Why Syd Barrett initially hated David Bowie’s music
There probably wouldn’t be David Bowie as we know today without Pink Floyd coming first. Throughout his time as one of the resident art rock geniuses, Bowie would be informed by the early days of Pink Floyd, becoming enamoured with how Syd Barrett conducted himself onstage. While Barrett would only be with the outside world for the first few years of the 1970s, he did think that Bowie’s approach to music wasn’t his cup of tea.
Then again, Barrett was practically the godfather of what Bowie wanted to do. Years before the likes of ‘Space Oddity’, Barrett’s odes to nonsensical ecstasy on The Piper at the Gates of Dawn was perfect for the Summer of Love, creating abstract images in the listener’s mind from one song to the next. Although Bowie was trying his hand at various artistic songs at the time, the vaudeville sounds of his debut began to change once he heard Barrett for the first time.
When talking about hearing Barrett, Bowie knew that he had found his calling, expanding the boundaries of rock and roll, saying, “Syd was a major inspiration for me. The few times I saw him perform in London at UFO and the Marquee clubs during the ’60s will forever be etched in my mind.”
Brandishing an acoustic guitar and singing about the wonders of space travel, ‘Space Oddity’ would become a foundational part of Bowie’s sound, capturing his ethos of musically searching for new lands. Although Bowie was on the rise then, Barrett thought his music wasn’t worth the time of day.
Reminiscing on his time with Pink Floyd, journalist Chris Welch remembered Barrett having disdain for what Bowie stood for, recalling, “I did a blind date session with him and played him all the latest records and singles. I played him David Bowie sing, and he hated it. He said, ‘It’s terrible; I hate that!’ He wasn’t happy with that, which surprised me”.
Then again, perhaps Bowie had been hitting the nail on the head too well for Barrett’s taste. Throughout the next few years, the frontman would become more desensitised to the music he was playing, struggling to hold his guitar pick and rehearsals grinding to a halt. By the time Bowie had started to etch his name into rock history, Barrett would be long gone as he slowly began to lose his battle with mental health.
Even though the band would continue without Barrett as one of the foundational prog rock bands, Bowie thought they lost something when the frontman departed. Rather than the playful take on rock and roll, the band suddenly delved into serious territory, taking the foundations of rock and making them sound like the most soul-crushing music in the world.
Although Bowie may have gone off Pink Floyd then, nothing would break his love for the band’s early work. When his record company needed one more album to fulfil a contract for the American market, Bowie would get to inhabit his songwriting guru on the album Pin Ups, offering his art rock interpretation of the song ‘See Emily Play’. While Barrett may not have heard what Bowie was capable of then, ‘The Starman’ continued to carry Barrett’s sense of unbridled creativity throughout every record he made.
