The divisive Pink Floyd song about Syd Barrett and Roger Waters’ differences
It seems that success comes with trials and tribulations, no matter the band. This is likely the result of the pressure that comes with making music go from a hobby to a living. It is also because of pressure, substance abuse, and general creative differences. Regardless of genre, when bands blow up, there is friction that can often lead to break-ups and reshuffling. No musical outfit is a better representation of this than Pink Floyd.
Whether you listen to songs from the band’s beginning or end, there is no denying the magnitude of Pink Floyd. Their early music was the pinnacle of psychedelia. Meanwhile, what they made later in their time as a band was heavily concept—elongated numbers came together to make something truly spectacular.
Throughout this period, while the music they made was good, there was no escaping the tumultuous atmosphere that plagued the band. While the band was initially founded by Syd Barrett, Nick Mason, Richard Wright and Roger Waters, the lineup didn’t stay that way for long. New members joined, including David Gilmour, who helped expand the band’s guitar tone. Meanwhile, lots of other members left.
One of the most significant members to leave Pink Floyd was Syd Barrett. Barrett suffered a severe decline in his mental health, which led to anxiety and paranoia. The rest of the band didn’t help with this, as Gilmour recalled when they didn’t pick up Barrett one day for no particular reason.
“We were driving up Ladbroke Grove, and someone said, ‘Shall we go and pick up Syd?’” Gilmour recalled. “And somebody else, probably Roger, sai,d ‘Nah, let’s not’. And we didn’t, and we drove off down to Southampton”. Instances like this led to friction within the band, and Syd Barrett was eventually encouraged to leave.
When Barrett left, the band went on to make much more conceptual music, such as their famous albums Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall. Creative differences began to form in the band, eventually leading to Roger Waters leaving the band in 1985. Waters and Gilmour weren’t getting along at all, so Waters decided to call it a day.
His leaving didn’t mark the last time he interacted with the band, though. Waters sued Pink Floyd for continuing to use the name Pink Floyd even after he left. He didn’t win the lawsuit, but it marked a period of real friction between him and the band, despite the fact he wasn’t even in it anymore.
One song that Gilmour wrote after this period seemed to discuss both Barrett and Waters; it wasn’t a song that went into too much detail, but it did shine a light on their differences. In the 1994 track ‘Poles Apart’, he wrote, “Did you know… It was all going to go so wrong for you,” as well as the line, “And did you see it was all going to be so right for me?” According to David Gilmour’s girlfriend, the first line is supposed to be directed towards Barrett, while the second is to Waters.
There is certainly a bitterness in the lyrics as Gilmour writes to both Barrett and Waters, acknowledging the division within the band and highlighting the differences between the two and their attitudes towards Pink Floyd as a result. This was a common theme on the album The Division Bell, which spoke at length about the now awkward relationship between the band and Waters: “I thought of you, and the years and all the sadness fell away from me.”
