Need info from Pink Floyd-ologists re song lyrics

Factual Questions
1

I recently read a history of the group Pink Floyd and found that the founder, Sid Barrett, was voted out of the group because he flipped his cookies. After I read this, lyrics to various Pink Floyd songs started making more sense to me; it seemed to me that some of the lyrics that are about insanity and the effect that fame has on an unstable person must have been inspired by the misfortunes of Barrett. For instance, that scene in “The Wall,” where Pink trashes the hotel room and compulsively lines up all the bits, then shaves himself all over, comes from an incident in Barrett’s life, I believe. And the lyrics to “Wish You Were Here” seem a poignant wishing that Barrett were still part of the group and that the group had its original naivete and fire and lack of fame.

Mr. Pug poo-poos this; he claims that the founder dropped out way before the group was all that famous.

Is anyone here qualified to confirm or deny my theory? None of the websites I click on address this specifically. Thanks in advance for any insight.

2

Syd (that’s the correct spelling) was the lead singer and guitarist for the band when it formed and for the first album (The Piper at the Gates of Dawn). He did have psychological problems, even at that point, and there is much debate as to how much of his mental deterioration was caused or abeted by his drug use (primarily LSD). In any case, within a year and for their second album – A Saucerful of Secrets, PF brought in David Gilmour to essentially do Syd’s job.

By the time of PF’s breakthrough Dark Side of the Moon record, Syd was officially out of the band, though I’m not entirely sure when that happened. Syd was also completely non-responsive and in the care of his mother by that point (as he is to this day). He did complete three solo albums in-between; they’re fun, trippy folk-rock, but you can hear him getting further and further from the real world on them. (It’s quite clear why he got booted out of the band; he just wasn’t able to function.)

Wish You Were Here is, in parts, about Syd and his problems, and the character of “Pink” in The Wall also owes something to Syd.

PF was pretty well-known even from its first record, but that was nothing like the huge level of success Dark Side brought them, so your husband has a point.

The All-Music Guide’s entry for Pink Floyd gives more detail.

3

Syd did drop out of Pink Floyd before they hit superstardom (after Piper/Saucerful but before More/Ummagumma). However, he had a huge impact on the remaining members of the band. In this thread I mentioned that Syd was actually in the studio when they were recording the album (Syd was the “crazy diamond” in SOYCD). This site says that he was unrecognized as they hadn’t seen him in 7 years and they haven’t seen him since.

4

Beaten to the punch- that’s what I get for using the SDMB search engine.:frowning:

Da Ace is right though- Syd became a non-functional head case (my words, not his). His solo works are interesting to listen to as they’re upbeat simple songs that don’t make much sense- Kinda a psychadelic Barry Louis Polisar. In Dolly Rocker, you can actually hear him pause as he turns the pages which makes me laugh every time I hear it.

5

I see from the previews I’ve been beaten to the response, but here’s what I wrote anyway.

I had never heard that any of “the wall” was about Barrett, although it could be (oops, see below). The lyrics from “Wish you were here”, particularly “Shine on you Crazy Diamond”, certainly seem to refer to him.

As far as Barrett dropping out before the group was famous, even if true, (which I don’t agree with), I don’t see how it is relevant. The other members of the band would certainly be impacted, and they’re the ones who count, not the rest of the world.

From this site:
*Roger Waters: There’s some lines in here that hark back to the halcyon days of Syd Barrett - ye know - it’s partly about all kinds of people that I’ve known. All this is about all sorts of people I’ve known. Hey, but Syd was the only person I ever knew who used elastic bands to keep his boots together, which is where that line comes from. In fact obviously the “Obligatory Hendrix Perm” you know, you have to go back ten years before you can understand what all that’s about. *

Here is a site on “Wish You Were Here”, which talks about Syd Barrett some.

Finally, Here is an interview with Roger Waters with some useful info:
*Unfortunately, young Syd too quickly became high-priest without-portfolio of a surreal strain of hallucinogen-fueled rock songcraft, whose halcyon era was as hazy as his own cerebellum. While still sufficiently grounded as of January 1967 to author Pink Floyd’s first British hit, “Arnold Layne,” Barrett soon tired of the rigors of reality. He was halfway to the laughing house when The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, the debut Floyd LP, emerged from Abbey Road Studios in August 1967. *
and
*While the rest of the group basked in the glow of their abrupt mass acceptance, Waters busily exorcised his ingrained demons, expounding throughout Wish You Were Here(1975, dedicated to Syd Barrett), Animals(1977), The Wall(1979) and The Final Cut(1983), on gloomy human themes rooted in grief for his airman father’s World War II death. *

6

The character of Pink is based on both Roger Waters and Syd Barret. Roger’s dad died in WWII, and his mother was an overbearing nutball. Waters also felt increasing alienation between himself and his fans; he realized he was becoming something like Hitler, and that set in motion the development of The Wall. During the stage performances, they actually built a giant brick wall between the band and the audience. Pink’s later life, when he goes nuts and retreats into his trademark schizophrenic introspection, is based on Barret’s later years, after he did too much acid.

7

“Saucerful of Secrets: The Pink Floyd Odyssey” by Nicholas Schaffner is an excellent book about the travails of the band.

8

My own favorite Syd story is the one where Syd was on a kick about popping some sort of little purple pills–I can’t remember what kind they were. I don’t think they were microdots or barrels.

Anyway, one night, Syd was tripping out in the dressing room before a show, and mixed an entire bottle of these purple pills into a glop of hair grease. Then, he mooshed it all into his hair.

Under the hot stage lights, the substance started melting, and purple goop started running down his face and dripping all over his clothes. Countless acid-dosed fans remembered the night ever after as “The Night Syd’s Face Melted.”

9

Some good music to listen to if you want to get a feel for Syd’s mental state when he was kicked out of the band is Jugband Blues from Saucerful of Secrets, and the unreleased single (it turns up on bootlegs from time to time), Vegetable Man/Scream Thy Last Scream (Old Woman with a casket). The Jesus and Mary Chain covered Vegetable Man on an early single (their first single?)

In what could have been the ultimate line-up, for about five weeks, there were two guitarists in Pink Floyd - Syd and Dave Gilmore. Unfortunately, by this point, Syd was so out of it, he’d just stand there on stage and not play any chords. It took quite some time for Gilmore to be accepted by Floyd fans, and Dark Side was really the first record where his own guitar style came through - on the earlier records, he sounds like he’s apeing Barrett.

As well as the ‘Saucerfull of Secrets’ book, recommended by Snooooooopy (is that too many 'o’s?), there are two Barrett biographies - Crazy Diamond and Lost in the Woods. Both are highly recommended. There’s also a long essay ‘The Making of The Madcap Laughs’ by Nick Kent, which might be on the web, which tells the story quite well, although it blurs reality and fantasy at times.

HenrySpencer

10

I’ve heard that Rick Wright was possibly also used in that song with the “obligatory Hendrix perm” (the name escapes me) for a couple of references, specifically the part about cocaine, which he was doing at the time.

Shine On You Crazy Diamond was the only song really written about Syd, although he doubtless was thought of as an example of a rock star going mad, &agrave la Pink in The Wall. As others have noted, Waters was mostly basing it around himself.

A lot of Waters’ lyrics deal with the his impression of himself having sort of a good side and a dark side to himself. Wish You Were Here started life as a poem about this conflict, and was afterwards set to music by Gilmour. This is unusual, as most Floyd songs start with the music, or both parts are written together. It really doesn’t have anything to do with Barrett at all, and I believe Waters has denied that rumour a few times.

Of course, I’m going completely off of memory for all of this, as my copy of Saucerful of Secrets, as well as Karl Dallas’ Bricks in the Wall are not around at the moment.