Andy Carvin's Waste of Bandwidth

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July 11, 2006

RIP Syd Barrett: Shine On, You Crazy Diamond

Public domain photo of Syd Barrett, taken in 2002.

This morning I heard the sad news that former Pink Floyd singer and guitarist Syd Barrett had passed away at age 60. Many people who were familiar only with Pink Floyd's hits from the 1970s never got around to listening to their earliest work, when Syd was the group's frontman. A brilliant, eccentric songwriter, he set Pink Floyd on the course from obscure English acid rock band to one of the greatest music groups of all time.

Unfortunately, Syd himself did not get the chance to experience the band's later commercial success. Tormented by the effects of mental illness and drug abuse, Syd had his will to perform sucked out of him just as the band was heading towards greatness. Pink Floyd associate Joe Boyd recounted the summer of 1967, when everything seemed to fall apart for Syd:

He was very lifeless. He'd always been very witty, kind of twinkly, very appealing to girls - a dark-eyed, handsome sort of guy.... By that summer, he would very often spend time on stage with the Floyd, standing with his arms at his side, not playing, not singing. Eventually Dave Gilmour was brought in to provide support for those times when Syd didn't feel like playing, and in the end he took over and replaced Syd, and Syd left the group.

But the stage had been set. Without Syd Barrett, Pink Floyd would have never gone on to create such classics as Dark Side of the Moon, The Wall and Wish You Were Here. (And we probably would have never had Robyn Hitchcock either, but that's another story.) I still look back fondly to seeing Pink Floyd live in high school, playing their epic song, "Shine On You Crazy Diamond," which was a tribute to Syd. Later in college, I remember the countless evenings where several of us would open the doors to our dorm rooms to perform the song. One of us would slowly turn up the volume and begin playing a recording of it. At the proper moment, I would come in on my guitar, playing the song note-for-note, while a little while later my neighbor Mike Bultman would jump in doing his part with his saxophone. And all the while, Syd lived as a recluse in Cambridge, residing with his mother, refusing interview requests, coming outside only to buy painting supplies and work on his modest garden.

Shine on, you crazy diamond. -andy

Posted by acarvin at July 11, 2006 3:20 PM

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