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YTS.MX

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"Fame requires every kind of excess."

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"I mean true fame."

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"A devouring neon."

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"Long journeys across grey space."

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"Danger."

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"The edge of every void."

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"Understand the man who must
inhabit these extreme regions."

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"Even if half-mad, he is absorbed
into the public's total madness."

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"Even If fully rational,
a bureaucrat in hell,"

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"a secret genius of survival,"

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"he is sure to be destroyed by
the public's contempt for survivors."

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What are you working on
at the moment inside yourself?

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I can't really say.

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Maybe this break
would be very valuable

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to try painting again after
a break of going into pop music.

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I don't know.

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If I wanted to say nothing,

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or if I want to act
in an extraordinary way,

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then I feel that
that too is justified.

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Syd Barrett, one of the founding
members of Pink Floyd,

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has died at the age of 60.

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A statement from the band
described him as a guiding light

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who leaves a legacy
which continues to inspire.

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He left the Pink Floyd in 1968

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and lived as a recluse
in Cambridge for three decades.

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How would you describe,
now in your maturity...

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Thank you.

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...his contribution to Pink Floyd?

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Well, it wouldn't have existed
if it hadn't been for Syd.

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We would have been one of those
thousands and thousands of bands

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who come up and they play
blues and "Louie Louie".

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They might write the odd crappy
song and then they disappear.

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They get proper jobs
and that's the end of it.

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I discovered Pink Floyd's music

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through the music
they made in the late '70s.

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For people that got
info Pink Floyd at that point

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and were listening
to those records first,

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they knew that there had been
this guy Syd in the band.

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The story was always,
"Oh, he went mad and left the group."

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That's all we knew about it.

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There was religious
acid taking at that time.

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Syd was one of the sort of
saints of that underground cult.

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Literature and the Bible
for example, is full of people

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who deliberately isolated themselves.

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The hermits who went info the desert.

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People who had visions,
who preferred to be on their own.

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And others,
who having those experiences,

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were determined
to preach to the multitude.

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The romantic ideal is

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that a creative person is drawn
by something so powerful

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that he, or she, will follow that

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regardless of the price
that has to be paid.

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These people are out there in front.

56
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They're not looking
over their shoulder,

57
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they're just gonna do it.

58
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Syd is the ultimate kind of loner.

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It's the same a little bit
with Brian Jones or something.

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I suppose what is sad
ls about somebody

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who is still extremely relevant,
Just decides to stop.

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It's OK when someone carries on
into irrelevance and then stops.

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No one cares.

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The last thing he was interested in
was explaining himself.

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And consequently, he became a figure
of intense-focused interest,

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because there was a mystery there.

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He's the perfect god, you see.

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A god must actually
be killed and eaten,

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00:05:06,906 --> 00:05:08,941
but then he must be reborn.

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The life of Syd Barrett,

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founding member of Pink Floyd,
is full of unanswered questions.

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Though he named the group
and wrote their first two hit songs,

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Barrett was later pushed out
of the band by its members,

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who were convinced he was having
an LSD-induced psychotic breakdown.

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But to examine the complex
story of Syd Barrett,

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one needs to take a trip.

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A trip back to the picturesque
and historic

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English university town of Cambridge.

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Roger Keith Barrett was born in
Cambridge on January 6th 1946.

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One of five children,
closest to his sister Rosemary.

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He was always
wanting the next bit of fun.

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And if it didn't arrive,
then he'd make it.

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I can remember
once at the dinner table,

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when he had a little bit of cabbage
sticking out of his mouth.

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He knew it was there and he kept it
there for the whole meal

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and pretended he didn't know.

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Of course, everybody was
giggling because his face was,

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"I know it's there,
I know you're laughing at me

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but I'm going to ignore it."

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Barrett's father,
a pathologist and avid botanist,

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00:07:20,839 --> 00:07:23,342
encouraged the artistic
leanings of his son,

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who loved to write and draw.

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By the age of 13 or 14,

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Roger had acquired the nickname 'Syd'
from his friends at school.

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As legend has it
after a local jazz bass player,

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Syd 'the beat' Barrett.

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At home he remained Roger or Rog.

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I'm speaking at this level.
I'm speaking at this level.

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Ok. This is slate three.

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I believe Storm's interview,
it's 08:10.

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Big clap.

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00:08:01,580 --> 00:08:05,017
My name is Storm.
I knew Syd in the early '60s.

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We were both at the same school

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00:08:06,685 --> 00:08:09,555
as Roger and Dave,
who became Pink Floyd obviously.

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00:08:12,925 --> 00:08:15,928
The peer group in Cambridge
that Syd was part of

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was full of aspiring artists.

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Not businessmen,
not medical, not lawyers.

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Syd was not unusual

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and seemed to be
as he were one of the gang.

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The group evolved by itself.

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Nobody was really the leader.

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The centers of Seamus and Storm

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was simply because their mothers
were very indulgent

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towards teenage boys.

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The start came at Cherry Hinton
Road at your mother's house.

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I tended to be into
beer and jazz and students.

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Your lot were more into drugs
and rock music and cool people.

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I deny it totally.

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I went to the county high school,
Cambridgeshire High School for boys,

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and was in the same year as Syd.

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We had to choose between
woodwork, metal work and art.

122
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So I went info the art class

123
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and there I discovered a bunch
of people who were useless.

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A teacher who was equally useless,

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but one student
by the name of Roger Barrett,

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had a flare way beyond his years.

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The Christmas holiday of 1961
was overshadowed

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by his father's death from cancer,

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Just a month
before Syd's 16th birthday.

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Syd's family moves to 183 Hills Road.

131
00:09:28,233 --> 00:09:30,669
Libby Gausden lives
several houses up the street.

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I Met Syd, I think, in 1961.

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We'd have both been 15.

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Where did you meet?

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I met him at Jesus Green,

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which is a wonderful place
in Cambridge.

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I'd been swimming and diving
actually with Dave Gilmour.

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After the swimming,
I came out with some friends

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00:09:47,786 --> 00:09:51,623
and we were messing
about on the see-saw outside.

140
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And I met Syd there.

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He was kind,
he was gentle, he was generous,

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he liked buying presents.

143
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He wrote to me all the time.

144
00:10:00,132 --> 00:10:03,502
I had always thought of you
as Syd's first major girlfriend.

145
00:10:03,569 --> 00:10:05,170
We were always together.

146
00:10:05,237 --> 00:10:07,206
When you went out with him
how was he?

147
00:10:07,272 --> 00:10:10,476
It always looked like he was full
of the joys of spring, which he was.

148
00:10:12,444 --> 00:10:15,314
Let's go back,
way back to the early '60s.

149
00:10:15,380 --> 00:10:17,950
What is your abiding memory of Syd?

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00:10:18,417 --> 00:10:23,555
Just a guy who was fiercely
intelligent and loads of fun.

151
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Life was just too easy
for him really in a way.

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He had huge gifts

153
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which were natural to him
so he didn't see them as huge.

154
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Everything he turned
his hand to worked.

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The girls worked, the painting
worked, the music worked,

156
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the friendships worked.

157
00:10:40,939 --> 00:10:42,641
I always remember Syd's hair.

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- Do you?
- Yeah.

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00:10:43,742 --> 00:10:46,378
- Curly, black.
- Yeah, lovely.

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And I also remember his walk.

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- He smelled nice.
- Sorry?

162
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He smelled nice.

163
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You could see
this extraordinary buoyancy

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which was most clearly
evidenced in the way he walked.

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He walked with a bounce,
he walked on the front of his feet

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with his heels
off the ground all the time.

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You could spot him several
hundred yards away in Cambridge

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wandering up the street.

169
00:11:08,133 --> 00:11:11,036
We used to go on my Vespa
down to Hills Road

170
00:11:11,103 --> 00:11:13,205
for these Sunday afternoon
jam sessions,

171
00:11:13,272 --> 00:11:16,742
where I saw Syd playing
guitar for the first time.

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The music side of the story
really begins

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with Geoff Mott And The Mottoes,
of which Syd was an august member.

174
00:11:29,621 --> 00:11:33,625
I remember when Syd
bought his first Futurama.

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It was bright red as I recall

176
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and he used to learn
Duane Eddy things on it

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00:11:38,397 --> 00:11:39,731
like "Walk Don't Run".

178
00:11:42,467 --> 00:11:45,370
We'd started to go to shows in London

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00:11:45,437 --> 00:11:49,775
and I remember sitting on the train
having seen Gene Vincent.

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We sat there with a piece of paper

181
00:11:53,445 --> 00:11:57,583
and figured out
the amplification for the band

182
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that we were going to be.

183
00:11:58,784 --> 00:12:01,987
It had two VOX AC30s drawn on it.

184
00:12:02,054 --> 00:12:04,590
And we were going,
"Well, the vocals and the bass

185
00:12:04,656 --> 00:12:06,358
and then this
can go through this one.

186
00:12:06,425 --> 00:12:07,859
The rhythm guitar...

187
00:12:07,926 --> 00:12:10,862
Will we have a keyboard?
Don't know, maybe."

188
00:12:12,764 --> 00:12:14,499
He used to appear at parties

189
00:12:14,566 --> 00:12:17,002
of which we had quite a lot of
in Cambridge at that time.

190
00:12:28,981 --> 00:12:32,584
He used to play a lot of the songs
that later became songs on his album.

191
00:12:34,219 --> 00:12:36,588
But because he was just
as he were one of the gang,

192
00:12:36,655 --> 00:12:38,890
I don't think anybody
thought anything about him.

193
00:12:48,667 --> 00:12:50,002
He had this grin

194
00:12:50,068 --> 00:12:52,671
you could mistake for a smirk
but it wasn't.

195
00:12:52,738 --> 00:12:55,741
It was almost like he knew
something you didn't know.

196
00:12:55,807 --> 00:12:57,075
He was one of those people

197
00:12:57,142 --> 00:12:59,711
that was part
of the crowd very much so

198
00:12:59,778 --> 00:13:02,214
and then the next minute,
he'd slipped away from a room.

199
00:13:02,314 --> 00:13:05,250
And it'd be, "Where's Syd?"
Nobody knows.

200
00:13:10,722 --> 00:13:12,624
Syd's enthusiasm for painting

201
00:13:12,691 --> 00:13:15,861
sees him enroll at the Cambridge
School of Art in 1962.

202
00:13:16,561 --> 00:13:19,998
Simultaneously, he discovers
Beat poetry, Kerouac

203
00:13:20,065 --> 00:13:21,566
and rhythm and blues.

204
00:13:21,633 --> 00:13:22,934
He gets into The Beatles

205
00:13:23,001 --> 00:13:24,836
and sees
the Rolling Stones in concert.

206
00:13:25,871 --> 00:13:27,606
He drew very often

207
00:13:27,673 --> 00:13:32,477
with a lovely kind of whirly
twirly drawing quality.

208
00:13:32,544 --> 00:13:35,013
Very refined line I would say.

209
00:13:35,614 --> 00:13:37,516
He seemed to me a born painter

210
00:13:37,582 --> 00:13:40,686
and to have really the temperament
of a born painter.

211
00:13:41,019 --> 00:13:43,855
Slightly recessive and contemplative.

212
00:13:44,756 --> 00:13:46,591
I had taken up painting.

213
00:13:46,658 --> 00:13:49,361
David Gale suggested that
we have an exhibition together.

214
00:13:50,195 --> 00:13:52,464
It is our first venture
into commercial art.

215
00:13:53,532 --> 00:13:54,533
A total failure.

216
00:13:54,599 --> 00:13:56,968
- Did you sell anything?
- No, we sold nothing.

217
00:13:57,235 --> 00:13:59,404
We used to have
jam sessions with the guitar

218
00:13:59,471 --> 00:14:03,208
in the art school,
and later, joined by Dave,

219
00:14:03,275 --> 00:14:05,811
in the common room
to the whole technical college.

220
00:14:05,877 --> 00:14:09,881
We loved Beatles
and Stones and blues stuff.

221
00:14:09,948 --> 00:14:10,949
Chuck and Bo.

222
00:14:11,249 --> 00:14:13,085
I can remember learning "Come On".

223
00:14:13,618 --> 00:14:15,253
- The Stones.
- By the Stones.

224
00:14:15,320 --> 00:14:16,621
And "Off the Hook".

225
00:14:17,522 --> 00:14:19,791
I can see in my mind the back bench

226
00:14:19,858 --> 00:14:22,294
against one of the walls
and people sitting there

227
00:14:22,361 --> 00:14:25,163
at probably 10:00 o'clock in
the morning just strumming away.

228
00:14:27,666 --> 00:14:30,469
Do you remember whether you were
impressed by his paintings

229
00:14:30,535 --> 00:14:31,636
or by his personality?

230
00:14:31,703 --> 00:14:33,872
I was more impressed
by his personality.

231
00:14:33,939 --> 00:14:36,708
He just looked like somebody
who was going places.

232
00:14:36,775 --> 00:14:40,912
He was quite a star in our small
firmament as it was at the time.

233
00:14:48,286 --> 00:14:51,056
He was very unusual,
very interesting.

234
00:14:51,123 --> 00:14:53,258
The complete package
I believe you'd say.

235
00:14:53,325 --> 00:14:54,593
The complete package.

236
00:14:56,928 --> 00:14:59,398
Jenny dear,
when did you first meet Syd?

237
00:14:59,464 --> 00:15:00,699
And how was he?

238
00:15:00,766 --> 00:15:04,469
I met him in the Cambridge
Student Union Cellars.

239
00:15:05,003 --> 00:15:07,773
He was playing with
a band called Those Without.

240
00:15:07,839 --> 00:15:10,542
He came up and said hello
and introduced himself.

241
00:15:10,609 --> 00:15:12,577
When did you start going steady?

242
00:15:12,677 --> 00:15:13,879
Well, a week later,

243
00:15:13,945 --> 00:15:16,415
a week after that,
he phoned me and said

244
00:15:16,481 --> 00:15:18,784
he would like
to meet up and have coffee.

245
00:15:18,850 --> 00:15:20,619
So I met him in the Guild.

246
00:15:21,019 --> 00:15:23,021
He wrote to me and said

247
00:15:23,088 --> 00:15:25,757
that he'd drawn a picture
of me leaning against the bar.

248
00:15:25,824 --> 00:15:27,526
He sent this picture

249
00:15:27,592 --> 00:15:30,429
with a beautiful piece of pink
tissue paper written on it,

250
00:15:30,495 --> 00:15:33,498
"I love you, I love you.
I can't stop thinking about you."

251
00:15:43,608 --> 00:15:45,343
How long did you go out with him?

252
00:15:45,410 --> 00:15:49,114
I probably saw him nearly
every day from 61 to '63.

253
00:15:49,181 --> 00:15:52,250
I think he went
to art school in London in '64,

254
00:15:52,317 --> 00:15:53,952
so that was a bit of a messy year.

255
00:16:00,192 --> 00:16:03,395
In September 1964,
Syd moves to London.

256
00:16:09,835 --> 00:16:12,671
In 1960, whatever it was,

257
00:16:12,737 --> 00:16:15,340
he duly arrived
and he moved into the apartment

258
00:16:15,407 --> 00:16:18,944
that I was already sharing
with Nick Mason and Rick Wright.

259
00:16:19,010 --> 00:16:21,413
- Mike Leonard's place?
- Mike Leonard's place.

260
00:16:21,480 --> 00:16:22,948
We were Leonard's Lodgers.

261
00:16:27,686 --> 00:16:29,621
Bob Klose was in the band.

262
00:16:29,688 --> 00:16:35,293
As soon as Syd arrived things changed
because Syd had other aspirations.

263
00:16:36,461 --> 00:16:39,764
Syd tuned into
that whole west coast thing.

264
00:16:40,632 --> 00:16:44,302
If you asked me, "What did Love do?"
I'd go, "I have no fuckin' idea."

265
00:16:44,369 --> 00:16:45,604
But I know Syd did.

266
00:16:46,771 --> 00:16:48,673
He was one of the most

267
00:16:48,740 --> 00:16:52,711
emotionally and intellectually
curious people

268
00:16:52,777 --> 00:16:53,912
that I've ever met.

269
00:16:55,547 --> 00:16:57,415
Gigging under various names,

270
00:16:57,482 --> 00:17:00,519
the Architectural Abdabs
and The Tea Set,

271
00:17:00,585 --> 00:17:03,955
Syd renames their band
the Pink Floyd Sound

272
00:17:04,055 --> 00:17:06,758
by combining the names
of two obscure blues men,

273
00:17:06,825 --> 00:17:08,927
Pink Anderson and Floyd Council.

274
00:17:09,628 --> 00:17:11,229
Bob Klose leaves the band

275
00:17:11,329 --> 00:17:13,899
as they start moving
towards more improvised music

276
00:17:13,999 --> 00:17:17,903
largely as backing tracks to their
increasingly elaborate light shows.

277
00:17:17,969 --> 00:17:21,973
Syd starts to write songs
including "Let's Roll Another One",

278
00:17:22,040 --> 00:17:24,676
which later becomes
"Candy and a Currant Bun"

279
00:17:24,743 --> 00:17:26,111
and "Bob Dylan Blues".

280
00:17:27,078 --> 00:17:29,881
The band becomes solidified
with Syd on guitar,

281
00:17:29,948 --> 00:17:32,717
Roger Waters on bass,
Rick Wright on keyboards

282
00:17:32,817 --> 00:17:34,252
and Nick Mason on drums.

283
00:17:39,824 --> 00:17:43,862
When you were at Camberwell with Syd,
what kind of guy was he?

284
00:17:43,929 --> 00:17:47,899
The thing that I really remember
ls his innocence.

285
00:17:48,600 --> 00:17:52,871
All this very glamorous
dark curly hair, very alive eyes

286
00:17:52,938 --> 00:17:56,942
and a general air
of glamour about him.

287
00:17:57,008 --> 00:17:59,978
But he had this innocence
almost like a child.

288
00:18:00,545 --> 00:18:05,850
He painted with great energy,
terrific sense of colour.

289
00:18:05,917 --> 00:18:09,754
And what I remember is big,
very painterly abstract paintings.

290
00:18:10,589 --> 00:18:13,525
Towards the end of that first year,

291
00:18:14,059 --> 00:18:17,062
he went to Robert Medley,
who was head of painting.

292
00:18:17,162 --> 00:18:19,064
He said to Robert,

293
00:18:19,130 --> 00:18:23,335
"At the moment with my group
I'm getting £200 pounds a week."

294
00:18:23,401 --> 00:18:25,337
- A lot of money.
- A fortune really.

295
00:18:25,403 --> 00:18:29,074
He said, "Could I possibly have
the year off, have a sabbatical?"

296
00:18:32,611 --> 00:18:35,714
His college work was important
and he'd write to me and say,

297
00:18:35,780 --> 00:18:38,783
"I've got to do a painting this size
so I can stay on next year,

298
00:18:38,850 --> 00:18:41,119
but I wrote this really nice song.”

299
00:18:41,720 --> 00:18:43,622
So did Syd then leave for a year?

300
00:18:44,456 --> 00:18:46,157
He left and he didn't come back.

301
00:19:03,942 --> 00:19:07,979
Having left art school there are
a lot of things that I could do,

302
00:19:08,046 --> 00:19:10,982
a lot of things I see now,
a lot of things that went into me,

303
00:19:12,951 --> 00:19:18,223
thinking that these were perhaps
changing and altering things.

304
00:19:56,928 --> 00:19:59,464
Roger Keith Barret,
aspiring painter,

305
00:19:59,531 --> 00:20:03,535
drops out of art school so that Syd
Barrett, pop star, may be born.

306
00:20:04,402 --> 00:20:07,238
Before long, Barrett would find
himself at the epicenter

307
00:20:07,305 --> 00:20:09,941
of the biggest underground
movement ever to hit Britain.

308
00:20:20,518 --> 00:20:22,053
You've got a bright future.

309
00:20:26,424 --> 00:20:28,326
There's a general
sea change that goes on

310
00:20:28,393 --> 00:20:31,296
in English music anyway
during 1965, '66.

311
00:20:31,362 --> 00:20:33,965
You get a band like The Paramounts
turning to Procol Harum

312
00:20:34,032 --> 00:20:36,134
and stop doing
cover versions of Poison lvy.

313
00:20:36,201 --> 00:20:38,937
And within two years they're
doing "A Whiter Shade of Pale".

314
00:20:39,003 --> 00:20:43,441
I think Syd is aft the very
cutting edge of that movement.

315
00:20:43,508 --> 00:20:45,877
I think Syd's one
of the first ones who transforms

316
00:20:45,944 --> 00:20:50,849
from just copying RandB to actually
doing something utterly new.

317
00:20:53,118 --> 00:20:56,855
We were reading
Alan Watts, Marvel comics,

318
00:20:56,921 --> 00:21:01,259
Kerouac and Cybernetics,
all at the same time.

319
00:21:01,593 --> 00:21:04,929
Syd was an extraordinarily
quick absorber.

320
00:21:04,996 --> 00:21:06,831
It was just a series of,
"Look at this.

321
00:21:06,898 --> 00:21:09,033
Listen to this.
What about this?"

322
00:21:09,100 --> 00:21:11,870
And it was just
going on and on and on and on.

323
00:21:11,936 --> 00:21:15,140
All of the arts,
all simultaneously

324
00:21:15,206 --> 00:21:18,443
and then we can just throw
LSD into the mix if you feel like it.

325
00:21:55,213 --> 00:21:57,515
There was a lot of rumors
going around

326
00:21:57,582 --> 00:21:59,017
that acid can damage your brain.

327
00:21:59,083 --> 00:22:00,985
And hippies would say,
"It's just the CIA, man.

328
00:22:01,052 --> 00:22:03,221
They're just saying that
to stop you taking acid,

329
00:22:03,288 --> 00:22:04,789
to stop you eating live kittens."

330
00:22:05,723 --> 00:22:07,892
According to all the accounts
that I've read,

331
00:22:07,959 --> 00:22:10,361
everybody was on acid
in my parents back garden.

332
00:22:11,262 --> 00:22:12,463
This is not true.

333
00:22:12,530 --> 00:22:14,632
I think the only person
there who was on acid...

334
00:22:14,699 --> 00:22:18,203
Maybe two people were,
Paul Charrier and Sunny Syd.

335
00:22:18,503 --> 00:22:20,839
I believe there was a water fight.

336
00:22:20,939 --> 00:22:24,509
The bathroom window
on the top floor banged open.

337
00:22:24,576 --> 00:22:26,778
There were shouts of joy

338
00:22:26,845 --> 00:22:29,214
and we saw water
coming out of the window.

339
00:22:29,280 --> 00:22:33,585
Paul Charrier wielding the rose
of the shower spraying Syd.

340
00:22:33,985 --> 00:22:36,421
They were just mucking about
like six-year-olds.

341
00:22:37,589 --> 00:22:39,724
People were hanging
around in the garden.

342
00:22:39,791 --> 00:22:43,661
Syd went info the kitchen
of the house, found a box of matches,

343
00:22:43,728 --> 00:22:47,832
an orange and a plum,
sat down and looked at them.

344
00:22:48,233 --> 00:22:51,703
Most of the time, what I remember
is Syd sitting quietly

345
00:22:51,769 --> 00:22:54,172
in the back garden
of Dave Gale's house

346
00:22:54,239 --> 00:22:55,940
holding and examining these objects.

347
00:22:56,007 --> 00:22:58,610
At that time, everybody
was dropping acid in London.

348
00:22:58,676 --> 00:23:00,745
But not everybody's
dropping acid like he was.

349
00:23:00,812 --> 00:23:02,380
But he wasn't the only one.

350
00:23:02,547 --> 00:23:06,050
And there was a lot of
discussion about how to take it.

351
00:23:06,117 --> 00:23:11,389
Is there a big difference between
50 milligrams a day or 100 or 2507.

352
00:23:11,456 --> 00:23:14,792
How many times a day?
Once, twice or three times?

353
00:23:14,859 --> 00:23:19,464
Is there a real difference between
250 milligrams and 500 milligrams?

354
00:23:19,530 --> 00:23:21,399
Acid was the drug of the time.

355
00:23:21,466 --> 00:23:24,269
Self-realization,
speaking to God through acid,

356
00:23:24,369 --> 00:23:28,239
is the danger of opening doors

357
00:23:28,306 --> 00:23:30,675
before you've spent
30 years in solitude

358
00:23:30,742 --> 00:23:33,077
and preparing your soul
and your spirit ready

359
00:23:33,144 --> 00:23:35,079
for the big meeting with Big G.

360
00:23:35,146 --> 00:23:37,048
That was one
of the problems with acid.

361
00:23:37,115 --> 00:23:40,285
It whooshed you right through
that 30 years of preparation,

362
00:23:40,351 --> 00:23:41,452
opened the door and bang!

363
00:23:41,519 --> 00:23:44,022
There you are at the centre
of the celestial universe.

364
00:23:44,088 --> 00:23:45,223
Deal with it my son.

365
00:23:45,323 --> 00:23:49,027
And two hours before you were eating
fish and chips down the corner.

366
00:23:57,035 --> 00:24:00,905
He really did feel
that the psychedelic revolution

367
00:24:00,972 --> 00:24:03,708
was flowing right through his body.

368
00:24:03,775 --> 00:24:07,045
He did feel he was almost
possessed against his will.

369
00:24:07,111 --> 00:24:10,648
You know that story, "If you can
remember the '60s you weren't there."

370
00:24:10,715 --> 00:24:14,819
It was the destruction of the rational,
predictable, material world.

371
00:24:16,487 --> 00:24:19,424
So called reality
was only one of many.

372
00:24:32,403 --> 00:24:36,140
1966 is the year
the doors come off the hinges.

373
00:24:36,574 --> 00:24:39,944
Fuelled by experimentation
with mind-expanding drugs

374
00:24:40,011 --> 00:24:42,113
flowing through the counter culture,

375
00:24:42,180 --> 00:24:44,916
the seismic upheaval
of post-war British society

376
00:24:44,983 --> 00:24:49,754
spreads from politics and art,
to fashion and music.

377
00:24:50,421 --> 00:24:52,323
Everybody was taking lots of drugs.

378
00:24:52,390 --> 00:24:56,060
People liked these long things
that you could really get into,

379
00:24:56,127 --> 00:24:57,695
which strung you out

380
00:24:57,762 --> 00:25:01,466
and took you very slowly through
various climactic trajectories.

381
00:25:05,970 --> 00:25:08,506
We all liked Love's album
which was really good.

382
00:25:08,573 --> 00:25:11,509
I was just saying to him, "I really love
that song which goes..."

383
00:25:11,576 --> 00:25:13,511
Da-da-da-da-da da-da-da.

384
00:25:13,644 --> 00:25:16,147
Done in the "Little Red Book",
or something like that.

385
00:25:16,214 --> 00:25:18,349
I can't sing in tune to save my life.

386
00:25:18,416 --> 00:25:21,185
Syd said, "You mean like this?"
And he played it.

387
00:25:21,819 --> 00:25:24,789
That's what became
"Interstellar Overdrive",

388
00:25:24,889 --> 00:25:31,429
It was that riff mangled by me
and then reinterpreted by Syd.

389
00:25:44,842 --> 00:25:48,880
The big thing in those days was
Friday night at the UFO club.

390
00:25:48,946 --> 00:25:52,683
Not only did you have Pink Floyd,
you had The Soft Machine

391
00:25:52,750 --> 00:25:54,852
and the Crazy World of Arthur Brown.

392
00:25:54,919 --> 00:25:56,854
"Fire." Da-da-da, da-da.

393
00:25:57,555 --> 00:26:02,593
Pete would have been supplying
a psychedelic projection apparatus

394
00:26:02,660 --> 00:26:05,296
to the increasingly
gigging Pink Floyd.

395
00:26:05,363 --> 00:26:08,166
Were you as excited by this
as were the audience?

396
00:26:09,167 --> 00:26:11,602
I don't know about the audience,
I never gave them a thought.

397
00:26:11,936 --> 00:26:13,771
I remember being in the audience

398
00:26:13,838 --> 00:26:16,541
thinking this was probably
the centre of the universe.

399
00:26:16,607 --> 00:26:17,842
Yes it was, indeed.

400
00:26:21,646 --> 00:26:25,516
The only time II've ever deliberately
missed a gig with The Who,

401
00:26:25,583 --> 00:26:28,119
was I heard that Pink Floyd
were doing a concert

402
00:26:28,186 --> 00:26:29,654
and didn't tell the band.

403
00:26:29,720 --> 00:26:32,890
So the band went and I went
to the UFO club with Eric

404
00:26:32,957 --> 00:26:35,226
and took some acid
and danced like a hippie.

405
00:26:40,364 --> 00:26:43,434
The band had come out
with this interesting rig,

406
00:26:43,501 --> 00:26:47,438
which was two Binson Echorec units.

407
00:26:48,172 --> 00:26:51,209
They were considered to be
an echo box from the era of...

408
00:26:51,375 --> 00:26:53,778
Dow-dow, dow-dow-dow.

409
00:26:54,178 --> 00:26:56,280
Nobody used them.

410
00:26:56,347 --> 00:26:59,617
Certainly Jimi Hendrix
did not use an echo box

411
00:26:59,684 --> 00:27:04,455
and neither did I, and neither did
Eric Clapton or Jimmy Page.

412
00:27:04,522 --> 00:27:05,590
Nobody used them.

413
00:27:06,057 --> 00:27:08,259
But Syd had not just one but two.

414
00:27:08,326 --> 00:27:12,330
He came out he had a shock of
black hair, black makeup on his eyes

415
00:27:12,396 --> 00:27:15,500
and the clothes he was wearing
were proper psychedelic outfits.

416
00:27:15,566 --> 00:27:17,502
And he was beautiful.

417
00:27:17,835 --> 00:27:20,805
He plays a chord
and it just goes, jang!

418
00:27:20,872 --> 00:27:22,306
And then nothing happens.

419
00:27:22,373 --> 00:27:24,542
So he pushes
some buttons on this machine,

420
00:27:24,609 --> 00:27:25,910
plays another chord, jang!

421
00:27:25,977 --> 00:27:28,980
Nothing happens, he pushes another
couple of buttons on the machine

422
00:27:29,046 --> 00:27:30,114
and suddenly it goes...

423
00:27:30,181 --> 00:27:37,622
Da-na-na, da-da-da
WO-WO-WO-WO...

424
00:27:37,989 --> 00:27:40,525
His analogue echo degrades.

425
00:27:40,591 --> 00:27:42,693
He pushes another button
on the other machine,

426
00:27:42,760 --> 00:27:46,230
and it goes into, what we call
in the music business, syncopated echo.

427
00:27:46,297 --> 00:27:47,297
It goes...

428
00:27:47,331 --> 00:27:50,101
Pow-pow-pow-pow, pa-pa-pa-pa,
pow, pa-pa-pa-pa, pow.

429
00:27:50,168 --> 00:27:52,036
Pa-pa-pa-pa, pow,
pa-pa-pa-pa, pow.

430
00:27:52,136 --> 00:27:56,274
Nick Mason starts to play
and then Roger Waters starts to play

431
00:27:56,340 --> 00:27:58,776
and it just turns info
what can only be described

432
00:27:58,843 --> 00:28:01,045
as spectacular
psychedelic heavy metal.

433
00:28:36,147 --> 00:28:39,383
Something suddenly kicks in.
I don't think it's even gradual.

434
00:28:41,118 --> 00:28:42,753
Yes, you can say it's LSD.

435
00:28:42,820 --> 00:28:45,856
Yes, you can say it's the echoplex,
it's the light shows.

436
00:28:45,923 --> 00:28:48,826
There's all these interesting
environmental things going on

437
00:28:48,893 --> 00:28:51,262
in and around the music,
but really it's Syd.

438
00:28:51,862 --> 00:28:54,298
The way the act's developed
in the last six months

439
00:28:54,365 --> 00:28:57,335
has been influenced by the fact
that we've played in ballrooms.

440
00:28:58,169 --> 00:29:00,471
I think concerts have given us
a chance o realise

441
00:29:00,538 --> 00:29:05,910
that the music we play isn't
directed at dancing necessarily

442
00:29:05,977 --> 00:29:07,178
like normal pop groups.

443
00:29:27,465 --> 00:29:32,903
Syd defined the whole
of that moment in the '60s.

444
00:29:33,504 --> 00:29:37,975
The colour, the vivacity of it,
the psychedelic freedom.

445
00:29:39,210 --> 00:29:42,613
Without Syd, something
might have happened eventually.

446
00:29:42,713 --> 00:29:45,316
You couldn't over emphasize
his importance

447
00:29:45,383 --> 00:29:48,919
because he was the creative genius.

448
00:30:08,172 --> 00:30:10,007
I remember sitting with him

449
00:30:10,074 --> 00:30:11,876
while he was looking
info the stars book

450
00:30:11,942 --> 00:30:15,846
and getting "Astronomy Domine" thing,
which I had to read in the studio,

451
00:30:15,913 --> 00:30:18,382
which he just took out
of a book, and I love that.

452
00:30:19,016 --> 00:30:22,420
They were so totally
and unbelievably original.

453
00:30:22,486 --> 00:30:25,489
You could say that the various
technologies were available,

454
00:30:25,556 --> 00:30:27,858
like Hammond organs
and this and that and the other,

455
00:30:27,925 --> 00:30:31,996
which gave them the opportunity
of mixing popular music

456
00:30:32,063 --> 00:30:36,267
with metaphysical ideas
and science fiction ideas.

457
00:30:37,001 --> 00:30:40,905
The Floyd were never doing
"19th Nervous Breakdown"

458
00:30:40,971 --> 00:30:43,441
or "I Can't Get No Satisfaction".

459
00:30:52,049 --> 00:30:54,752
Why has it all got
to be so terribly loud?

460
00:30:54,819 --> 00:30:57,555
For me, frankly it's too loud.
I just can't bear it.

461
00:30:57,621 --> 00:31:01,058
I happen to have grown up in the string
quartet which is a bit softer.

462
00:31:01,125 --> 00:31:04,628
If one gets immune
to this kind of sound,

463
00:31:04,695 --> 00:31:08,432
one may find it difficult to appreciate
softer types of sound.

464
00:31:08,499 --> 00:31:09,600
Syd, yes, no?

465
00:31:10,167 --> 00:31:12,403
- I don't think that's so.
- No?

466
00:31:12,470 --> 00:31:15,840
Everybody listens, we don't need it
very loud to be able to hear it.

467
00:31:15,906 --> 00:31:17,641
And with some of it
is very quiet in fact.

468
00:31:17,708 --> 00:31:21,078
Do you in your turn feel aggressive
towards your audiences?

469
00:31:21,145 --> 00:31:22,246
No, not at all.

470
00:31:22,313 --> 00:31:24,548
In spite of all the loudness?

471
00:31:24,615 --> 00:31:27,318
- No, not at all.
- Sorry?

472
00:31:27,385 --> 00:31:31,922
There's not many young people
who dislike it.

473
00:31:31,989 --> 00:31:35,493
- There's no shock treatment intended.
- No, certainly not.

474
00:31:53,878 --> 00:31:56,046
When Syd Barrett
started writing for Pink Floyd,

475
00:31:56,113 --> 00:31:58,082
he seemed to give it
this very English voice,

476
00:31:58,149 --> 00:31:59,650
which was quite unusual at the time.

477
00:31:59,717 --> 00:32:01,452
The Kinks were doing that,
I guess, as well.

478
00:32:07,558 --> 00:32:11,495
He had a big attachment
to more intellectual realms,

479
00:32:11,562 --> 00:32:14,732
to the whole Hilaire Belloc thing
and to Lewis Carroll.

480
00:32:15,499 --> 00:32:17,935
He has a strange bridge

481
00:32:18,002 --> 00:32:23,307
between Edwardian musical,
Vaudeville,

482
00:32:23,374 --> 00:32:26,877
and his own particular
brand of English psychedelia.

483
00:32:27,178 --> 00:32:29,280
When you heard that music,
it was in colour.

484
00:32:29,346 --> 00:32:31,315
Everything else
was in black and white.

485
00:32:33,417 --> 00:32:34,885
He's the Lake Poets.

486
00:32:34,952 --> 00:32:38,122
He's an English romantic
of the 19th century.

487
00:32:38,189 --> 00:32:40,224
He was not London 1966.

488
00:32:40,291 --> 00:32:41,826
But he was London 1966.

489
00:32:41,892 --> 00:32:44,595
He happened to be,
but that was a cloak he wore.

490
00:32:51,135 --> 00:32:53,504
In his lyrics, there's a lot
of animal references.

491
00:32:53,571 --> 00:32:55,940
There's a mouse called Gerald,
there's the elephant,

492
00:32:56,006 --> 00:32:58,809
there's fairies, there's scarecrows,
there's cats.

493
00:32:58,876 --> 00:33:01,412
It's a world that I was
always fascinated with.

494
00:33:03,047 --> 00:33:05,649
In his songs
we have a painterly vision.

495
00:33:05,716 --> 00:33:08,385
He evokes very strongly
references to sun,

496
00:33:08,452 --> 00:33:12,756
to shining, to sea,
to sparkles, to water.

497
00:33:12,823 --> 00:33:14,658
All these things
run through his songs

498
00:33:14,725 --> 00:33:16,594
like a perpetual continuous thread.

499
00:33:16,660 --> 00:33:18,128
Syd is a nature poet.

500
00:33:19,697 --> 00:33:21,665
I heard at one point
that his whole diet

501
00:33:21,732 --> 00:33:23,801
consisted of hash and poetry.

502
00:33:23,868 --> 00:33:28,205
I think I tried to do that
at some point in my 20s.

503
00:33:30,975 --> 00:33:34,778
He's the original punk rock icon
in what punk rock meant to me,

504
00:33:34,845 --> 00:33:39,149
which was sort of breaking all
the rules and having fun with it

505
00:33:39,216 --> 00:33:41,118
and the spirit of play.

506
00:33:47,291 --> 00:33:51,262
To look good, to be able to play guitar,
to invent good melodies,

507
00:33:51,328 --> 00:33:56,901
and also to produce lyrics
that made you think.

508
00:33:56,967 --> 00:34:00,771
It's a very powerful set of fools
to have at your disposal.

509
00:34:01,639 --> 00:34:04,975
Syd had all this
churning around in his Mina,

510
00:34:05,042 --> 00:34:07,077
like the rest of us did,

511
00:34:07,144 --> 00:34:12,016
but he makes connections that
are so unexpected and strange

512
00:34:12,082 --> 00:34:16,854
that no one else in the world
could have made those connections.

513
00:34:17,655 --> 00:34:19,623
Even early songs
like "Bike" for instance.

514
00:34:19,823 --> 00:34:21,125
He'd written about a bike,

515
00:34:21,191 --> 00:34:24,261
which of course is not a subject
that most lyricists write about.

516
00:34:24,328 --> 00:34:28,399
They write about love
or death or illness or loss.

517
00:34:29,867 --> 00:34:31,902
"I've got a bike,
you can ride it if you like."

518
00:34:31,969 --> 00:34:34,614
"It's got a basket, a bell, a ring
and things that make it look good."

519
00:34:34,638 --> 00:34:36,774
"I'd give it to you if I could,
but I borrowed it."

520
00:34:37,608 --> 00:34:39,043
Where does this come from?

521
00:34:39,143 --> 00:34:40,611
Every verse is like that I think.

522
00:34:55,426 --> 00:34:57,061
I suppose things like "Bike"

523
00:34:57,127 --> 00:34:59,163
was more of a structured
thing happening,

524
00:34:59,229 --> 00:35:01,131
but sonically towards the end,

525
00:35:01,198 --> 00:35:03,834
I've never really heard
anything like that.

526
00:35:05,269 --> 00:35:08,405
A sort of over saturation
of sounds, clocks,

527
00:35:08,472 --> 00:35:13,277
and then this
kind of repetitive sound

528
00:35:13,344 --> 00:35:16,413
that sounded like a goose
attacking you.

529
00:35:16,480 --> 00:35:18,816
- Like a what?
- Like a goose attacking.

530
00:35:18,882 --> 00:35:20,217
Going into attack mode.

531
00:35:20,951 --> 00:35:21,986
Quite disturbing.

532
00:35:26,490 --> 00:35:28,492
The way LSD works, we now know,

533
00:35:28,559 --> 00:35:30,561
is it stimulates
receptors in the brain

534
00:35:30,628 --> 00:35:33,097
called serotonin receptors.

535
00:35:33,163 --> 00:35:35,566
But a particular subtype
of serotonin receptor

536
00:35:35,633 --> 00:35:39,036
called the 5-HT
or serotonin 2A receptor.

537
00:35:41,472 --> 00:35:44,541
Psychedelic drugs like LSD
all work on those receptors

538
00:35:44,608 --> 00:35:48,112
and what they do is
to interrupt the traditional way

539
00:35:48,178 --> 00:35:49,713
in which the brain is organized.

540
00:35:50,881 --> 00:35:54,618
Everything we do is orchestrated
in a very reflexive habitual way.

541
00:35:54,685 --> 00:35:57,554
LSD, by turning on
those receptors disrupts that.

542
00:35:59,156 --> 00:36:01,825
What then happens is that
your brain rather than doing

543
00:36:01,892 --> 00:36:05,295
what it's been told to do by habit,
Starts to do its own thing.

544
00:36:08,499 --> 00:36:12,202
If you have regular conversations
with God, or the angels

545
00:36:12,269 --> 00:36:14,171
and they're saying
pleasant things to you,

546
00:36:14,238 --> 00:36:17,041
telling you how great you are,
you don't want to lose that.

547
00:36:17,908 --> 00:36:20,244
On the other hand,
if you're tormented by devils

548
00:36:20,310 --> 00:36:22,513
or other persecutors,

549
00:36:22,579 --> 00:36:26,350
you may nevertheless feel
that you're important enough

550
00:36:26,417 --> 00:36:28,552
for the devil to take
an interest in you.

551
00:36:28,619 --> 00:36:31,188
And that might give you enough kudos

552
00:36:31,255 --> 00:36:35,826
to carry on with this situation
without telling other people.

553
00:36:38,429 --> 00:36:42,599
There's a lot of interest in balance
between right brain and left brain.

554
00:36:42,666 --> 00:36:44,034
In very simplistic terms,

555
00:36:44,101 --> 00:36:47,938
the right brain is
the more creative, whole picture side.

556
00:36:48,005 --> 00:36:51,175
The left brain is
the more focused, analytical side.

557
00:36:51,241 --> 00:36:54,678
There's a little saying that
the problems in psychology are

558
00:36:54,745 --> 00:36:58,482
when the right brain's got nothing left
and the left brain's got nothing right.

559
00:36:58,549 --> 00:37:02,419
And there is a lot
of interesting discussion

560
00:37:02,486 --> 00:37:05,222
about the link between
creativity and mental illness.

561
00:37:05,756 --> 00:37:07,658
Carl Jung, the psychologist,

562
00:37:07,725 --> 00:37:09,893
had this great insight
where he talked about,

563
00:37:09,960 --> 00:37:13,363
from his studies,
of breakdown, mental illness,

564
00:37:13,430 --> 00:37:15,766
he called it a "failed initiation".

565
00:37:15,833 --> 00:37:17,000
What he meant by that,

566
00:37:17,067 --> 00:37:19,336
which I think was a really
interesting thing to say,

567
00:37:19,403 --> 00:37:23,040
was that often a breakdown
is an attempt at a breakthrough.

568
00:37:23,107 --> 00:37:25,709
It's an attempt to come into
a new form of consciousness.

569
00:37:25,776 --> 00:37:29,146
And it's either premature
or in some way it falters.

570
00:37:34,585 --> 00:37:38,288
I remember one particular interlude
where We Went to see the Master,

571
00:37:38,355 --> 00:37:40,691
that's Charan Singh Ji.

572
00:37:40,758 --> 00:37:43,660
Which was a guru that we were
all thinking of following

573
00:37:43,727 --> 00:37:46,697
in the heady days of psychedelia.

574
00:37:46,797 --> 00:37:51,201
A few people there and then said
they wanted to become 'initiated'.

575
00:37:51,268 --> 00:37:52,736
I don't like the word but anyway.

576
00:37:52,836 --> 00:37:54,571
Syd had asked for initiation

577
00:37:54,638 --> 00:37:57,274
and the Master
had said it's too early.

578
00:37:58,375 --> 00:38:00,177
Did you know why he said that?

579
00:38:00,244 --> 00:38:03,647
Well, there's quite of a lot
of commitment in Sant Mat,

580
00:38:03,714 --> 00:38:06,016
which is vegetarianism,

581
00:38:06,083 --> 00:38:08,685
and abstaining
from mind altering substances.

582
00:38:09,286 --> 00:38:12,322
Is it possible
that the rejection affected Syd?

583
00:38:12,389 --> 00:38:14,491
Rejection affects us all.

584
00:38:15,425 --> 00:38:17,361
I think Charan Singh...

585
00:38:17,427 --> 00:38:19,329
I don't know how deep
his insights were,

586
00:38:19,396 --> 00:38:20,397
I think he had a lot,

587
00:38:20,464 --> 00:38:22,966
but maybe he could see
what was going to happen to Syd.

588
00:38:25,035 --> 00:38:27,437
When you broke up,
did you do it or did he do it?

589
00:38:27,504 --> 00:38:28,672
It was me, I'm afraid.

590
00:38:28,739 --> 00:38:31,742
He was a great lover, a good
boyfriend and you got rid of him?

591
00:38:31,809 --> 00:38:32,609
Yeah.

592
00:38:32,676 --> 00:38:34,444
Explain this to me, Jennifer Spires.

593
00:38:34,511 --> 00:38:37,447
In the early days, he was lovely
cause he was very calm,

594
00:38:37,514 --> 00:38:38,515
he was an artist.

595
00:38:38,582 --> 00:38:40,684
I got on the train
at Cambridge at one end

596
00:38:40,751 --> 00:38:42,986
and Syd got on the train
at the other end.

597
00:38:44,655 --> 00:38:47,324
That's how we started living
at number 2 Earlham street.

598
00:38:48,292 --> 00:38:53,030
The whole clan went
from there to 101 Cromwell Road.

599
00:38:53,764 --> 00:38:55,966
101 Cromwell Road!

600
00:38:56,033 --> 00:38:58,068
A den of iniquity if ever there was.

601
00:38:58,135 --> 00:38:59,336
Extraordinary place.

602
00:38:59,403 --> 00:39:02,239
They'd just puff away
at these enormous joints

603
00:39:02,306 --> 00:39:04,007
and get completely
out of their heads.

604
00:39:04,074 --> 00:39:06,410
I feel woozy even thinking about it.

605
00:39:07,077 --> 00:39:10,180
You see Syd, and the Pink Floyd
were really beginning then

606
00:39:10,247 --> 00:39:12,082
and things were taking off.

607
00:39:12,149 --> 00:39:14,885
I think then, he was just
losing the plot slightly.

608
00:39:15,385 --> 00:39:19,089
I remember we had a cat called Rover.
Well, that was Syd, wasn't it?

609
00:39:28,232 --> 00:39:30,567
The Pink Floyd sound
was a perfect match

610
00:39:30,634 --> 00:39:34,204
for the spontaneous underground
and its multimedia events.

611
00:39:35,038 --> 00:39:37,541
With Barrett's
song writing output flourishing,

612
00:39:37,608 --> 00:39:39,543
the Pink Floyd were on their way.

613
00:40:00,364 --> 00:40:03,066
Gigging a punishing
four or five nights a week,

614
00:40:03,133 --> 00:40:05,836
the group is approached
by Peter Jenner and Andrew King,

615
00:40:05,903 --> 00:40:08,405
who promising to buy the band
some new equip men,

616
00:40:08,472 --> 00:40:09,573
become their managers.

617
00:40:10,507 --> 00:40:13,377
King and Jenner scheme o get
the band a record contract

618
00:40:13,443 --> 00:40:17,014
by recording a few demo tracks
with American producer Joe Boyd,

619
00:40:17,080 --> 00:40:21,018
who also runs the legendary UFO club
with John 'Hoppy' Hopkins.

620
00:40:22,152 --> 00:40:27,457
The plan works and Pink Floyd sign
to EMI Records in February 1967.

621
00:40:28,792 --> 00:40:31,929
The very next day they begin
recording for their debut album,

622
00:40:31,995 --> 00:40:35,699
"The Piper at the Gales of Dawn"
with Norman Smith at Abbey Road.

623
00:40:36,466 --> 00:40:37,734
In the studio next door,

624
00:40:37,801 --> 00:40:41,038
The Beatles are making
their landmark LP "Sergeant Pepper".

625
00:40:41,772 --> 00:40:44,308
There were a few casual songs
he'd written early.

626
00:40:44,374 --> 00:40:46,777
But the one
which I'd call the first real,

627
00:40:46,877 --> 00:40:50,547
showing 'where we were going song'
was "Arnold Layne".

628
00:40:51,949 --> 00:40:55,152
"Arnold Layne" is released as
a single on the 10th of March.

629
00:41:10,267 --> 00:41:12,336
Syd worked very hard
at "Arnold Layne".

630
00:41:12,402 --> 00:41:15,072
He told me it had taken him
a couple of months

631
00:41:15,138 --> 00:41:17,607
to write the lyric, to get it
just the way he wanted it.

632
00:41:17,674 --> 00:41:19,743
- Really? It wasn't spontaneous?
- No.

633
00:41:21,712 --> 00:41:24,982
This idea that Syd
rolled out of bed at lunchtime,

634
00:41:25,048 --> 00:41:27,651
took some acid and wrote
a couple of genius songs

635
00:41:27,718 --> 00:41:30,287
ls just absolute crap.

636
00:41:32,389 --> 00:41:35,425
There's no such thing
as easy art, Storm, is there?

637
00:41:36,226 --> 00:41:37,694
Otherwise we'd all be doing it.

638
00:41:45,235 --> 00:41:48,205
Despite being banned
by Radio London for obscenity,

639
00:41:48,271 --> 00:41:51,208
"Arnold Layne" reaches
number 20 in the singles chart

640
00:41:51,274 --> 00:41:53,176
with the album
"Piper at the Gates of Dawn"”

641
00:41:53,243 --> 00:41:54,344
reaching number six.

642
00:41:55,145 --> 00:41:57,180
He was spectacular at the beginning.

643
00:41:57,247 --> 00:41:59,883
From that Christmas,
through to the summer

644
00:41:59,950 --> 00:42:01,518
when they released "Arnold Lao ye"

645
00:42:01,618 --> 00:42:05,022
and then "The Piper",
Syd, and of course Hendrix,

646
00:42:05,088 --> 00:42:07,858
were kind of the two
big psychedelic stars.

647
00:42:18,068 --> 00:42:23,006
In May 1967, Pink Floyd announce
a multimedia psychedelic concert.

648
00:42:23,073 --> 00:42:25,509
"Games For May",
at the Queen Elizabeth Hall.

649
00:42:25,575 --> 00:42:27,677
Barrett has written
a new song for the event,

650
00:42:27,744 --> 00:42:29,980
whose title also "Games for May",

651
00:42:30,047 --> 00:42:33,817
changes to become
the era defining "See Emily Play".

652
00:42:37,854 --> 00:42:39,756
He started innovating his music

653
00:42:39,823 --> 00:42:42,292
with the Zippo lighter
on his Stratocaster

654
00:42:42,359 --> 00:42:43,493
sliding it up and down.

655
00:42:43,560 --> 00:42:45,962
In gigs, suddenly
he was using this Zippo lighter

656
00:42:46,029 --> 00:42:48,865
to create these
incredibly eerie sounds.

657
00:43:14,391 --> 00:43:17,961
"See Emily Play" ” becomes
the second Pink Floyd hit single,

658
00:43:18,028 --> 00:43:20,130
earning the group
several crucial appearances

659
00:43:20,197 --> 00:43:24,034
on the prime time BBC music show
Top of the Pops in July.

660
00:44:02,139 --> 00:44:05,275
When "See Emily Play" went to
No. 5 or got into the top ten...

661
00:44:05,342 --> 00:44:06,543
I remember it well.

662
00:44:06,610 --> 00:44:08,278
I was really excited

663
00:44:08,345 --> 00:44:10,313
and I'm wearing
all these stupid clothes.

664
00:44:10,380 --> 00:44:12,649
Yeah, but it was exciting,
for God's sake.

665
00:44:12,716 --> 00:44:14,117
It was very exciting

666
00:44:14,184 --> 00:44:18,155
but I remember Syd
in the dressing room

667
00:44:18,221 --> 00:44:19,723
sitting there
and he looked a bit glum

668
00:44:19,789 --> 00:44:21,224
and I went, "Come on, what's up?"

669
00:44:21,291 --> 00:44:22,559
He looked at me and he said,

670
00:44:22,626 --> 00:44:24,728
"John Lennon
doesn't have to do this."

671
00:44:24,861 --> 00:44:27,531
Even when things were going
as well as they could,

672
00:44:27,597 --> 00:44:29,266
the band actually was stressful.

673
00:44:29,332 --> 00:44:32,469
I remember we were in Trafalgar Square,
we'd been in Green Park,

674
00:44:32,536 --> 00:44:36,273
and then it was time
to go to Top of the Pops.

675
00:44:36,339 --> 00:44:39,109
Syd said, "I don't really fancy it."”

676
00:44:39,176 --> 00:44:42,045
I said, "Well, yeah,
but it's a bit of a big deal."

677
00:44:42,312 --> 00:44:43,780
There was the famous three weeks

678
00:44:43,847 --> 00:44:45,949
that we did "See Emily Play"
on Top of the Pops.

679
00:44:46,283 --> 00:44:48,818
The first week was fine,
Syd looks really good.

680
00:44:48,885 --> 00:44:51,988
He's sitting cross legged
on a great big Indian cushion.

681
00:44:52,489 --> 00:44:57,894
The second week, he arrived late,
looking very shambolic indeed.

682
00:44:58,962 --> 00:45:01,498
Third week,
we couldn't find him anywhere.

683
00:45:02,065 --> 00:45:06,236
I opened the door and Syd was there
looking totally freaked out.

684
00:45:06,303 --> 00:45:09,039
His feet were bare and he said,
"Hi, can I come in?"

685
00:45:09,139 --> 00:45:10,774
I said, "Of course you can come in."

686
00:45:10,840 --> 00:45:13,043
And he didn't say anything.

687
00:45:13,143 --> 00:45:15,111
Then there was a bang on the door

688
00:45:15,178 --> 00:45:18,181
and somebody was like,
"Is Syd in there?"

689
00:45:18,748 --> 00:45:23,420
Whoever this person was, came in
and just literally grabbed him

690
00:45:23,486 --> 00:45:24,721
and dragged him out.

691
00:45:38,835 --> 00:45:42,372
I think Syd Barrett was
interested in this total freedom

692
00:45:42,439 --> 00:45:46,910
almost like a jazz, really.

693
00:45:47,010 --> 00:45:48,678
A kind of 'divertimenti'.

694
00:45:50,180 --> 00:45:53,950
I suppose trying to structure
or rein in this kind of energy

695
00:45:54,484 --> 00:45:56,486
might have been
fairly difficult for him.

696
00:46:01,091 --> 00:46:03,560
There'd been
a lot of weird stuff on stage

697
00:46:03,627 --> 00:46:05,128
with Syd detuning guitars

698
00:46:05,195 --> 00:46:10,133
and turning it
info a mind-numbing sound.

699
00:46:11,201 --> 00:46:14,804
We were committed
to being a pop group

700
00:46:14,871 --> 00:46:17,874
and Syd was absolutely
on the way to being,

701
00:46:17,941 --> 00:46:20,143
"No, I don't actually
want to be a pop star."

702
00:46:31,288 --> 00:46:33,890
The relentless gigging
and demands of stardom

703
00:46:33,957 --> 00:46:36,059
are taking their toll
on Barrett's psyche.

704
00:46:47,537 --> 00:46:53,343
I was living in France in '67,
and I came back to England.

705
00:46:53,443 --> 00:46:55,712
I Went to see them recording

706
00:46:55,779 --> 00:46:58,648
and something
had changed quite radically.

707
00:46:58,715 --> 00:47:01,184
He had lost his spark and his bounce

708
00:47:01,251 --> 00:47:06,122
and that was a very odd
and uncomfortable moment.

709
00:47:06,189 --> 00:47:08,792
The three songs I think
that are really important,

710
00:47:08,858 --> 00:47:11,861
'Jugband Blues',
"Scream Thy Last Scream"

711
00:47:11,928 --> 00:47:13,096
and "Vegetable Man".

712
00:47:13,196 --> 00:47:16,066
"Vegetable Man",
he wrote it in my room.

713
00:47:16,132 --> 00:47:19,636
He sat in a corner and he just
wrote those lyrics down.

714
00:47:22,839 --> 00:47:24,341
It was scary.

715
00:47:24,407 --> 00:47:27,444
You had this skinny guy
who's just crying his heart out,

716
00:47:27,510 --> 00:47:30,013
"That's why I am vegetable man."

717
00:47:30,080 --> 00:47:31,281
You go, "Oh God."

718
00:47:32,816 --> 00:47:34,417
Is that what you really think?

719
00:47:34,484 --> 00:47:36,319
"Is that how you feel
about yourself now?"

720
00:47:36,486 --> 00:47:39,089
It was all that classic
music business bollocks.

721
00:47:39,155 --> 00:47:41,091
"Come on Syd,
where's the next single?"

722
00:47:41,157 --> 00:47:43,560
He was a sensitive chap,
he wasn't hard boiled.

723
00:47:43,993 --> 00:47:45,695
He didn't like all that pressure.

724
00:47:46,730 --> 00:47:48,798
And he had a hell
of a lot of pressure.

725
00:48:10,687 --> 00:48:13,723
It's like if you look
at Van Gogh's later pictures,

726
00:48:13,790 --> 00:48:15,091
you get the same thing.

727
00:48:15,158 --> 00:48:19,396
You can see the manifestation
of the turmoil in his brain

728
00:48:19,462 --> 00:48:21,164
and all those things.

729
00:48:21,231 --> 00:48:24,534
I think, in the same way
you can see the confusion

730
00:48:24,601 --> 00:48:27,203
and everything within Syd's brain.

731
00:48:28,405 --> 00:48:31,207
Both "Vegetable Man"
and "Scream Thy Last Scream”

732
00:48:31,274 --> 00:48:34,077
are deemed uncommercial
by the record company.

733
00:48:34,144 --> 00:48:37,447
And "Jugband Blues" is held over
for the next Pink Floyd album.

734
00:48:37,881 --> 00:48:40,216
"Apples and Oranges",
a song written by Syd

735
00:48:40,283 --> 00:48:42,752
about his girlfriend
Lindsay Korner shopping,

736
00:48:42,819 --> 00:48:45,722
is finally chosen by EM/
as Pink Floyd's third single.

737
00:48:46,523 --> 00:48:49,292
It is released
in November and is a flop.

738
00:48:52,128 --> 00:48:55,031
Did you ever see him perform
with Pink Floyd?

739
00:48:55,098 --> 00:48:56,366
Yeah, I did once.

740
00:48:56,433 --> 00:49:00,670
I went to the Roundhouse
but it wasn't any fun.

741
00:49:00,737 --> 00:49:01,738
It wasn't.

742
00:49:01,805 --> 00:49:03,973
He didn't look
as if he was enjoying it

743
00:49:04,040 --> 00:49:06,309
and so it wasn't
anything I did again.

744
00:49:07,343 --> 00:49:09,913
Do you agree in any way
about the family's view

745
00:49:09,979 --> 00:49:13,183
which is they blame
rock and roll for Syd's decline?

746
00:49:13,249 --> 00:49:15,418
I think that's not
an unreasonable position.

747
00:49:16,319 --> 00:49:19,222
I don't think he would
have liked not to have done it.

748
00:49:19,289 --> 00:49:21,558
He got into it,
he was very happy doing it.

749
00:49:21,624 --> 00:49:22,625
It was good fun.

750
00:49:22,725 --> 00:49:25,995
It was sad to see him go downhill.
You could see by his eyes.

751
00:49:26,696 --> 00:49:30,700
He would be looking sort of...

752
00:49:30,767 --> 00:49:33,636
He wouldn't look at you,
he'd be looking into space.

753
00:49:42,145 --> 00:49:45,982
With hopes of breaking America
and despite concerns about Syd,

754
00:49:46,816 --> 00:49:48,918
the band set off
for a mini tour of the US.

755
00:50:01,297 --> 00:50:04,334
You're there with Syd who was
Just an artist who wrote songs

756
00:50:04,400 --> 00:50:07,003
and was having a good time
and liked listening to music,

757
00:50:07,070 --> 00:50:10,173
playing in a band
and, "Wow, isn't this groovy?"

758
00:50:10,273 --> 00:50:14,377
Able to go and buy a new shirt,
have your hair frizzed

759
00:50:14,444 --> 00:50:16,379
and do all these things
that you could do.

760
00:50:16,446 --> 00:50:19,749
- Buy some new boots.
- Yeah, all that stuff.

761
00:50:19,816 --> 00:50:22,886
Gosh, got some money
coming and, "Oh wow."

762
00:50:23,586 --> 00:50:26,556
Then, people started
asking him the meaning of life.

763
00:50:27,557 --> 00:50:30,927
He was as it were
the pinup boy of the revolution.

764
00:50:32,295 --> 00:50:34,464
That was probably very strange
going to America

765
00:50:34,531 --> 00:50:36,766
cause, "Wow, I'm in America now."

766
00:50:36,833 --> 00:50:38,401
I'm doing the Fillmore.

767
00:50:38,468 --> 00:50:40,937
Wow! And these guys give me
this nice acid.

768
00:50:41,004 --> 00:50:44,707
"Wahey! Oh, wow." You know.

769
00:50:51,180 --> 00:50:53,483
Are you telling me
you and Syd got picked up

770
00:50:53,550 --> 00:50:55,251
by a couple of Californian blondes?

771
00:50:55,318 --> 00:50:58,154
Exactly that,
with those straight eyebrows.

772
00:50:58,221 --> 00:51:00,223
Yes, everybody would dream
about this story.

773
00:51:00,290 --> 00:51:02,592
- And this happened to you.
- It happened to Syd and I.

774
00:51:02,659 --> 00:51:04,727
But we were young kids from England

775
00:51:04,794 --> 00:51:07,664
where this sort of thing
was fucking...

776
00:51:09,332 --> 00:51:11,501
There was lots of dope
and lots of everything

777
00:51:11,568 --> 00:51:13,236
and Syd was very happy.

778
00:51:14,404 --> 00:51:15,605
Until we returned.

779
00:51:15,672 --> 00:51:19,609
I think, then, it would be
the gig in Los Angeles

780
00:51:19,676 --> 00:51:21,911
which was probably
the worst gig of all.

781
00:51:21,978 --> 00:51:23,646
These gentlemen you're about to meet

782
00:51:23,713 --> 00:51:25,915
are on their first visit
to the United States.

783
00:51:25,982 --> 00:51:28,985
They've only been here less
than a week as a matter of fact.

784
00:51:29,052 --> 00:51:31,821
Would you greet them warmly please,
The Pink Floyd!

785
00:51:35,058 --> 00:51:37,560
- Rick lip-synched it.
- Because?

786
00:51:37,627 --> 00:51:41,564
Because Syd wouldn't sing,
couldn't sing, wouldn't sing.

787
00:51:41,631 --> 00:51:42,865
He just stood there.

788
00:51:44,367 --> 00:51:45,868
That was a tricky tour.

789
00:51:46,169 --> 00:51:47,770
- Syd, did you write this?
- Yeah.

790
00:51:47,837 --> 00:51:50,149
I noticed on the album you wrote
most of the songs, is that true?

791
00:51:50,173 --> 00:51:51,040
Yeah, that's right.

792
00:51:51,107 --> 00:51:52,442
We did a TV show in Los Angeles,

793
00:51:52,508 --> 00:51:54,744
he just walked out of the studio
and disappeared.

794
00:51:54,811 --> 00:51:55,979
- For a reason?
- No.

795
00:51:56,045 --> 00:51:58,381
Let me wish you, gentlemen,
all very good luck.

796
00:51:58,448 --> 00:51:59,892
I hope you enjoy your stay,
get some sleep

797
00:51:59,916 --> 00:52:02,752
and get something other than
cheeseburgers during your stay.

798
00:52:02,819 --> 00:52:04,520
Thank you very much.
Nick, nice to see you.

799
00:52:04,587 --> 00:52:08,725
When Syd became unreliable,
! Think we really almost hated him,

800
00:52:08,825 --> 00:52:10,693
because we were so dependent on him.

801
00:52:12,195 --> 00:52:16,265
By the time Andrew came back from
America, it was definitely a problem.

802
00:52:16,766 --> 00:52:20,169
One of the more
contentious rumors is the idea

803
00:52:20,236 --> 00:52:23,573
that he might have been given acid
every morning in his coffee.

804
00:52:23,640 --> 00:52:24,941
Did Rick say something?

805
00:52:25,942 --> 00:52:31,981
He reckoned that Syd's downfall
came about by his hangers-on.

806
00:52:32,382 --> 00:52:35,018
Then, people who are writing
books or doing interviews,

807
00:52:35,084 --> 00:52:38,054
they think, "Who were
his friends at that time?"

808
00:52:38,121 --> 00:52:39,722
"So and so."”

809
00:52:39,789 --> 00:52:42,258
- Jock and Sue in this case?
- Yeah.

810
00:52:42,325 --> 00:52:46,229
Apparently we're living in Richmond,
we used to get up every morning,

811
00:52:46,295 --> 00:52:50,466
we all sit around the breakfast table,
we would then spike Syd.

812
00:52:50,533 --> 00:52:53,503
It's absolute fucking bollocks.

813
00:52:54,003 --> 00:52:55,938
Maybe that's also
a quality of rumors.

814
00:52:56,005 --> 00:52:58,775
It's quite good
if your hero is flawed

815
00:52:58,841 --> 00:53:01,477
because of somebody else's
rather than their own.

816
00:53:01,544 --> 00:53:02,812
Better for him to be spiked

817
00:53:02,879 --> 00:53:06,349
than to have him gone to them and said,
"Oh, can I have some acid now?"

818
00:53:42,852 --> 00:53:45,521
In a way, it would have been
much easier for all of us

819
00:53:45,588 --> 00:53:47,690
if Syd had said,
"I'm really fucked up.

820
00:53:47,757 --> 00:53:51,127
I'm really sorry, I can't cope
any more. Can you help me?"

821
00:53:51,194 --> 00:53:55,865
So we were always trying to help him
without him giving any indication

822
00:53:55,932 --> 00:53:58,401
that he had any desire
or need for help.

823
00:53:59,502 --> 00:54:01,671
I remember taking Syd
to Ronnie Laing's

824
00:54:01,738 --> 00:54:03,940
and him refusing
to get out of the car.

825
00:54:04,006 --> 00:54:05,708
Not that I'm convinced Ronnie Laing

826
00:54:05,775 --> 00:54:08,077
would have been able
to do a huge amount for him.

827
00:54:09,011 --> 00:54:12,248
As psychiatrists and psychotherapists

828
00:54:12,315 --> 00:54:16,786
who profess to be able

829
00:54:16,853 --> 00:54:21,824
to be of some service to people

830
00:54:21,891 --> 00:54:24,026
in distressed states of mind,

831
00:54:25,862 --> 00:54:28,531
we cannot expect to be of any help

832
00:54:28,598 --> 00:54:31,768
beyond pulling people
back to this side.

833
00:54:31,834 --> 00:54:37,440
Into this socially reinforced,

834
00:54:37,540 --> 00:54:42,478
totalitarian,
egalitarian, quantitative,

835
00:54:42,578 --> 00:54:48,251
dequantified,
de-experientialized dead world.

836
00:54:48,885 --> 00:54:50,887
Where there's no fun or joy

837
00:54:50,953 --> 00:54:55,191
or any genuine
celebration of anything

838
00:54:55,258 --> 00:55:00,096
because all that is life
and science is studying death.

839
00:55:31,360 --> 00:55:35,097
You could argue that some forms
of so-called madness

840
00:55:35,164 --> 00:55:38,601
are strong moves to retain freedom.

841
00:55:39,335 --> 00:55:42,638
You could also argue
at a certain level,

842
00:55:42,705 --> 00:55:48,678
he could see that the success of
the Floyd was reducing his freedom.

843
00:55:48,744 --> 00:55:52,081
He was playing us
this song in a rehearsal

844
00:55:52,148 --> 00:55:55,384
and the song was called
"Have you got it yet?".

845
00:55:55,451 --> 00:56:01,958
And basically, the song would alter
so that the chorus was, "No, no, no."

846
00:56:02,024 --> 00:56:05,595
Syd would alter the rhythmic pattern

847
00:56:05,661 --> 00:56:10,099
or do whatever was necessary to ensure
that no, they hadn't got it yet.

848
00:56:10,166 --> 00:56:11,767
- Or couldn't.
- Or couldn't get it.

849
00:56:11,834 --> 00:56:13,369
Or might never have got it.

850
00:56:15,471 --> 00:56:18,107
Stories are legion
about Syd's alarming behaviour

851
00:56:18,174 --> 00:56:19,876
on stage during this period.

852
00:56:19,942 --> 00:56:21,811
Playing one note for an entire show,

853
00:56:21,878 --> 00:56:25,147
or slowly detuning his strings
until they fell limp on the guitar.

854
00:56:25,882 --> 00:56:27,617
Live bootleg recordings however,

855
00:56:27,683 --> 00:56:29,752
capture several
inspired performances.

856
00:56:30,286 --> 00:56:33,055
Nevertheless, on a small
package tour with Jimi Hendrix,

857
00:56:33,122 --> 00:56:34,724
The Move and a few other bands,

858
00:56:34,790 --> 00:56:36,792
Barret would sometimes
need to be replaced

859
00:56:36,859 --> 00:56:38,394
by David O'List from The Nice.

860
00:56:39,862 --> 00:56:43,933
As far back as 1965, Syd himself
had written to Libby Gausden

861
00:56:44,000 --> 00:56:46,903
suggesting his old friend
David Gilmour should join the group

862
00:56:47,003 --> 00:56:48,504
referring to him as 'Fred...

863
00:56:49,405 --> 00:56:53,042
What became known as the Fred plan'
was now put info effect.

864
00:56:54,410 --> 00:56:55,678
Looking back on it,

865
00:56:55,745 --> 00:56:59,248
I can see that
they all played a distinct part

866
00:56:59,315 --> 00:57:01,117
in the success of Pink Floyd.

867
00:57:01,217 --> 00:57:04,921
You had Roger who had
this massive determination,

868
00:57:04,987 --> 00:57:10,026
Rick's musical sophistication
and you've got Nick's showmanship.

869
00:57:16,132 --> 00:57:19,402
For several shows, the band
performs as a five-piece

870
00:57:19,468 --> 00:57:21,404
in the hope of keeping Syd around.

871
00:57:23,306 --> 00:57:27,176
We'd already tried three
or four gigs as a five-piece.

872
00:57:27,243 --> 00:57:29,045
It was a very uncomfortable feeling

873
00:57:29,111 --> 00:57:33,049
but I think we were
absolutely geared to this idea.

874
00:57:33,115 --> 00:57:35,084
It wasn't a matter
of trying Dave out,

875
00:57:35,151 --> 00:57:39,655
I think we loved the idea
of having him in the band.

876
00:57:53,135 --> 00:57:56,672
Do you recall what happened
on what I called 'The day'?

877
00:57:56,739 --> 00:57:59,308
I can't remember where
Syd was living at the time.

878
00:57:59,508 --> 00:58:01,777
- We were all...
- Were you on the way to a gig?

879
00:58:01,844 --> 00:58:04,046
Yeah, we were absolutely
on the way to a gig.

880
00:58:04,113 --> 00:58:08,818
Everyone else had been picked up,
SO we were on the way to pick Syd up

881
00:58:09,819 --> 00:58:14,490
and someone said,
"Shall we bother?" more or less.

882
00:58:14,557 --> 00:58:17,827
There was this sort of moment
and we went,

883
00:58:17,893 --> 00:58:19,996
"Do you know what? Let's not."

884
00:58:20,663 --> 00:58:22,598
Syd's last gig with Pink Floyd

885
00:58:22,665 --> 00:58:26,035
was on the 20th of January, 1968
at Hastings Pier.

886
00:58:32,475 --> 00:58:36,012
Do you think it's understandable then
that they had to move on as it were?

887
00:58:36,078 --> 00:58:37,246
That's the way it works.

888
00:58:38,447 --> 00:58:39,815
It's animal husbandry.

889
00:58:40,249 --> 00:58:42,351
I'm amazed
that they managed to recover

890
00:58:42,418 --> 00:58:44,153
from losing
their main creative drive.

891
00:58:44,220 --> 00:58:46,288
No, it's not amazing they recovered,

892
00:58:46,355 --> 00:58:50,126
they became the pop group
that they always desired to be.

893
00:58:50,192 --> 00:58:53,329
Once David Gilmour's in there,
that's the beginning of something else.

894
00:58:53,396 --> 00:58:54,997
It's the beginning of the Pink Floyd

895
00:58:55,064 --> 00:58:57,433
that became very successful
later on with "Meddle'",

896
00:58:57,500 --> 00:58:59,869
"Dark Side of the Moon"
and "Wish you Were Here”.

897
00:59:00,503 --> 00:59:02,238
When the Floyd broke up,

898
00:59:02,805 --> 00:59:05,174
you and Peter, as Blackhill,
as I understand,

899
00:59:05,241 --> 00:59:06,776
elected to continue with Syd.

900
00:59:06,842 --> 00:59:09,278
We made a particularly astute
commercial decision.

901
00:59:13,416 --> 00:59:14,817
That's two verses.

902
00:59:14,884 --> 00:59:16,152
Sorry, I'll do it again.

903
00:59:48,451 --> 00:59:50,553
Syd came to live with us
at Egerton Court

904
00:59:50,619 --> 00:59:54,223
which is the flat that we had
in the centre of London in South Ken.

905
00:59:55,958 --> 00:59:59,161
I went there,
you were there and Po was there,

906
00:59:59,228 --> 01:00:01,730
Nigel and Jenny, they had
the smart room at the front.

907
01:00:01,797 --> 01:00:04,467
How was Syd doing those days?
Do you remember?

908
01:00:04,533 --> 01:00:07,736
He was unpredictable then.
He was very unpredictable.

909
01:00:07,803 --> 01:00:10,439
I don't think anybody
in the flat realised.

910
01:00:10,539 --> 01:00:13,042
Just how bad Syd had become.

911
01:00:13,109 --> 01:00:16,745
He began locking himself in his room
for several days with Lindsay.

912
01:00:16,812 --> 01:00:19,348
There were rows,
all sorts of things going on.

913
01:00:19,415 --> 01:00:21,717
I had the small room
adjacent to the large room

914
01:00:21,784 --> 01:00:23,419
in which he and Lindsay lived.

915
01:00:23,486 --> 01:00:27,022
I could hear him tickling her,
which sounded harmless enough,

916
01:00:27,089 --> 01:00:29,825
and then she'd scream at him
to stop tickling and he wouldn't.

917
01:00:29,925 --> 01:00:32,995
I can't remember what happened but
he pushed me over and jumped on me.

918
01:00:33,062 --> 01:00:34,964
That's when I called out
and you came in.

919
01:00:35,397 --> 01:00:38,834
Syd decided that presumably the
relationship was not as it should be

920
01:00:38,901 --> 01:00:42,071
and seemed to be
attacking her with a mandolin.

921
01:00:42,138 --> 01:00:45,007
Then the next day
you took me home to Cambridge.

922
01:00:45,074 --> 01:00:46,976
- Don't you remember?
- Yeah.

923
01:00:47,042 --> 01:00:48,644
But was this the end of you and Syd?

924
01:00:48,711 --> 01:00:50,579
Oh yes, that was it.

925
01:00:51,247 --> 01:00:56,018
Syd's apparent malaise, shall we say,
didn't appear initially.

926
01:00:56,085 --> 01:00:58,254
I thought he was charming
and good company.

927
01:00:58,354 --> 01:01:00,623
This was his very room.

928
01:01:01,357 --> 01:01:04,527
Dave Gilmour lived in Richmond Mansions,
one street away.

929
01:01:04,593 --> 01:01:06,962
We could see from our kitchen
info his kitchen.

930
01:01:09,231 --> 01:01:13,235
Syd goes back into Abbey Road studios
to begin recording some demos.

931
01:01:13,969 --> 01:01:16,572
With the support
of Peter Jenner, Malcolm Jones,

932
01:01:16,639 --> 01:01:18,741
David Gilmour and Roger Waters,

933
01:01:18,807 --> 01:01:22,645
these sessions, though difficult,
would result in his first solo album,

934
01:01:23,512 --> 01:01:24,947
"The Madcap Laughs".

935
01:01:27,316 --> 01:01:28,951
In the first lot of sessions

936
01:01:29,018 --> 01:01:31,954
you couldn't get an honest
answer to an honest question.

937
01:01:32,021 --> 01:01:33,956
"Shall we do that again?"

938
01:01:34,023 --> 01:01:35,724
No reply.

939
01:01:35,791 --> 01:01:38,127
"I think that was really good,
can we try that again?"

940
01:01:38,194 --> 01:01:39,295
No reply.

941
01:01:40,029 --> 01:01:41,864
"Would you want to go
and play a bit more?"

942
01:01:41,931 --> 01:01:45,134
Then, he would go out and maybe
play a bit more or maybe not.

943
01:01:47,303 --> 01:01:48,304
Is it on?

944
01:01:50,339 --> 01:01:53,175
There'd been quite
a considerable amount of time

945
01:01:53,242 --> 01:01:55,110
and money gone into it

946
01:01:55,211 --> 01:01:59,014
and EMI had decided
to more or less pull the plug.

947
01:01:59,081 --> 01:02:01,350
Roger and I asked them
if we could finish it off

948
01:02:01,417 --> 01:02:03,686
and they gave us
something like three days.

949
01:02:03,752 --> 01:02:07,122
We stuck him in the studio and
recorded everything and anything

950
01:02:07,189 --> 01:02:08,591
that we could get him to do.

951
01:02:15,164 --> 01:02:18,867
The end result is a pretty fair portrait
of him at the time.

952
01:02:19,735 --> 01:02:23,105
And I think his writing
probably was better

953
01:02:23,172 --> 01:02:25,641
than the writing
on "Piper at the Gates of Dawn".

954
01:02:25,874 --> 01:02:28,644
"Where are you now pussy willow
who smiled on this leaf?"

955
01:02:29,144 --> 01:02:32,081
You go,
"What the fuck is that about?"

956
01:02:47,296 --> 01:02:50,666
He's still making
these extraordinary connections

957
01:02:50,733 --> 01:02:52,901
with the deepest feelings of,

958
01:02:53,402 --> 01:02:57,973
"Can I or can I not make contact
with other human beings?"

959
01:02:58,040 --> 01:03:01,844
Which is the stuff of all our lives.

960
01:03:02,344 --> 01:03:05,080
Storm and I had a company
called Hipgnosis

961
01:03:05,147 --> 01:03:08,050
and we were asked
to do the album cover.

962
01:03:08,117 --> 01:03:10,653
Storm went to photograph
Syd with Mick Rock.

963
01:03:19,161 --> 01:03:23,232
He had a flat in which he'd painted
the floorboards blue and red,

964
01:03:23,299 --> 01:03:26,635
I think for the photo session,
which is pretty amazing.

965
01:03:26,702 --> 01:03:29,338
What was interesting about the floor
is there was all this rubble

966
01:03:29,405 --> 01:03:31,573
because he'd paint
over the cigarette butts

967
01:03:31,640 --> 01:03:34,076
and various bits
of debris in the room.

968
01:03:35,110 --> 01:03:38,447
I took a photo of Syd crouched
a bit like an animal really.

969
01:03:39,181 --> 01:03:42,217
I took a ton of them foo,
it wasn't just Storm.

970
01:03:43,452 --> 01:03:46,955
And Iggy the Eskimo, who was
never really his girlfriend

971
01:03:47,022 --> 01:03:48,957
because these were hippie times.

972
01:03:49,024 --> 01:03:51,026
I think she lingered
for a couple of weeks.

973
01:03:51,994 --> 01:03:54,596
On the back cover
was a picture of a naked woman

974
01:03:54,663 --> 01:03:56,732
who was an Eskimo,

975
01:03:56,799 --> 01:03:59,835
but liked, whether Syd was there or not,
to walk around naked.

976
01:04:00,836 --> 01:04:03,472
He said, "This is Iggy, why don't you
put her in the picture?"

977
01:04:03,539 --> 01:04:04,673
I said, "Fine."

978
01:04:06,775 --> 01:04:08,744
"The Madcap Laughs" is released

979
01:04:08,811 --> 01:04:12,715
on EMI's new progressive imprint,
Harvest, in January 1970.

980
01:04:14,049 --> 01:04:16,518
It reaches number 40
in the UK charts.

981
01:04:16,618 --> 01:04:19,088
Successful enough for EMI
to finance the recording

982
01:04:19,154 --> 01:04:22,024
of Syd's second
solo album, "Barrett".

983
01:04:28,497 --> 01:04:31,800
There was more time
so we could relax a little bit more

984
01:04:31,867 --> 01:04:34,103
and try and do things
in a slightly different way.

985
01:04:34,203 --> 01:04:36,905
We lived around the corner
from each other,

986
01:04:36,972 --> 01:04:40,576
we being myself and Willie Wilson.

987
01:04:40,642 --> 01:04:43,379
He and I shared a flat in Chelsea.

988
01:04:43,712 --> 01:04:45,848
Syd lived around the corner.

989
01:04:47,049 --> 01:04:49,918
We'd try and get him to
play along with the band,

990
01:04:49,985 --> 01:04:51,587
but he'd never do it the same twice.

991
01:04:51,653 --> 01:04:54,690
So usually it meant we'd cut
a backing track without him

992
01:04:54,757 --> 01:04:57,126
and then get him to put
some stuff on it afterwards.

993
01:04:57,926 --> 01:05:00,763
Rick came along
and helped a bit on that one.

994
01:05:00,863 --> 01:05:04,867
All I ever saw was Dave wanting
to get the best out of Syd

995
01:05:04,933 --> 01:05:08,437
he could possibly get,
which was not easy.

996
01:05:08,504 --> 01:05:10,839
We just followed him
wherever he went.

997
01:05:10,906 --> 01:05:15,043
Sometimes, it just kept falling down
and falling over itself

998
01:05:15,110 --> 01:05:16,678
and sometimes it got interesting.

999
01:05:30,926 --> 01:05:34,730
He wrote some pretty
unusual chord sequences

1000
01:05:34,797 --> 01:05:37,966
and found some unusual melodies
to sit on the top of it

1001
01:05:38,033 --> 01:05:41,670
and wrote fascinating lyrics.

1002
01:05:56,885 --> 01:06:03,158
Even though some around that
Wetherby Mansions time are very moody,

1003
01:06:03,225 --> 01:06:05,227
there's quite a lot of them
he's laughing in.

1004
01:06:14,169 --> 01:06:17,940
Released in November, "Barrett"
would be Syd's final studio album.

1005
01:06:18,974 --> 01:06:20,342
It fails to chart.

1006
01:06:23,879 --> 01:06:26,348
Can you recall
when you first met Syd?

1007
01:06:26,882 --> 01:06:29,952
He came running up
looking like a rock star

1008
01:06:30,052 --> 01:06:33,455
with his velvet jeans on,
his velvet jacket

1009
01:06:33,555 --> 01:06:36,959
and his Chelsea boots on.

1010
01:06:37,059 --> 01:06:39,761
He looked and I thought,
"Ooh, wow, it's Syd Barrett."

1011
01:06:40,395 --> 01:06:41,530
He had a spare room.

1012
01:06:41,597 --> 01:06:44,132
I wasn't sure
at that stage whether it was,

1013
01:06:44,199 --> 01:06:46,802
"Come and live with me," ” or...

1014
01:06:46,869 --> 01:06:49,137
- "Would you like a room?"
- "I've got a room."

1015
01:06:49,204 --> 01:06:51,607
- "Give us some money."
- Yeah, "Give us some money."

1016
01:06:51,673 --> 01:06:53,509
He was pretty strange.

1017
01:06:53,575 --> 01:06:56,678
He'd just open the door
and come in the room

1018
01:06:56,745 --> 01:06:58,514
and that would be it.

1019
01:06:58,780 --> 01:07:02,317
I thought it was kind of great
to have a boyfriend like that

1020
01:07:02,384 --> 01:07:04,720
rather than a bloke
working in Barclays Bank.

1021
01:07:14,263 --> 01:07:17,599
In support of the "Madcap Laughs"
and "Barrett" albums,

1022
01:07:17,666 --> 01:07:21,637
Syd records a session for influential
Radio 1 DJ, John Peel.

1023
01:07:22,738 --> 01:07:25,607
And on the 6th of June 1970,
he plays a gig,

1024
01:07:25,674 --> 01:07:29,211
his first for two years,
at the Olympia Exhibition Hall

1025
01:07:29,278 --> 01:07:32,548
with David Gilmour on bass guitar
and Jerry Shirley on drums.

1026
01:07:33,849 --> 01:07:37,719
After just a few songs, however,
Syd abruptly walks off stage.

1027
01:07:39,121 --> 01:07:44,493
He decided at one stage that
he no longer wanted to be a pop star.

1028
01:07:45,093 --> 01:07:51,500
He went out and bought canvases,
tons of pots of paint and brushes

1029
01:07:51,567 --> 01:07:54,636
and he locked himself in that room
and painted day and night.

1030
01:07:55,203 --> 01:07:58,807
Every time
I was allowed to see a canvas,

1031
01:07:58,874 --> 01:08:02,044
the next time I saw It
it would either be destroyed

1032
01:08:02,110 --> 01:08:04,279
or he'd painted all over it.

1033
01:08:04,346 --> 01:08:06,782
Try and keep up with Duggie,
'him next door'.

1034
01:08:06,848 --> 01:08:09,818
He never used his name, it was
'him next door' or 'that painter'.

1035
01:08:10,152 --> 01:08:13,055
You've got two aspects of
his personality though, haven't you?

1036
01:08:13,121 --> 01:08:15,190
You've got Roger and Syd.

1037
01:08:15,257 --> 01:08:16,959
Syd was the musician,

1038
01:08:17,025 --> 01:08:20,996
Roger was maybe a would-be artist
but Roger never found his way.

1039
01:08:22,297 --> 01:08:25,734
He put a layer of hessian
over the curtains

1040
01:08:25,834 --> 01:08:28,503
so he had this darkened room
that he lived in.

1041
01:08:28,570 --> 01:08:31,306
People would stand outside
his door knocking and going,

1042
01:08:31,373 --> 01:08:33,875
"Syd, let me in,"
for hours sometimes.

1043
01:08:35,010 --> 01:08:39,414
I moved back to Cambridge
and Duggie had called me and said,

1044
01:08:39,481 --> 01:08:43,185
"This is getting crazy."

1045
01:08:43,251 --> 01:08:48,790
I don't know what he was doing but he'd
been in his room for days and nights

1046
01:08:48,857 --> 01:08:50,425
and hadn't come out.

1047
01:08:50,492 --> 01:08:53,829
I contacted Syd and I said,
"Why didn't you come to Cambridge?"

1048
01:08:53,895 --> 01:08:57,199
And somehow it was like
we were back together again.

1049
01:08:57,299 --> 01:08:59,601
So, I moved in.

1050
01:08:59,668 --> 01:09:01,670
- Into Hills Road?
- Into Hills Road.

1051
01:09:01,737 --> 01:09:04,106
- Into the cellar?
- Into the cellar with Syd.

1052
01:09:04,940 --> 01:09:07,843
It was all dark,
it was originally a coal cellar.

1053
01:09:07,909 --> 01:09:10,545
It had all his bits and pieces
from his childhood there,

1054
01:09:10,612 --> 01:09:13,248
his drawings,
his paintings and his guitar.

1055
01:09:14,683 --> 01:09:17,819
And it was all very normal.

1056
01:09:18,553 --> 01:09:20,722
Mrs Barrett would come
rushing out and say,

1057
01:09:20,789 --> 01:09:23,859
"Oh, hello dear, hello dear.
What about a cup of tea?"

1058
01:09:23,925 --> 01:09:26,428
Rog, would you like a cup of tea?”

1059
01:09:27,496 --> 01:09:29,698
We became engaged.

1060
01:09:31,133 --> 01:09:34,202
Mum organized this big Sunday lunch.

1061
01:09:34,269 --> 01:09:39,241
This is the time when Syd threw
a bowl/ of tomato soup over me.

1062
01:09:39,307 --> 01:09:43,245
It was a normal Sunday lunch
and Syd just went, whoops!

1063
01:09:43,679 --> 01:09:47,649
Then, he stood up from the table,
laughed, disappeared,

1064
01:09:47,716 --> 01:09:51,053
and came down,
and he'd cut all his hair off.

1065
01:09:52,854 --> 01:09:54,523
I'd gone back to my parents.

1066
01:09:54,589 --> 01:09:56,858
The next day, a letter arrived

1067
01:09:56,925 --> 01:10:00,462
saying that the engagement
was officially off.

1068
01:10:00,562 --> 01:10:04,099
"Yours sincerely, R.K. Barrett."

1069
01:10:04,599 --> 01:10:07,335
I got another lefter
from him two days later

1070
01:10:07,402 --> 01:10:10,472
saying, "Dear Gala,
! Think we should get married.

1071
01:10:10,539 --> 01:10:12,441
Ignore the letter
I sent you yesterday.

1072
01:10:12,507 --> 01:10:14,276
Lots of love, Syd."

1073
01:10:14,342 --> 01:10:18,613
We went up to London and bought
another engagement ring.

1074
01:10:18,680 --> 01:10:21,483
So there's always two.
Two rings and two parts of Syd.

1075
01:10:21,550 --> 01:10:23,151
Two rings and two letters.

1076
01:10:24,019 --> 01:10:26,722
Syd's relationship
with Gala Pinion would end

1077
01:10:26,788 --> 01:10:28,957
when he became convinced
she was having an affair

1078
01:10:29,024 --> 01:10:31,326
with a colleague
in the local department store.

1079
01:10:31,927 --> 01:10:34,296
Gala would be the last
of Barrett's girlfriends.

1080
01:10:44,206 --> 01:10:47,909
He became more reclusive
when he returned to London

1081
01:10:47,976 --> 01:10:50,045
and he was living
in Chelsea Cloisters.

1082
01:10:52,280 --> 01:10:54,816
Sightings of Syd become less frequent

1083
01:10:54,883 --> 01:10:57,486
with just the odd lurid story
in the papers

1084
01:10:57,552 --> 01:10:59,855
and occasional
visits to the local pub

1085
01:10:59,921 --> 01:11:01,857
or to the office
of his music publishers.

1086
01:11:03,358 --> 01:11:06,161
When we were still at NEMS,
which was early '70s,

1087
01:11:06,228 --> 01:11:07,963
and he started coming
to those offices,

1088
01:11:08,029 --> 01:11:11,900
that's when we realised he didn't have
any money or very little money.

1089
01:11:11,967 --> 01:11:14,202
We talked about it and he said

1090
01:11:14,269 --> 01:11:16,671
he didn't know where his money
and his royalties were.

1091
01:11:16,738 --> 01:11:19,708
So we said, "That's easy, we'll write
to Essex, we'll write to EMI,

1092
01:11:19,775 --> 01:11:22,410
we'll write to PRS and find out
where your royalties are."

1093
01:11:22,477 --> 01:11:27,749
I use the phrase
very loosely, "Poor Syd."

1094
01:11:27,816 --> 01:11:31,119
Of course,
Brian being a money man,

1095
01:11:31,953 --> 01:11:33,989
he went "Poor Syd?"

1096
01:11:34,055 --> 01:11:36,792
He made two and a half
million quid last year.”

1097
01:11:36,892 --> 01:11:39,861
I said, "God, where do you keep
all your guitars? You've got loads."

1098
01:11:39,928 --> 01:11:42,297
He said, "I've got
another flat for them."

1099
01:11:43,331 --> 01:11:45,333
He said, "John Lennon's got
lots of guitars."

1100
01:11:53,842 --> 01:11:56,044
With royalties from Pink Floyd sales

1101
01:11:56,111 --> 01:11:59,614
and David Bowie's cover of
"See Emily Play" on his "Pin Ups"” album,

1102
01:11:59,681 --> 01:12:01,817
Syd would move
back and forth between London

1103
01:12:01,883 --> 01:12:04,786
and the small back bedroom in
his mother's house in Cambridge

1104
01:12:04,853 --> 01:12:06,488
for the next 12 years or so.

1105
01:12:07,522 --> 01:12:11,159
While in Cambridge, Jenny Spires
Introduces Barrett to her husband,

1106
01:12:11,226 --> 01:12:14,663
bass player Jack Monk and drummer
Twink from The Pink Fairies.

1107
01:12:15,597 --> 01:12:19,634
After several impromptu jam sessions,
the trio formed the group Stars

1108
01:12:19,701 --> 01:12:21,403
and play a handful of gigs locally.

1109
01:12:21,670 --> 01:12:24,472
We'd like to bring Syd Barrett
up to the band stand.

1110
01:12:24,539 --> 01:12:27,242
Would you come on?
How about a hand for Syd Barrett?

1111
01:12:29,044 --> 01:12:31,012
All appears to be going well

1112
01:12:31,079 --> 01:12:33,548
but following
a disastrous gig with MC5

1113
01:12:33,615 --> 01:12:37,219
and a negative review
in Melody Maker, Syd leaves the group.

1114
01:12:37,285 --> 01:12:39,221
He will never play in public again.

1115
01:12:44,226 --> 01:12:47,896
A year later, Pink Floyd release
"Dark Side of The Moon"

1116
01:12:47,963 --> 01:12:50,765
and hit the fop of
the US Billboard album charts.

1117
01:12:50,832 --> 01:12:53,768
It remains one of
the best-selling records of all time.

1118
01:12:56,771 --> 01:12:59,241
As Pink Floyd's success
and fame grows,

1119
01:12:59,307 --> 01:13:02,210
Peter Jenner persuades Syd
to return to Abbey Road.

1120
01:13:02,277 --> 01:13:05,513
After three days in the studio
producing just a handful of riffs,

1121
01:13:05,580 --> 01:13:06,882
the sessions are abandoned.

1122
01:13:15,357 --> 01:13:19,728
In 1975, Pink Floyd records
their ninth studio album,

1123
01:13:19,794 --> 01:13:22,731
the concept record
"Wish You Were Here",

1124
01:13:22,797 --> 01:13:25,267
again reaching number one
on the Billboard charts.

1125
01:13:26,334 --> 01:13:29,838
Written as a tribute to Syd,
"Shine on You Crazy Diamond",

1126
01:13:29,905 --> 01:13:32,974
a 25-minute-long track
made up of nine parts

1127
01:13:33,041 --> 01:13:34,309
book ends the album.

1128
01:13:37,245 --> 01:13:41,816
The last personal abiding memory
I have of Syd was at Abbey Road

1129
01:13:41,883 --> 01:13:45,186
when he turned up, remarkably,

1130
01:13:45,253 --> 01:13:47,889
at the recording
of "Shine on You Crazy Diamond"

1131
01:13:47,956 --> 01:13:49,457
but I didn't realise it was him.

1132
01:13:50,825 --> 01:13:54,996
I was sitting in my usual place
in the control room of Studio 3.

1133
01:13:55,063 --> 01:13:57,098
I heard the door go, looked round

1134
01:13:57,165 --> 01:13:59,668
and there was this chap
standing in the back of the room

1135
01:13:59,734 --> 01:14:02,804
who was slightly portly,
with a shaven head and a raincoat on.

1136
01:14:02,871 --> 01:14:07,609
I just assumed he was something
to do with the studio.

1137
01:14:07,676 --> 01:14:10,145
You would occasionally
get odd people popping in.

1138
01:14:10,245 --> 01:14:12,714
I had been doing
something in the studio.

1139
01:14:12,781 --> 01:14:15,717
I don't know what
but I'd been in the studio.

1140
01:14:15,784 --> 01:14:18,186
So I came into the control room

1141
01:14:18,253 --> 01:14:21,623
to find the band all looking
a little bit weird.

1142
01:14:21,957 --> 01:14:23,158
It took a little while.

1143
01:14:23,224 --> 01:14:27,495
I don't recall whether it was Roger
or David who realised that it was Syd.

1144
01:14:27,595 --> 01:14:31,866
I was waiting for someone to
either say, "This is so and so."

1145
01:14:31,933 --> 01:14:35,036
Or for someone to say "Security
are coming any minute now."

1146
01:14:35,103 --> 01:14:37,472
For someone
who'd come in off the street.

1147
01:14:39,941 --> 01:14:42,711
Dave looked at me and he said,
"Do you know who that is?"

1148
01:14:42,777 --> 01:14:44,512
I went, "No."

1149
01:14:44,612 --> 01:14:46,481
And he said, "It's Syd."

1150
01:14:49,684 --> 01:14:51,720
He hadn't been seen for six years.

1151
01:14:53,955 --> 01:14:55,557
He asked if he could help.

1152
01:14:56,458 --> 01:14:58,860
Syd came in and sat down,

1153
01:14:58,927 --> 01:15:02,163
David and Roger
started talking to him.

1154
01:15:02,230 --> 01:15:06,668
I then took this opportunity
to snap a couple of photos

1155
01:15:06,735 --> 01:15:09,637
with the camera that
I'd only had a couple of days

1156
01:15:09,704 --> 01:15:12,340
as a present from the band
after we'd done Knebworth.

1157
01:15:14,009 --> 01:15:17,712
It turns out I was using
a slow speed outdoor film.

1158
01:15:18,847 --> 01:15:21,049
So pictures indoors
are a little bit grainy.

1159
01:15:22,283 --> 01:15:26,721
Roger had Brian Humphries, the engineer
play him the end of "Shine On'",

1160
01:15:26,788 --> 01:15:30,458
which features the melody line
of "See Emily Play".

1161
01:15:30,525 --> 01:15:32,827
Roger asked him afterwards
if he recognised it

1162
01:15:32,894 --> 01:15:36,664
and Syd just said no.

1163
01:15:36,731 --> 01:15:38,133
Very blank, "No."

1164
01:15:39,567 --> 01:15:41,102
Syd did pick up the Martin,

1165
01:15:41,169 --> 01:15:44,205
the D-35 guitar
in the control room there.

1166
01:15:44,272 --> 01:15:46,608
I don't think he played
anything in particular.

1167
01:15:48,109 --> 01:15:49,544
Then what happened?

1168
01:15:51,579 --> 01:15:56,518
Nothing, we carried on working,
as far as I remember.

1169
01:15:56,584 --> 01:15:58,286
Probably a little bit shell shocked.

1170
01:16:00,522 --> 01:16:03,725
Rick was terribly upset
and Roger cried.

1171
01:16:04,959 --> 01:16:08,763
Often people forget that
although Syd was a huge talent,

1172
01:16:08,830 --> 01:16:12,200
this is a talent that was
all foo soon lost to us.

1173
01:16:13,435 --> 01:16:17,906
And that the band, had loved him.

1174
01:16:29,117 --> 01:16:33,188
Remember when you were young,
you shone like the sun.

1175
01:16:33,621 --> 01:16:35,590
Shine on you crazy diamond.

1176
01:16:37,559 --> 01:16:41,763
Now there's a look in your eyes
like black holes in the sky.

1177
01:16:43,064 --> 01:16:44,966
Shine on you crazy diamond.

1178
01:16:46,434 --> 01:16:51,739
You were caught in the crossfire
of childhood and stardom.

1179
01:16:53,775 --> 01:16:55,610
Blown on the steel breeze.

1180
01:16:57,412 --> 01:17:01,916
Come on you stranger,
you legend, you martyr and shine.

1181
01:18:00,375 --> 01:18:02,243
In spite of his now cult status

1182
01:18:02,310 --> 01:18:05,813
in the eyes of a new generation
of fans and musicians,

1183
01:18:05,880 --> 01:18:10,318
in 1978 Barrett sells the rights to
his solo albums to the record company.

1184
01:18:11,753 --> 01:18:15,123
By 1981, he's facing
bankruptcy proceedings.

1185
01:18:17,192 --> 01:18:21,963
In 1982, Syd walks the 50 miles
from London back to Cambridge,

1186
01:18:22,030 --> 01:18:24,232
returning home for the last time.

1187
01:18:37,245 --> 01:18:39,314
He had enormous blisters on his feet

1188
01:18:39,380 --> 01:18:41,716
and he was lying
on the sofa with his feet up

1189
01:18:41,783 --> 01:18:43,618
trying to get these blisters mended.

1190
01:18:45,153 --> 01:18:47,922
He just wanted to get home
and he hadn't got any money.

1191
01:18:48,022 --> 01:18:51,292
You've got to remember that he never
did a day's work in his life,

1192
01:18:51,359 --> 01:18:53,661
getting a salary or a wage packet.

1193
01:18:53,728 --> 01:18:57,232
He never had that, so he never
actually grew up to be responsible

1194
01:18:57,298 --> 01:18:58,666
because he never needed to.

1195
01:18:58,733 --> 01:19:01,569
And I suppose all of us,
if we didn't need to, we wouldn't do it.

1196
01:19:01,636 --> 01:19:03,404
It's more fun being a child, isn't it?

1197
01:19:05,974 --> 01:19:07,542
We used to go out in the car,

1198
01:19:07,609 --> 01:19:10,812
go lo areas where he could
photograph for a painting.

1199
01:19:10,878 --> 01:19:14,215
So we spent a lot of time
at Grantchester, which is just nearby.

1200
01:19:14,916 --> 01:19:18,253
He went back to Cambridge and
his art very much reflects that.

1201
01:19:18,319 --> 01:19:20,088
You could say
it's a return to landscape.

1202
01:19:20,154 --> 01:19:24,125
- What happened to the work?
- He wasn't keen on keeping his works.

1203
01:19:24,192 --> 01:19:26,327
It's not that he didn't care
for them afterwards

1204
01:19:26,394 --> 01:19:28,429
because he did take photos of them.

1205
01:19:28,529 --> 01:19:30,632
But he did tend to destroy work.

1206
01:19:30,732 --> 01:19:35,303
Syd made things and then seemed
to destroy them, or so we're told,

1207
01:19:35,370 --> 01:19:36,938
and I'm wondering what that means.

1208
01:19:37,739 --> 01:19:39,841
Maybe he didn't like
foo much clutter.

1209
01:19:40,241 --> 01:19:42,777
It's called 'Syd's Feng Shui'.

1210
01:19:46,981 --> 01:19:48,650
He needed a lot of support.

1211
01:19:48,716 --> 01:19:50,385
He was distressed.

1212
01:19:51,386 --> 01:19:55,290
For 25 years or so
he was my responsibility.

1213
01:19:57,091 --> 01:19:58,192
I cared for him.

1214
01:19:59,761 --> 01:20:03,564
He'd come on his bike and
he'd got a canvas shopping bag,

1215
01:20:03,631 --> 01:20:05,400
very much an old person's thing.

1216
01:20:05,466 --> 01:20:07,502
I said to him,
"Do you know who I am?"

1217
01:20:07,568 --> 01:20:10,204
And he said, "Yes, I do.
It's Libby isn't it?"

1218
01:20:10,271 --> 01:20:11,773
I said, "Yes, it is."

1219
01:20:11,839 --> 01:20:13,308
And we talked for a little while.

1220
01:20:13,374 --> 01:20:16,377
That's a strange question to ask,
"Do you know who I am?"

1221
01:20:16,444 --> 01:20:18,313
I know who you are,
you don't have to ask me.

1222
01:20:18,379 --> 01:20:20,248
I did have to ask him,
he looked different.

1223
01:20:22,050 --> 01:20:25,186
He totally moved on
and didn't like that person,

1224
01:20:25,253 --> 01:20:28,990
he didn't like that world
and didn't want to be reminded of it.

1225
01:20:29,557 --> 01:20:31,259
When people came
to the door, he'd say,

1226
01:20:31,326 --> 01:20:33,027
"Syd doesn't live here anymore."

1227
01:20:33,094 --> 01:20:34,429
Because he didn't.

1228
01:20:35,330 --> 01:20:36,764
He wasn't Syd anymore.

1229
01:20:38,700 --> 01:20:42,503
I think it's most unlikely
that you can reinvent yourself,

1230
01:20:42,570 --> 01:20:46,374
that you can become an ordinary bloke
who goes down the pub and plays darts

1231
01:20:46,441 --> 01:20:47,842
when you've been a rock star,

1232
01:20:47,909 --> 01:20:50,511
when you've been in the hit
parade and then you're not.

1233
01:20:51,979 --> 01:20:55,016
Do you think people like
to embroider and romance things?

1234
01:20:55,083 --> 01:20:56,684
He's perfect for rumors.

1235
01:20:56,784 --> 01:20:59,087
A magnetic person
who's had so much impact

1236
01:20:59,153 --> 01:21:02,323
and the band went on going on
being more and more successful.

1237
01:21:02,390 --> 01:21:04,025
And where was Syd?

1238
01:21:04,092 --> 01:21:05,793
Perfect for rumors.

1239
01:21:05,860 --> 01:21:09,197
I know the Daily Mail
on a quiet celebrity period,

1240
01:21:09,297 --> 01:21:12,166
would rediscover him
every three years, you know.

1241
01:21:12,233 --> 01:21:13,801
"The mad genius of Pink Floyd."

1242
01:21:19,240 --> 01:21:22,343
I have a feeling that underneath
a lot of this is a sadness.

1243
01:21:22,410 --> 01:21:24,512
Yes, but you don't know, you see.

1244
01:21:24,579 --> 01:21:28,249
What was he thinking on his
bicycle in Cambridge on his own?

1245
01:21:30,818 --> 01:21:33,287
We can talk about it forever
but we won't know.

1246
01:22:09,323 --> 01:22:11,859
It's not for us to say
how people should be.

1247
01:22:11,926 --> 01:22:14,095
Of course, it would have been
great if he'd gone on

1248
01:22:14,162 --> 01:22:16,130
to produce stuff all his life,
but he didn't.

1249
01:22:16,197 --> 01:22:17,265
And why?

1250
01:22:17,365 --> 01:22:20,368
You could say
he was in a weather system,

1251
01:22:20,435 --> 01:22:24,472
something bigger than him
that turned him over.

1252
01:22:25,273 --> 01:22:28,142
And it was sunny
for the first two weeks

1253
01:22:28,209 --> 01:22:29,710
and it rained for six years.

1254
01:22:33,481 --> 01:22:38,085
There was a tragedy being played out
partly self-induced.

1255
01:22:38,786 --> 01:22:43,558
In the end, it's a tragic tale

1256
01:22:43,624 --> 01:22:48,229
and tragic tales resonate
with us in a different way

1257
01:22:48,296 --> 01:22:51,599
and perhaps more
acutely than tales of triumph.

1258
01:22:53,801 --> 01:22:56,637
Out in Idaho,
they know who Pink Floyd are.

1259
01:22:56,704 --> 01:22:58,773
They probably don't know
who Syd Barrett is.

1260
01:22:59,073 --> 01:23:03,744
He's the old singer in the band
that I love, which is Pink Floyd.

1261
01:23:04,212 --> 01:23:08,082
The band we know Floyd to be now,
wouldn't be here without Syd.

1262
01:23:08,149 --> 01:23:10,117
But it doesn't really bear
much resemblance

1263
01:23:10,184 --> 01:23:11,419
to the band that Syd was in.

1264
01:23:12,286 --> 01:23:15,923
What would it have sounded like
if he had stayed in the band?

1265
01:23:16,023 --> 01:23:18,326
I would hope
that he would be able to see

1266
01:23:18,392 --> 01:23:20,695
what a beautiful thing
it ended up being.

1267
01:23:20,962 --> 01:23:23,531
He did things for their own sake

1268
01:23:23,598 --> 01:23:26,400
and he depended heavily
on his own childhood memories.

1269
01:23:26,467 --> 01:23:28,469
But I think that's also
a good lesson to us all,

1270
01:23:28,536 --> 01:23:32,039
to go back inside yourselves
and see what you can find.

1271
01:23:33,074 --> 01:23:35,643
Now I don't understand
how boring music can be,

1272
01:23:35,710 --> 01:23:38,379
when at one point
somebody was trying to put

1273
01:23:38,446 --> 01:23:42,717
so much into four minutes
worth of listening

1274
01:23:42,783 --> 01:23:47,922
and the ear was entertained.

1275
01:23:49,991 --> 01:23:55,196
I hope that young people think twice
because look what can happen.

1276
01:23:57,064 --> 01:23:59,767
It'd be nice to think
that people could learn a bit.

1277
01:24:03,738 --> 01:24:09,010
There are some people who must
have a weakness of some sort

1278
01:24:09,076 --> 01:24:12,179
that is like a switch
waiting to be turned.

1279
01:24:12,246 --> 01:24:15,316
And that switch will go and
they'll never quite come back.

1280
01:24:15,850 --> 01:24:18,920
! think it's really hard
to not feel something.

1281
01:24:18,986 --> 01:24:21,522
We probably did
about as much as we could.

1282
01:24:21,589 --> 01:24:23,057
We were all very young.

1283
01:24:23,124 --> 01:24:25,960
- But I have a regret or two.
- In what form?

1284
01:24:26,060 --> 01:24:28,029
That I never went to see him.

1285
01:24:28,095 --> 01:24:30,164
His family kind of discouraged it.

1286
01:24:30,231 --> 01:24:31,566
Maybe we should have.

1287
01:24:31,632 --> 01:24:34,268
I regret that I never went up
to his house in Cambridge.

1288
01:24:34,335 --> 01:24:36,604
- In the '80s you mean?
- '80s, '90s, 2000s.

1289
01:24:36,671 --> 01:24:37,872
I didn't go either.

1290
01:24:37,939 --> 01:24:41,108
None of us did,
but I think, in retrospect,

1291
01:24:41,175 --> 01:24:44,979
both Syd and I
might have gained something

1292
01:24:45,046 --> 01:24:49,717
out of one or two people
popping around to his house

1293
01:24:49,784 --> 01:24:51,018
for a cup of tea.

1294
01:24:51,085 --> 01:24:56,724
There's this bloke who changed the lives
of everyone around him.

1295
01:24:59,760 --> 01:25:04,031
- Yeah, I think...
- It's a terrible story.

1296
01:25:04,098 --> 01:25:07,335
- Sorry?
- It's a terrible story, Storm.

1297
01:25:07,401 --> 01:25:11,005
- It's a sad story.
- It's a very, very sad story.

1298
01:25:12,873 --> 01:25:14,742
Is it a sad story? I wonder.

1299
01:25:16,277 --> 01:25:18,512
I don't think so, Storm, no.

1300
01:25:18,579 --> 01:25:20,181
- Sorry?
- I don't think so.

1301
01:25:21,115 --> 01:25:22,116
I hope not.

1302
01:25:26,053 --> 01:25:29,724
I suppose it's because
I partly feel he was unfulfilled

1303
01:25:29,790 --> 01:25:33,527
but that's just my projection
rather than what he felt.

1304
01:25:33,594 --> 01:25:34,594
Yeah.

1305
01:25:35,262 --> 01:25:39,600
Well, all right,
it's sad in this way.

1306
01:25:40,234 --> 01:25:45,439
We thought we were moving
in this wonderful direction to utopia.

1307
01:25:46,407 --> 01:25:49,844
We were fully engaged
in the hip dream

1308
01:25:49,910 --> 01:25:51,579
and it was a dream.

1309
01:25:51,646 --> 01:25:56,584
We had spiritual heights
in our sights and Syd too.

1310
01:26:15,636 --> 01:26:17,838
Do you have anything to tell me?

1311
01:26:30,618 --> 01:26:31,618
Yeah.

1312
01:26:33,320 --> 01:26:34,388
OK, Syd.

1313
01:26:34,455 --> 01:26:36,257
I can't, I sort of...

1314
01:26:45,566 --> 01:26:46,600
I can't really say.

1315
01:27:25,372 --> 01:27:29,877
If you were, hypothetically,
to write a letter to Syd...

1316
01:27:29,944 --> 01:27:31,879
Writing to him now? Yeah.

1317
01:27:31,946 --> 01:27:34,281
It would take me ages, I think.

1318
01:27:35,216 --> 01:27:39,653
I would say that he was a good man.
"You were a good man."

1319
01:27:40,287 --> 01:27:44,558
And it's terribly sad
what happened to you.

1320
01:27:44,625 --> 01:27:47,528
Sorry about all the rubbish
that gets written about you

1321
01:27:47,595 --> 01:27:49,864
"and the silly stories that get told."

1322
01:27:51,298 --> 01:27:55,369
"I'm glad that you managed
to get away from all that madness

1323
01:27:55,436 --> 01:27:57,972
that was going on
in London around your life.

1324
01:27:58,038 --> 01:28:01,876
And I hope that you were happy."

1325
01:28:08,382 --> 01:28:11,485
I'd say, "Syd come back,"
because he became Roger

1326
01:28:11,552 --> 01:28:13,454
and I don't think
Roger was any happier.

1327
01:28:14,421 --> 01:28:17,258
A lot of people think my career
started with David Bowie

1328
01:28:17,324 --> 01:28:22,129
and I'd have to say, well, of course,
really the beginning was Syd Barrett.

1329
01:28:22,830 --> 01:28:23,864
So, thank you Syd.

1330
01:28:25,966 --> 01:28:28,402
I always go back, revisit his work,

1331
01:28:28,469 --> 01:28:33,374
and it's always as good as I get
older and my understanding grows.

1332
01:28:33,440 --> 01:28:35,709
For me, he's like the perfect artist.

1333
01:28:35,776 --> 01:28:39,313
So, I'd like to give him a hug.

1334
01:28:49,657 --> 01:28:53,527
It's very interesting
that you bring up memory.

1335
01:28:53,594 --> 01:28:58,532
And clearly this whole story
that you're trying to tell about Syd

1336
01:28:58,599 --> 01:29:01,769
depends upon the memories
of people of our age.

1337
01:29:01,836 --> 01:29:03,704
Slippery memories, aren't they?

1338
01:29:03,771 --> 01:29:09,577
Well, we all know that we make up
memories to suit our egos.

1339
01:29:09,643 --> 01:29:12,079
- Thank you very much.
- No.

1340
01:29:12,146 --> 01:29:13,414
That was great.

1341
01:29:13,480 --> 01:29:15,516
It was nice to be led gently back.

1342
01:29:18,719 --> 01:29:21,922
It's actually quite emotional

1343
01:29:21,989 --> 01:29:24,792
standing up here with these
three guys after all these years.

1344
01:29:27,661 --> 01:29:29,997
Standing to be counted
with the rest of you.

1345
01:29:32,967 --> 01:29:36,136
Anyway, we're doing this
for everybody who's not here,

1346
01:29:36,203 --> 01:29:38,072
and particularly, of course, for Syd.

1347
01:31:26,046 --> 01:31:27,448
Syd, are you ready?

1348
01:31:27,514 --> 01:31:29,249
- Yeah.
- Off you go.

1349
01:33:42,182 --> 01:33:43,884
I'll do it on fop, right?

1350
01:33:43,951 --> 01:33:45,319
I'll start again.