“We always had the plan that we were going to move to London together and go to college and we’d start a band. I play Shine On every night when I am doing concerts. So the memory of him is very much there in that song. in ’68 when he became schizophrenic.”
“ I used to play cricket and football. But I lived round the corner from Syd and we went to the same school, though he was two years younger than me.”
“So after I went to architectural college in London I bought a guitar. I had a bit of a band together by the time Syd came up and he joined us and that was the beginning of Pink Floyd. Who knows what might have happened if he’d been able to carry on. At first there wasn’t anything different about what we were doing – we were a blues band, we couldn’t even play many pop songs. Gradually Syd started writing and we became a bit experimental. But I don’t think I learned anything from Syd’s method of writing songs because it was very idiosyncratic.”
“ And not really where I was coming from at all. But I loved his songs, I loved his work. I mean, Dave [Gilmour] and I sort of co-produced his first album… Was it called The Madcap It was a huge tragedy that he succumbed to the illness and stopped writing. In 1974 Barrett retired from music for good and returned to two of his other passions, painting and gardening. He would live a reclusive life until his death in 2006”
“For instance, Syd used to spend an awful lot of time after he became ill in bed. And Duggie felt that... as long as he was in bed doing nothing he had the potential to do anything. But as soon as he got up it became apparent that he wasn't doing anything - so this potential fulfilment that he could feel in his life went away and so he would spend more and more time in bed.”
What happened to Syd did have a big impact on me. If something happens to someone you love, and are very close to, as happened to Syd, it drives home to you that there but for the grace of God go I. You never know what’s round the corner. Life is very short. It focuses your attention on making the most of the very short time you have.
Many considered Syd, including his bandmates, to be a genius. But as is often the case, with genius comes demons.
He was a charming, ebullient, talented friend and I miss him,“ Waters says of Barrett in a clip previewing his appearance on “The Big Interview with Dan Rather.”
“But I’ve been missing him since 1968, you know, because he succumbed to some sort of mental illness.”
It was thought that Barrett suffered from schizophrenia and Syd's drug use seemed to exacerbate his condition. But before mental illness overtook him Waters describes Barrett in an interview as
“bright-eyed and bushy tailed with an enormous capacity for life “
Once Richard Wright said that Syd went missing for a long weekend and came back “a completely different person.” He began to behave strangely at shows—sometimes strumming a single chord through songs or not playing at all—and on TV appearance.s
Although Waters and Gilmour tried to help Barrett with his solo career, it soon became evident that Syd was in no shape to continue as a musician.
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There is no doubt that there’s a little Syd in Dark Side, as one of it’s central themes is madness. Barrett’s spiral into madness affected the whole band as they were all dear friends, but it seemed to really rattle Waters Waters said that loss figures heavily into his music. You can feel it on The Wall, but where that loss is most felt, the loss of Syd, is on Wish You Were Here.
Waters on Wish You Were Here he had an episode where he really thought that he was losing touch with reality (see below Roger now understood what Syd had gone through.)
I am a lot more at peace now than I was years ago. And I think I am beginning to operate from a more adult place than I have ever done in my whole life. You know, the abandoned child component of my personality has remained pretty powerful through most of my adult life. It's only through some of the recent events in my life that I have come to understand it, and started consciously to deal with it. I guess what I am saying is that it’s never too late to grow up.
