He bounces on the balls of his feet. It is an image of nervous buoyancy. His
voice is 
deeper and his accent less cultured than people remember. He usually only talks to shopkeepers. He is called a recluse by many, but his family prefers to say, "He just enjoys his own company". He still likes painting and gardening. He paints on huge canvases, taller than himself, but destroys any of his work that he considers imperfect. The rest he stacks against a wall in his flat. He had a job as a gardener, once, but ran away when a thunderstorm frightened him. He lived, off and on, in the care of professionals or with his mother until she died some years ago. He still draws six figures a year from something associated with his past, but he is not always sure exactly what that might be. He is one of pop culture's most enduring mysteries and the cynosure of an international cult following.
If you mention the name Syd Barrett, he'll say, "That has nothing to do with me."
"The received wisdom is that you don't disturb him," wrote a British reporter who ventured too close and came away with nothing but a strange encounter and a few mumbled words of nonsense.
He prefers to be called Roger now; his birth name. The idea of Syd, a handsome muscian with a full head of wavy hair and a host of lovely girlfriends and admirers, disturbs him. It is as foreign to him as the image of a lusty sex symbol is, these days, to Bridgett Bardot.
Syd Barret (Roger's famous alter ego) was the founder of Pink Floyd, one of the most successful musical groups in history. During the Swinging London of the 1960's, he pioneered the genres of acid rock and psychedelia, recorded the album Piper at the Gates of Dawn (a classic of the style), hobnobbed with the Beatles and The Rolling Stones, toured America, and then suffered a massive breakdown and dropped almost entirely off the map. The band carried on, very much in the spirit of their fallen leader, and went on to even greater fame and success with legendary albums like The Dark Side of the Moon, The Wall, and Wish You Were Here (largely a tribute to Syd). His influence is strongly apparent in most of the band's subsequent work, all of which echoes his struggle with sanity and oblivion.
"He was a truly magnetic personality when he was very young," says David Gilmour (who knew Barrett in school and eventually replaced him as the band's guitarist). "He was a figure in his hometown. People would look at him and say, 'There's Syd Barrett,' and he was only fourteen years old."
Barrett wrote all of the songs on Piper at the Gates of Dawn, his only album with the group. The album faded into semi-obscurity even as the post-Barrett Pink Floyd rose to greater heights of fame. The recording has since had a revival among young fans and musicians searching the vaults of classic rock for something esoteric. During his time with the Floyds, Barrett virtually invented the genre which we now call psych-folk. It's a more tuneful and whimsical version of acid rock, and has experienced a healthy rebirth among those same young musicians, making Barrett relevant beyond his era (or awareness).
In the early days, he was the undisputed leader of Pink Floyd. By the end of his tenure with the band, though, they had begun to neglect even telling him about group activity. Finally, one night, they simply decided not to pick him up before a show. It's most likely Barrett was unaware of having been snubbed. In the year or so before his unofficial dismissal, he had disintegrated from a vital free spirit into a tragic figure who often forgot to bring his guitar to shows or recording sessions; who would forget how to play his instrument and simply fake it while his bandmates tried to take up the slack; who put so much brill cream in his hair that, when he sweated and it began to seep down over his face and dribble off his chin in globs and streams, audience members screamed, thinking that he was somehow melting onstage.
Barrett's London flat, during the Summer of Love, had been the scene of many a "happening"
which drew such stellar guests as John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Mick Jagger, Marianne Faithful, and the Who's Pete Townshend. But, by the time of his ousting from Pink Floyd, and his first solo album, the flat (which is pictured on the cover) was nothing but bare wood floors, spartan furnishings and Barrett knelt creepily in the shadows.
His solo output consisted of two bizarre and yet interesting albums (The Map Cap Laughs and Barrett). Most of the lyrics are nonsensical, and amid the coherent production of his ex-bandmates, Syd seems playful and lost like a child. Sometimes sweet, sometimes disturbing, these recordings have been described as the musical sounds of a man losing his mind.
After that, Barrett dropped off the band's radar, for the most part. They supported his counselling and professional care, where needed, but he was often violently opposed to seeing doctors. He would turn up, unexpectecly, for group functions, sometimes referring to Pink Floyd as "my band". It was as if, even though the group had long since moved on, nothing had changed for him and he would suddenly resurface, thinking that he was late for the next recording session or gig. They remember him sitting in the front row at some of their concerts, staring at Dave Gilmour (his replacement) and looking very lost, confused, and hurt.
He would wander off and disappear for long periods of time, and people wondered if he had died. Family members and old girlfriends tried to help him, but Barrett was prone to violent outbursts that frightened people away. Legend has it that a group of squatters took over his flat and locked him in the basement and that, on another occasion, he gave the same treatment to a former lover who had paid him a visit out of genuine concern. Most of these stories are, however, notedly apocryphal.
Years later, Pink Floyd was recording the album Wish You Were Here when a strange figure wandered into the studio accompanied by a friend of the band. "None of us recognized him," said the group's bassist and defacto leader, Roger Waters. "He'd put on about four stone, shaved off all his body hair, and he was eating a big bag of sweets. He'd changed from this beautiful curly haired youth into something resembling the bloke who keeps the scores on The Vic Reeves Show."
When they realized who he was, the boys gave him a warm reception. Someone asked (maybe foolishly) what kind of projects he had going. Barrett mumbled something like, "I've got a room with a telly and a fridge. I have pork chops in the fridge, but they keep going gamey, so I have to replace them." One can just imagine the uncomfortable silence.
It is widely believed that Barrett's return came during the exact moment when Pink Floyd was recording "Shine On Crazy Diamond", a song that was clearly written about the band's former chief. However, this divine coincidence may exist only in the wistful retellings of fans.
After that, Barrett and Pink Floyd became mutually exclusive for many years. The band enjoyed huge success while Syd lived out a confused odyssey.
As of right now, ulcers and ill health have caused Barrett to lose much of his excess weight. Family members say that he now lives a relatively normal, if solitary, life. Some say he suffers from Asperger's Syndrome. Others think he succumbed to the pressures of stardom and success. Still others believe that he simply took a bad acid trip and never returned.
A cult has grown up around this fleeting figure, and there is even a Syd Barrett Appreciation Society. Some of these people are so obsessed they have done things like sneaking in and stealing his paint brushes while he was still in the middle of a painting. For a mentally unstable person, this is a particularly cruel intrusion upon his much needed routine. Others try to talk to him, badgering him with questions about his past and his old alter ego. There's a feeling among these people that every brusque utterance from the poor man is a cipher of some kind, containing a clue to the meaning of life.
He is their Van Gogh.
"It's sad that these people think he's such a wonderful subject," says Dave Gilmour. "That he's a living legend when, in fact, there is this poor sad man who can't deal with life or himself. He's got uncontrollable things in him that he can't deal with, and people think it's a marvelous, wonderful, romantic thing. It's just a sad, sad thing; a very nice and talented person who's just disintegrated."
Someone, reportedly, played Roger Barrett a video of Syd with his old band. Roger liked a song called "See Emily Play". The rest of it, he said, was "a bit noisy".
EDITORIAL COMMENTS: It's interesting when people change in some dramatic way (mentally or physically), or when a public person becomes a recluse. This is especially true when they've previously done something remarkable like giving wings to a powerhouse of musical invention like Pink Floyd.
I came across that picture of the fat, bald Syd Barrett recently and was shocked by it, having only ever seen images of him as a good looking kid. I wanted to find out more about him and how he got that way. It ended up becoming this article. That sounds phony, I know, but I actually wrote it as I researched it.
I wanted to say what an enigmatic and intriguing figure he is (the rock star turned recluse). Apparently, though, it's more like what Dave Gilmour said. He's just an unfortunate guy who did some crazy things as a kid and now he's irretrievably lost. But a listen to their lyrics (see below) makes me think that Pink Floyd, however impossible it may be, would really like to have him back.
As for the freaks who steal his paint brushes - leave the poor guy alone!
Remember when you were young, you shone like the sun.
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 target for faraway laughter, come on you stranger, you legend, you martyr, and shine!
You reached for the secret too soon, you cried for the moon.
Threatened by shadows at night, and exposed in the light.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Well you wore out your welcome with random precision, rode on the steel breeze.
Come on you raver, you seer of visions, come on you painter, you piper, you prisoner, and shine!
- Pink Floyd
I want to be left alone.
- Greta Garbo
