Syd's Page
ROGER KEITH BARRETT aka SYD BARRETT
Syd was born on January 6th, 1946 in Cambridge, England. He had a normal childhood and was well liked by his peers. A successful student, his interests ranged from art to camping, sports and drama. Syd's father, Dr. Barrett, encouraged his young son with his interest in music. He gave him a gift of a banjo and later a guitar. When Syd was 14 years of age, Dr. Barrett died, leaving a void which some see as the first of among many events that led Syd down the road to dementia.
Below is a picture of Syd as a child and as a teen.
While attending Regent Street Polytechnic in London, Syd met up with a former childhood friend, Roger Waters, who was interested in music and had formed a band. Syd also spent time with friend David Gilmour, practicing the guitar. Roger's band, the Screaming Abdabs was not doing too well and Syd started to sit in on some of their sessions. The Screaming Abdabs also included friends Nick Mason and Richard Wright. The Screaming Abdabs were booked into local venues and when Syd came on board, he came up with the name "Pink Floyd" by merging two of his favourite artists names, Pink Anderson and Floyd Council. He quickly became the obvious leader, with songwriting capabilities and guitar. He wrote the majority of their first songs, which can be heard on Piper At The Gates Of Dawn. Syd wrote several singles which entered the charts, two of them being See Emily Play and Arnold Layne which can be found on Relics
.
Below is a picture of Pink Floyd in 1967.
There are many rumours of what happened to Syd, and many of them are just hearsay. Syd was known to experiment with mind altering drugs, such as LSD quite frequently. He also started to show signs of schizophrenia and his dementia eventually could not be ignored. It is rumoured that his roommate spiked everything in the house with acid..his coffee, drinks, everything. Syd was on a 24 hour high. That combined with the schizophrenia eventually led to his collapse and breakdown. He was not able to play and at gigs would just stand there and stare or else play something totally different than the rest of the band. Pressures had also mounted for him to produce more singles and Syd was a rather fragile person to begin with. It soon became obvious to the rest of the band that Syd was no longer going to be able to perform, and asked David Gilmour to fill in for Syd. The idea was that Syd would continue to write and David would perform.
Here is a picture of "5 Member Floyd" with David Gilmour. This picture always haunted me, because the picture is depicting Syd behind the rest of them, almost like he is not there, even in the photo-session.
After his breakdown, the band continued without him, eventually not going to pick him up one night. It's rumoured that one of them said "Let's not get Syd" and the others agreed. Syd was officially out of the band in 1968. He continued to write for awhile, and recorded a couple of solo albums. Roger and David produced on one of them, and Rick produced on another. He would show up at Pink Floyd gigs and stare at David. It freaked most of the members out. David said it was like him saying "that's my band". There was a period of 5 years where none of the band had heard from Syd. Roger was deeply disturbed about his childhood friend's condition and set to write Wish You Were Here in memory of Syd. Ironically Syd showed up during the recording sessions, but at first none of the band members recognized him. Balding and overweight, he sat there and was at first mistaken to be someone who worked in the studio. Finally he was recognized and they said hello to him. He left and wasn't really seen again by the band. It is also rumoured that Syd goes into a state of depression whenever hearing Pink Floyd music or seeing any of the members, so they haven't visited him in years. David recently said, however, that he was thinking of going to visit Syd as many years have passed and he seems to be doing better in that area. He now lives in Cambridge by himself, tends to his garden and paints. He no longer has any musical ties, despite years of people trying to convince him to return to the studio. He no longer uses the name "Syd" and refers to himself as "Roger Barrett". If approached and called "Syd", he now says, "Syd is no longer here."
Below are some pictures of Syd in later years.
Syd in 1970.
Syd from the Madcap Laughs photo session.
Syd in 1978.
A recent photo of Syd out and about, April 2001.
