David Bowie’s favourite Syd Barrett song
In the late 1960s, the heavy use of LSD and a countercultural shift gave rise to the psychedelic rock wave. Upheld by The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, the genre enjoyed plenty of radio exposure and, despite its experimental qualities, became a prominent component of contemporary pop music. The seeds sown during this period gave rise to the progressive and glam-rock titans of the 1970s, such as Pink Floyd and David Bowie.
While The Beatles shifted stacks of Sgt Pepper in 1967, several psychedelic acts began to crop up in the vibrant London scene. Among them were Marc Bolan’s Tyrannosaurus Rex and the early incarnation of Pink Floyd, led by the eccentric singer and songwriter Syd Barrett. The year saw the arrival of Pink Floyd’s successful debut album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn and David Bowie’s radar-evading eponymous debut record.
Pink Floyd garnered a passionate early following with stand-out tracks like the punchy ‘Lucifer Sam’ and the celestial ‘Astronomy Domine’. The Piper at the Gates of Dawn was musically eclectic, but a constant throughout was Barrett’s “madcap” lyricism, something a young Bowie admired greatly. Although musically disparate, Bowie used a similar nursery rhyme delivery for his oblique lyrics in David Bowie.
Recorded at around the same time, one album couldn’t have directly influenced the other, but Bowie and Barrett soon came to admire each other’s work. On May 21st, 1967, Barrett joined Melody Maker to review some new singles. Among them was Bowie’s ‘Love You Till Tuesday’.
Despite a lack of understanding among critics and listeners, the single and its imminent parent album struck a chord with Barrett. “Yeah, it’s a joke number,” Barrett commented, picking up on the song’s playful insincerity. “The Pink Floyd like jokes… I think that was a very funny joke.”
However, when asked how he felt the public would respond to such a single, Barrett revealed a more candid tone. “I think people will like the bit about it being Monday when, in fact, it was Tuesday,” he admitted. “Very chirpy, but I don’t think my toes were tapping at all.”
As Bowie soldiered on towards the 1970s, finally breaking through to a wider audience with ‘Space Oddity’ in 1969, he continued to admire Barrett’s work. Sadly, Barrett departed Pink Floyd in 1968 due to a spiralling mental health struggle, but before vanishing from the music scene, he recorded two solo albums, The Madcap Laughs and Barrett, both released in 1970.
Bowie was particularly enamoured with The Madcap Laughs, which brought him great pleasure while he laid the tracks towards global success in Hunky Dory. In 2003, Bowie sat down with Vanity Fair to pick out his 25 favourite records from his collection. The Madcap Laughs was among them. “Syd will always be the Pink Floyd for some of us older fans,” Bowie noted. “He made this album, according to legend, while fragile and precariously out of control.”
Continuing, the Starman picked out his favourite song from the album. “Highlight track for me is ‘Dark Globe’,” he said, “gloriously disturbing and poignant all at once.”
Barrett passed away three years after these comments, whereupon Bowie penned a tribute. “Syd was a major inspiration for me. He was so charismatic and such a startlingly original songwriter.”
Bowie added that Berrett inspired his comfort in singing with an English accent, which was rare in 1960s rock music. “His impact on my thinking was enormous,” he concluded. “A major regret is that I never got to know him. A diamond indeed.”
Listen to Syd Barrett’s ‘Dark Globe’ below. Desperate and lonely, the song is a window to the songwriter’s unfortunate state of mind at the time.
