
     There are other Barrett recordings outside the solo LPs and
some "incoherent" tapes, Morrison says.  Right now Syd is living
on his royalties in a London hotel.  "He doesn't have any
involvement with anything or anybody.  He is a recluse - with
about 25 guitars around him.  I see him very rarely.  I mean, I
know where he is, but he doesn't want to be bothered; he just
sits there on his own, watching television all day and getting
fat.  That's what he does."  Can nobody talk Syd into becoming
musically active again ?  "No.  It's impossible."  To Morrison's
knowledge Syd hasn't been outside of England since the Pink Floyd
tour in 1967, and he gave his last interview in 1971.  Barrett is
firmly anchored in his shell.
     Then is Barrett's extended schizophrenic episode (see "The
Politics of Experience," R.D. Laing) permanent insanity of just
prolonged post-Floyd depression ?  Chemical ingestion coupled
with chronic existential anxiety ?  Morbidly sensitized
insecurity and a crumbling value structure ?  Or diabolically
effective defense and legend material ?
     Let's put it this way.  Anyone who's ever been in chronic
pain and confusion can sympathize with Barrett.  Anyone ever
caught in the equally real dread of the principal's office or
never returning from a drug experience has experienced Barrett's
primal fears.  Anyone who's ever teetered on the edge of chaos
and felt the black panic of falling into the void can comprehend
the Madcap.  Someone who's almost grokked the universe and then
lost the definition on the tip of their tongue knows what it's
like to be a crazy diamond.  Twink says Barrett's no acid freak. 
Shine on, Syd.

