The tragic way that Syd Barrett was “fired” from Pink Floyd
Some stars shine too brightly, and we could undoubtedly apply this maxim to the legendary Syd Barrett. Barrett had formed Pink Floyd in 1965, but just three years later, he departed the band, mainly owing to a severe decline in his mental health, which had worsened due to excessive use of psychedelic drugs.
The story of Barrett’s ousting from the group is a sombre one. David Gilmour once explained: “We were driving up Ladbroke Grove, and someone said ‘Shall we go and pick up Syd?’ and somebody else, probably Roger, said ‘Nah, let’s not’. And we didn’t, and we drove off down to Southampton”. This, however, perhaps contributed to Barrett’s growing sense of paranoia.
Gilmour further elaborated, though, that Barrett was likely unable to perform as the band needed him to. He said: “He wasn’t capable or willing to do what was needed. When you’re young and ambitious, you’re also pretty callous, and we just got on with it”.
This attitude was admittedly cold-hearted, which is something that Gilmour himself admitted. “I think we all were,” he said. “One’s desire for survival in that field outweighs other considerations. Obviously, we were wracked with guilt about it later on. I mean, Roger and I did work on producing a solo album for Syd. Then Rick and I worked on producing the next one. So we clearly did feel that we owed him something”.
Despite working on Barrett’s solo album, he had been incredibly withdrawn and therefore was difficult to work with. There had been a sense of trying to save Barrett when perhaps he had gone too far to help. Gilmour added: “I think we were trying to save some semblance of his career rather than saving him. Perhaps our energies would have been better used trying to get him seen by specialists in schizophrenia. Syd didn’t need to be surrounded by the temptations of a pop group; he needed help.”
Yet Gilmour wasn’t the only member of Pink Floyd to open up on the guilt of Barrett’s departure. Nick Mason said a few years back, “I think there’s a lot of mixed emotions with the whole Syd thing. Because, in some ways, he was so smart in so many ways. I think there’s a bit of sadness now looking back on it – and a little bit of guilt. Not really guilt, but we handled Syd very badly.”
However, there was admittedly much less research on the long-term effects of psychoactive drugs in those times, so it is difficult to place too much blame on Barrett’s bandmates. As Mason explained: “We had no idea. And still don’t really know – what the real problem was. Whether it was LSD or whether it was something in his character anyway.”
