I would not worry about not knowing about Syd. This board has once again pleasantly surprised me with the numbers of posters who know who he is and are saddened at his departure.
I know a lot of Pink Floyd fans that know nothing about Syd. I would even say most. He might have had the most lasting effects on Rock & Roll for a person as little known as he is.
Jim
The band members themselves have claimed they tried to keep Barrett on as a non-performing songwriter (à la Brian Wilson) as his behavior became too erratic for gigs, but that effort was fruitless. There’s a story they tell about a purported song they attempted to learn from Barrett called “Have You Got It Yet”. Barrett kept changing the composition on the fly, making it impossible not only for the band to “get it”, but also for them to determine if Barrett actually had any idea of what the song was, however scrambled, or if he was simply tormenting them for reasons known only to Syd. In the end they gave up entirely on working with him in the context of the Floyd, though Waters and (especially) Gilmour helped Barrett with recording his two solo albums. From the Gilmour interviews I’ve read, Barrett needed considerable assistance keeping it together during those solo sessions, and while the compositions are legitimately Barrett’s, his mind was in such disarray he needed all the help he could get to record them as legitimate songs.
I was shocked to hear this from a friend who works at a record store - well, maybe not shocked, but very sad. I went back to the solo records about six months ago, and was blown away by how good his voice was, and also how many artists since have borrowed his phrasing and style. I always thought there was a tiny chance of him ‘getting it together’ even briefly, like Roky Erickson, and playing again. Wishful thinking, I know.
What? I heard nothing of this. Do you have a cite? And whatever would they have played? I can’t think of any Barrett song that would have been familiar to the audience.
And god bless, Syd.
No, don’t be, really. I’ve heard of Syd and his life, but confess that I’ve never heard any of his output. This thread is going to make me go out and find some, and that’s the important thing.
There were also those three unreleased PF songs he wrote. I don’t remember if he wrote those before they tried to have him just write songs, or after. They were “Scream Thy Last Scream” and “Vegetable Man”.
Through the wonders of the internet I’ve heard Scream Thy Last Scream, and I might have heard Vegetable Man, but I don’t remember it. Scream Thy Last Scream is seriously disturbing as a look into Syd’s psyche. It’s a little bit like David Bowie’s cover of See Emily Play, but more raw. It’s got some nice guitar playing at least.
I was doing some googling, and just came across a website that has those songs and a ton of other PF bootlegs. FWIW, David Gilmour and Roger Waters have both said they’re fine with bootlegging, but it’s enough of a gray area that I won’t link to it. The site is called “Simple mp3 blog”. That’s enough information to find it very easily on google. The files are encrypted rar’s, but the page has the password on it.
I’m really sad about Syd’s passing, too; but it’s not completely unexpected.
I remember seeing the Floyd at the ‘Games for May’ concert (May '67), and Syd was fully involved, and played wonderfully. Then, just a couple of months later, I saw them again at UFO (in July '67), and I remember wondering why Syd seemed so lifeless and uninvolved.
He wrote his own epitaph in Jugband Blues:
And, finally, many years later, in one of the few interviews he gave:
I hope you’ve found peace now, Syd.
What was the album that they were working on which would have used things like pots and pans instead of instruments that the band got halfway through, and realized it was just too nutty and abandoned?
I found a transcript of a BBC interview of Waters, just as The Wall was released, and Barrett wasn’t really mentioned. Except for the lyric about elastic boots, apparently that was a nod to him.
Kind of surprises me - I’d always figured the Pink character was an amalgam of Barrett’s adulthood and Waters’ childhood.
Personally I never cared for early Pink Floyd, Meddle is the oldest one I own (and the post-Waters stuff, forget it). But Barrett’s character cast a long shadow over the group’s work; it’s been fascinating to learn more about him. And sad. I wish he’d been able to dance along that line of insanity more successfully, without going completely over. I wish that for a lot of people.
It is, with a healthy dash of Waters’s adulthood, too. Waters says as much on the commentary track of the DVD. Specifically, Pink’s shaving was inspired by Syd, and I believe other parts were, too. But the basic story is all Waters. He calls a lot of the movie “autobiographical.”
That was after Dark SIde of the Moon. “An Assortment of Household Objects” or something. Interestingly they had been playing around with wine glasses as one of their musical instruments and eventually used the sound on the start of Shine on You Crazy Diamond. David Gilmour used the sound again on his recent solo album, this time played by a professional wine glass player.
That would be Household Objects the project they started after Dark Side, nothing to do with Syd. I think they may have used something from those sessions in the intro to Shine On.
While I’m back here, my post made it sound like I’m a bit ho-hum about Syd’s death. It’s not that, I’m a huge fan, and I think he was very talented. It is just that the Syd we all admired faded away long ago. That’s what all of Roger Water’s Shine On angst is about. Mourning the Syd of 1967.
From Vegtable Man:
I’ve been looking all over the place
For a place for me
But it ain’t anywhere
It just ain’t anywhere
The whole idea started with a ‘song’ (!) called Work from the greatest album they never released taken from a concert tour called The Man & The Journey. (Actually the tour itself was called More Furious Madness From The Massed Gadgets Of Auximenies: what a great name). The concert was recorded by Dutch radio, and is available on many bootlegs. ‘Work’ consisted of the band constructing (I use the word loosely) a table on stage; then stopping for a tea break while listening to the Jimmy Young Show on a radio.
For the pots and pans project, they then went on to using bottles (tapping them, blowing across the top of them), elastic bands and other objects. As far as I know, it never got as far as having a title.
‘Alan’s Pschedelic Breakfast’ from Atom Heart Mother featured a lot kitchen sounds: eggs frying, Rice Crispies snapping, crackling and popping, and so on. So they obviously didn’t completely abandon the whole idea.
I have a huge collection of Pink floyd music, but I’ve never come across tapes of the pots and pans stuff.
Ooops - you’re quite right: it was called Household Objects. My memory’s failing…
I just heard an interview on the BBC with Tom Stoppard, and apparently his new play (which opens with a Syd Barrett song) was inspired by photographs of Barrett that he saw. The Beeb is now also saying that it was cancer that got Syd.
Except he did attend the recording of “Wish You Were Here” - and no-one recognised him at first, as recounted in this article:
Another article that mentioned this episode said that Barrett just listened, nodding, then left.
Apparently, when Syd showed up, he’d shaved his eyebrows. I’m assuming that the scene in The Wall where Pink does that is an homage to Syd.
According to Roger Waters, interviewed in the aforementioned BBC Omnibus programme of 2001, Syd showed up completely bald in addition to shaved eyebrows. He passed the time bobbing up and down in his seat cleaning his teeth.
He commented that the music was ‘a bit loud’ and then left.
Yes I’m… thinking. Yes I’m THJIAANNNK- look oh you know…I’ll start again, I’ll start again
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It’s not just about you know going though it, if we if we could cut —
Yes I’m thiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnking of this, yes I am puddle tum tum was the undergound
Syd, you did beautiful stuff. Matilda Mother through to the stuff you did on your own.
Yummy yumm yumm yumm
She’s a mean go getter got to write her a letter.
I’ve been a fan of both Syd’s solo and PF music for decades. I recently told my wife about Syd’s story, she had never heard of him, and played her some songs.
She sat in silence through a couple of songs, then said :eek: “All this time I’ve thought Beck was so original…he totally ripped off Syd’s sound!”
