Heavyset with a shaved head and eyebrows, he offered to “tune their guitars” during the mastering of the nine-part epic ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond.’ It wasn’t until he asked Roger Waters and David Gilmour, “When do I play my parts?”, that the penny dropped. It was founding member Syd Barrett. Despite his pre-stardom exit from the band, Barrett’s unexpected insistence on recording proved he never truly left; every move in Pink Floyd’s 70s ascent was now tinged with the loss of someone still alive.
Born Roger Keith Barrett on 6 January 1946 in Cambridge, he didn’t become Syd until his early teens. The origins of this name are disputed. One account links it to his time in the Scouts, where he was reportedly dubbed “Sid", while another claims it's in honour of legendary, local Cambridge bassist, Sid ‘The Beat’ Barrett. With much of histime spent in his own world – writing or learning piano, ukulele and banjo – "Syd" became an alter ego, separating his home life from his creativity. At home, however, Syd was still Roger; his sister Rosemary Barrett later recalled he would never have allowed the nickname there.
Less than a month before his 16th birthday, tragedy struck: his father died from cancer. In need of a distraction from his grief, Syd’s mother encouraged his work in an early band, Geoff Mott & The Mottoes, allowing them to rehearse in the front room. With childhood friend Roger Waters attending their early shows, the bones of Pink Floyd were beginning to slot in place.
Arriving at Cambridgeshire College of Arts and Technology (now Anglia Ruskin University) in 1963, he met his future replacement, David Gilmour, and became enamoured with The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Bo Diddley. Come 1964, he’d moved to London and reunited with Waters in new band, then known as The Tea Set. By 1965, he was the frontman and lead guitarist, with the band now settling on the name The Pink Floyd Sound.
It was during this time that Barrett took his first dose of LSD, which is often credited with unlocking his creativity. Andrew King, their manager at the time, stated: “Syd just turned into a songwriter, it seemed like overnight.”
Suddenly, their initial blues-rock influences were abandoned in favour of Syd’s whimsical woodland-psych compositions, combining stream-of-consciousness lyrics with cannibalised nursery rhymes and spacey reverb. The resulting album, ‘The Piper at the Gates of Dawn’, felt like the sound of an elf gone mad after too much time at The Marquee Club. Peaking at number 6 in the charts, it became a pivotal moment in British psychedelia, and remains the clearest expression of Barrett’s creative world.
With only a few tracks crafted for their follow-up, ‘A Saucerful of Secrets’, Barrett’s behaviour on tour became increasingly vacant, often attributed to a combination of LSD abuse and possible underlying mental health issues. Seen by the band as a more reliable presence, David Gilmour began to assist with lead-guitar duties on stage as Barrett began to detach from reality, detuning his guitar and strumming only one note during shows. While intending to keep him in the group as a non-touring member, à la Brian Wilson, this became unfeasible.
In one final act, Syd came to rehearsals with a new song entitled ‘Have You Got It Yet?’, a track deliberately impossible to play as he kept changing the composition: a final prank from a man who famously never played a song the same way twice.
Leaving the public eye for nearly two years, Barrett made a reluctant return, releasing two avant-folk records, ‘The Madcap Laughs’ and ‘Barrett’, with help from former bandmates Gilmour, Waters and Richard Wright. Both albums only gained cult followings.
Bouncing between Cambridge and London in the early '70s, Syd finally left the music industry after a failed return to Abbey Road in 1974. One year before his retirement, his former bandmates released ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’, with the lyric “And if the band you’re in starts playing different tunes” appearing in ‘Brain Damage’ sung by his childhood friend and replacement, Waters.
After his surprise appearance during the ‘Wish You Were Here’ sessions and a brief cameo at Gilmour’s wedding reception the same day, Syd never saw any of the band again. By 1981, Pink Floyd were finishing their world tour of ‘The Wall’, while Barrett had returned permanently to Cambridge and to his birth name, Roger.
With any mention of his prior band or his career as ‘Syd’ reportedly sending him into a spiral, Barrett spent the final 25 years of his life painting and gardening in his mother’s former house, before dying from pancreatic cancer at just 60. To avoid the press pestering his funeral, the members of Pink Floyd were told not to attend. David Gilmour, Roger Waters, Nick Mason and Richard Wright obliged.
In one of his final public actions in 2002, he signed 320 copies of Psychedelic Renegades by Mick Rock, a book featuring photos from the recording sessions of his debut album. He signed one word: ‘Barrett.’
While Pink Floyd's worldwide success followed in his departure, none of it would’ve happened without Barrett. He haunts their narrative, giving the band their name and inspiring some of their most iconic work, including the heartbreaking tribute ‘Wish You Were Here’ and the cyclically paranoid, ‘The Wall.’
While he didn’t take part in the band’s biggest moments, they were inarguably fuelled by the pain of his absence: even being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Pink Floyd, despite only three years with them.
Barrett’s legacy stretches far beyond the usual "what-if" story; instead, it becomes a testament to the creative fuel of loss, and Roger Barrett, who spent nearly half his life trying to escape the fact that he was once Syd.
Keir Shields
Image: 'Wish You Were Here' Official Album Cover