RIP Syd Barrett

[Double J]

The Canadian Press just moved a bulletin quoting a Pink Floyd spokeswoman as saying he has died. No other details yet.

 

[lono]

Damn. :-[

 

[Football_Bat]

RIP.

Pink Floyd was good without him, but total greatness with.

How did the crazy diamond make it to 2006 anyway?

 

[patchs]

Shine on
And doesn't the new PF DVD come out today?

 

[Blitz]

See Emily Play
And now Syd, too
RIP

(Floyd was better in later years without him, though IMO)
Animals is their greatest record, to date.

 

[Bubbler]

Lunatic Floyd fans will find a way to blame this on David Gilmour.

Shine on, Syd. Though Floyd was better in its 70s incarnation, until the wheels fell off with The Wall.

 

[Moondoggy]

From the Times of London:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2265034,00.html

Or, if you don't want to follow the link:

Pink Floyd founder Syd Barrett dies at home
By Adam Fresco

Times obituary

 
Syd Barrett, the founding member of Pink Floyd, has died aged 60 at his Cambridgeshire home where he became a recluse 30 years ago.



The inspirational guitarist, singer and lyricist founded the band in 1965 and was one of its biggest songwriting talents in the group’s early days.

But his behaviour became erratic during the psychedelic drug haze of the 1960s and he split with the band in 1968. He has since lived reclusively in Cambridge.

A spokeswoman for Pink Floyd said: "He died very peacefully a couple of days ago." It has been reported that he died last Friday from complications related to diabetes.

The band said today that they were "very upset" to learn of his death and that he was the "guiding light" of the early days.

A spokesman said: "The band are naturally very upset and sad to learn of Syd Barrett's death. Syd was the guiding light of the early band line-up and leaves a legacy which continues to inspire."

His brother Alan confirmed his death, saying only: "He died peacefully at home. There will be a private family funeral in the next few days."

Pink Floyd formed in the 1960s and became one of the most successful groups ever, with worldwide album sales of more than 200 million.

Known as an album band they had only one No 1 in this country, their iconic hit Another Brick in the Wall.

Pete Paphides, The Times’s Chief Rock Critic, said that Barrett could be seen in the same context as Van Gogh - a genius who saw things differently to other people.

"He will be remembered fondly and seen as someone who created compellingly disturbing work. He was a troubled, tortured genius who saw the world differently from the rest of us and we will always be intrigued by that.

"With his two solo albums you get a real sense that he was someone who was processing what he saw and how his senses perceived things in a different way to the rest of us.

"Technically he was not a great musician but he was a great artist and one of a kind who deserves his iconic status."

Barrett is said to have come up with the name for the band by fusing the names of bluesmen Pink Anderson and Floyd Council in 1965. He created Pink Floyd with his old friend Roger Waters, and became a huge star at the age of 21. But he could hardly perform during his final days with the band, because he was taking so much LSD.

When his drug-fuelled behaviour became too much, the band drafted in Dave Gilmour as guitarist, and decided not to pick Barrett up for gigs.

The song Shine On You Crazy Diamond, written by Waters and performed during the band’s 1974 tour, is an appreciation for the contributions Barrett made to the band.

It includes the lines "Remember when you were young, you shone like the sun. Shine on you crazy diamond. now there’s a look in your eyes, like black holes in the sky".

Gilmour said in an interview earlier this year that he thought that Barrett's breakdown would have happened anyway. He said: "It was a deep-rooted thing. But I'll say the psychedelic experience might well have acted as a catalyst. Still, I just don't think he could deal with the vision of success and all the things that went with it."

After a period of hibernation, Barrett re-emerged in 1970 with a pair of albums, The Madcap Laughs and Barrett, which featured considerable support from his former bandmates.

With increasing psychological problems, Barrett withdrew into near-total reclusion after these albums and never released any more material and rarely appeared in public.

Born Roger Keith Barrett in Cambridge in 1946, he acquired the nickname Syd aged 15.

He left Pink Floyd in 1968, just as the band was about to achieve worldwide recognition, and lived in the basement of his mother Winfred’s semi-detached house where he boarded up the windows to keep out the eyes of both the press and fans.

 

[Ronnie "Z-Man" Barzell]

"Won't you miss me? Wouldn't you miss me at all?"

:'(

 

[Buck]

RIP

 

[tonysoprano]

Hey, Syd or post Syd, I'm just thankful for PF. Got three of their CDs, and "Learning to Fly" has been one of my fav songs for a long, long time.

 

[Piotr Rasputin]

Hey, Syd or post Syd, I'm just thankful for PF. Got three of their CDs, and "Learning to Fly" has been one of my fav songs for a long, long time.

I always feel bad for those who discovered Pink Floyd so late in their career that they think the post-Waters music is actually worth a ****. Especially by comparison.

As for Syd Barrett . . . . a loss which unfortunately was truly felt in the musical community decades ago. His whole life turned into a struggle and a shame, sadly. Would have been fascinating to hear what the band would have been as Waters matured if Barrett was able to keep it together. 

As for the Wall: I happen to like it, though it lyrically is one of the most disingenuous albums you could ever hear, considering the insane heights of success they reached before spending 90 minutes of great music complaining about how tough it was to be rich and famous. And we all know that album sales are far from an indicator of quality of music, o course.

RIP Syd Barrett. Unfortunately dead to the world since the Nixon administration.

 

[Double J]

Apparently he went back to his original given name, Roger.

In a related story, Roger McGuinn of the Byrds has decided he wants to be called "Jim" again. No, I'm just kidding.

 

[Sam Mills 51]

"Time" ... this one's for Syd:

Ticking away the moments that make up the dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an off hand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find that ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun

And you run and run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking
And racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death

Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or a half page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in a quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone the song is over, thought i'd something more to say

 

[Bubbler]

As for the Wall: I happen to like it, though it lyrically is one of the most disingenuous albums you could ever hear, considering the insane heights of success they reached before spending 90 minutes of great music complaining about how tough it was to be rich and famous. And we all know that album sales are far from an indicator of quality of music, o course.

That's why I hate it, why I think it's the most overrated "major" album ever made, and why it's likely the worst album in my collection (bought it when I was like 19, have never been able to unload it).

It's like a Roger Waters therapy session put to middling Floyd music, only its the most pretentious, annoying, self-pitying therapy session this side of Tony Soprano. And some of its passable songs -- Run Like Hell, Young Lust -- are so overplayed on classic rock radio, I never want to hear them again. That goes double for Another Brick In The Wall, the song that inspired me to get the album, but a song that really isn't very good, despite its anthemic status.

Only saving grace? Comfortably Numb. Also overplayed, but its greatness overcomes even that.

 

[dooley_womack1]

Agreed on The Wall. It's like the people who think Supertramp is great based on Breakfast in America, or think Give a Little Bit was a Sheryl Crow song.

 

[Piotr Rasputin]

On a message board where sports are discussed often, in depth and at length, I shouldn't be surprised when someone allows their own passionate fandom to cloud their logic and truthful understanding of something they love and enjoy.

So I'm not.

- Anyway, it's kind of cute how Junkie acts like we just insulted his mother (or called him a "dirty terrorist") when someone points out how amusing it is that the Wall is all about how much it sucks to be a rich and famous rock star.

It's a great album. With a plotline and lyrics that are nothing more than a guy who has carved out quite a nice life pissing and moaning about how unhappy he is and how much it sucks to be him. Try not to let your reading of a dozen Floyd biographies cloud an honest reading of what the message in those lyrics is.

besides of course the message of most Floyd stuff. Which is "let's get really wasted and mellow out while listeing to these tunes."

 

[BYH]

Agreed on The Wall. It's like the people who think Supertramp is great based on Breakfast in America, or think Give a Little Bit was a Sheryl Crow song.

Wait...it's not?

 

[BYH]

- Anyway, it's kind of cute how Junkie acts like we just insulted his mother (or called him a "dirty terrorist")...

If you really want to get his goat, call him a dirty closer.

 

[dooley_womack1]

Agreed on The Wall. It's like the people who think Supertramp is great based on Breakfast in America, or think Give a Little Bit was a Sheryl Crow song.

Wait...it's not?

Nah, sorry. And would you roll over to the nightstand and get Junkie a Valium.

 

[Double J]

Agreed on The Wall. It's like the people who think Supertramp is great based on Breakfast in America, or think Give a Little Bit was a Sheryl Crow song.

Wait...it's not? 

Of course not. It's by the Goo Goo Dolls.

Right, because a band that sold 90 million albums, had one chart for 800 weeks and would be the biggest tour in history if its members reunited only has one fan.

What does Abba have do with this?

And is it just me, or is ripping Floyd on the day the news of Syd Barrett's death breaks a bit odd? "Yeah, John Lennon was shot to death today, but Ringo sucked!"

In the Eastern time zone, it's already the day after Syd's death was announced, so the band is fair game now. ;D