Why David Gilmour called Syd Barrett a “poor sad man”
The story of Syd Barrett is one of the most tragic in rock. As the original frontman and guitarist of Pink Floyd, he is among his generation’s most influential musicians, yet his time in the limelight was fleeting. Owing to the gravity of his character and efforts, his impact is something friends and bandmates such as David Gilmour and Roger Waters have continually examined. As is well-known, Barrett’s arc would inspire some of the band’s best efforts without him.
Due to mental health issues – attributed to drug use and underlying health issues – Barrett left Pink Floyd in 1968. Not long after releasing a pair of cult albums in 1970, he retreated into obscurity, a shell of his old self, remaining a hermit until his death aged 60 in 2006. David Gilmour and Roger Waters were two men who helped him bring his duo of solo albums, The Madcap Laughs and Barrett, to life in 1970.
As Gilmour and Waters were longtime friends of Barrett and saw his mental breakdown first-hand, they are some of the best placed to discuss it. In 1982, Gilmour spoke to Musician magazine and gave a candid account of the tragedy. Asked if he felt Barrett’s mental breakdown was directly because of psychedelics, he said it was always going to happen, as it was a “deep-rooted thing.”
Gilmour said: “In my opinion, it would have happened anyway. It was a deep-rooted thing. But I’ll say the psychedelic experience might well have acted as a catalyst. Still, I just don’t think he could deal with the vision of success and all the things that went with it. And there were other problems he had. I think the whole swimming pool thing in The Wall movie comes from one of Syd’s episodes.”
After discussing Barrett’s mental state during the making of his solo albums, as well as the tale of him turning up to Abbey Road Studios looking unrecognisable when Pink Floyd were recording 1975’s ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’ – a musical tribute to him – Gilmour was questioned how he feels about the cult “lionisation” of his friend. Dispelling the fantasy surrounding Barrett, Gilmour said that instead of the former band leader being a living legend, he was, in fact, a “poor sad man who can’t deal with life or himself.”
Gilmour said: “It’s sad that these people think he’s such a wonderful subject, that he’s a living legend when, in fact, there is this poor sad man who can’t deal with life or himself. He’s got uncontrollable things in him that he can’t deal with, and people think it’s a marvellous, wonderful, romantic thing. It’s just a sad, sad thing, a very nice and talented person who’s just disintegrated.”
It was put to the Pink Floyd guitarist that this sadness is apparent on ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’, to which he agreed: “It is sad. Syd’s story is a sad story romanticised by people who don’t know anything about it. They’ve made it fashionable, but it’s just not that way.”
