Syd Barrett - Rock's Crazy Diamond

There is always some madness in love, but there is always some reason in madness.

(F.W. Nietzsche)

Syd Barrett was the first leader of Pink Floyd, as well as the éminence grise of the entire British psychedelic movement (and beyond). It's practically impossible to list all the bands that have in some way drawn inspiration from the lysergic visions of the "mad hatter" of Cambridge. Yet his two solo works (both released in 1970, on the Harvest label) were also the last flare of a defeated man, drawing ever closer to the end of his creativity. Conceived in a state of progressive depression, recklessly managed with massive doses of a potent psychotropic drug like Mandrax, they would in some way mark the definitive break between Barrett's universe and the real world.

Barrett was the creative soul of the first incarnation of Floyd, the one not yet worth billions, which delighted in experimenting across acoustic ballads, dazed nursery rhymes and instrumental suites. A formula born with “The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn”, in which Barrett immerses himself in a formidable journey into the mind through drugs and hallucinations, and which would fade over time, starting with his departure from the band in 1968.

The survivors, led first by Roger Waters and then by David Gilmour, would go on juggling genuine masterpieces of mature rock with more mannered, borderline commercial works. Barrett, on the other hand, bore the weight of a progressive marginalization from that musical universe which he had always crossed in such an eccentric, crooked way.

In his two solo projects, on which Waters and Gilmour themselves took part as producers (perhaps with more than a little guilt), the "mad hatter" of Cambridge offers a demonstration of his immense creative capacity, his hallucinated fervor capable of birthing monsters and visions, fables and nightmares, all rendered with the delicate touch of consistently sober, subtle instrumentation, and dreamlike, fairy-tale arrangements. The figures Barrett evokes are backlit silhouettes, yet ones capable of tearing open gashes of existential desolation. They are confused, fragile visions, which nonetheless manage to sketch out a scenario of collective neurosis of absolute modernity.

The Madcap Laughs, the first record released under the name Syd Barrett, is a mad, living record, a cold fusion of colors and flashes of genius, a restless serenade to the demon of imperfection. By today's standards, in short, an unbearable blasphemy, a punch in the eye even for the most daring of record executives. Indeed we find it relegated almost to the margins of the spotlight, prey to a cult that is widespread yet barely visible, one to which the mainstream media grant only an interested wag of the tail on the most searing anniversaries (or worse still, on the occasion of odious and improbable "scoops" about Syd Barrett the private citizen). A record that seems defeated but is in fact bursting with life, bolstered by sounds that are at times skeletal, at times complex, thanks also to the impressive array of musicians involved, from Floyd members Roger Waters, Richard Wright and David Gilmour (also a producer, alongside Malcolm Jones), to Canterbury scene figures Robert Wyatt, Hugh Hopper and Mike Ratledge (all three of Soft Machine), plus Willie Wilson (versatile drummer of psychedelic outfit Quiver).

There is enchantment and magic from the very start, with the opening “Terrapin”, a slippery, sly country-folk tune: soft curls of electric guitar tracing the edges of the dream, acoustic guitar scratching at the indolence of the rhythm, framing a nursery-rhyme chorus that flares up and rears back with the comic, graceless charm of a mule. The most striking wonders, however, begin right after, with the fireworks of “No Good Trying” (anarchic drumming, a bulbous bass, a spatial organ) and the vaudeville drive of “Love You” (the wild west of convention, with a thoroughly dazed Syd Barrett and a phenomenal saloon piano).

Was our diamond completely mad? More or less — meanwhile, “No Man’s Land” brings together, with inexorable simplicity, the grimy urban counter-epic of the Velvet Underground and the (extra)ordinary psychic vision of the Byrds and 13th Floor Elevator, while, with a triple twisting dive, the following “Dark Globe” lays itself bare in its own fragile acoustic splendor, like a love that knows no form or law, as if a drunken angel were singing on the edge of hell.

“Here I Go” canters along on a flimsy boogie-jazz structure that isn't afraid to indulge in a chorus with a vibrant beat-group feel: a track with an innocuous, almost friendly appearance, which in the end stamps itself onto the soul like a pernicious disease. Serving as the watershed between one side and the other (so to speak, as usual) is the phantasmagorical “Octopus”, the tumultuous center of the kaleidoscope, the miraculous mathematics of genius, the arrogance of verses that resolve into sudden, prodigious choruses, nonchalantly thrown against the systematic imperfection of the structure (the friction of the timbres, the uncertain timing, the naive, overflowing use of stereo).

After all this, the brief dark madrigal of “Golden Hair” is striking in its clarity and restraint: the deep lyricism of the voice (only slightly distracted), the solemnity of the acoustic guitar, the fluttering pulse of the timpani, and an almost imperceptible but decisive presence of the organ (as if pressed flat to the ground). The same organ digs psychedelic tunnels into the eardrums on “Long Gone”, where two vocal lines intertwine an octave apart in a kind of carefree delirium (something the post-“Piper” Pink Floyd — so dreamily bluesy, dramatically pop and knowingly cool — would always lack). Who knows what Bob Dylan would make of a folk so bled dry as “She Took A Cold Long Look”, a folk that scornfully and crystalline-ly forgets its own physiological mission of liberation and becomes instead the bewildered pulp of a soul, an astonished and disenchanted gaze on the world of dreams, as in the incredible “Feel”, a deconstructed and vibrant country-folk pastiche that suddenly takes flight towards shores of moving fantasy, where the very heart of the most elusive sensibilities beats.

Final flourishes courtesy of the raucous “If It’s In You” (little more than a demo, with its fine share of false starts and the ambition to leap straight to the peak of emotion) and the closing “Late Night” (slide guitar meowing in the distance, a highly acidic vein of guitar and drums, the vocal held back on low, velvety registers, the melody left suspended amid a swirl of indefinable, prodigious possibilities). In my dreams as an incorrigible adolescent, refusing the call of common sense, a still-thin, long-haired Syd Barrett jams tirelessly with his transatlantic twin Alexandre “Skip” Spence: searing ideas with neither father nor mother, vague, tarantella-stricken voices, the smile of instinctive intelligence, the rhythmic swaying of thick manes like a mutual nod of approval... And nothing to mourn, no one who has gone away (vanished, lost) that I wish were still here.

Convinced he had a brilliant and lasting solo career ahead of him, his managers pressed Syd into a new venture at Abbey Road, hoping to produce another successful record. “I'm only 24, I'm still young, there's time,” Barrett is said to have insisted, showing a certain reluctance to go back into the studio to work. Indeed, the recording sessions for his first solo work had been anything but a walk in the park: “He kept taking Mandrax. He was so out of it that during those sessions his hand would slip off the strings while he fell off his chair,” recalls Storm Thorgerson, Syd's childhood friend and celebrated cover artist for the Hipgnosis studio.

To persuade Barrett to get back to work, another old friend was called in: Dave Gilmour, his replacement in Floyd, who had already served as producer, alongside Roger Waters, on The Madcap Laughs. The guitarist was rightly considered one of the few people — if not the only one — capable of establishing fruitful communication with the Cambridge genius. Barrett was given complete freedom to record demos, which Gilmour would later work on, with the collaboration of Rick Wright, another old Pink Floyd bandmate of Syd's. Young Jerry Shirley was brought in on drums.

Work began in late February 1970 and dragged on for a long time; the record would not see the light of day until November, after countless difficulties. Despite the cover art, done by Syd himself, Barrett can hardly be dismissed as the classic handful of nothing. The opening trio is disarming: “Baby Lemonade”, “Love Song” and “Dominoes”, three gems that stand at the very peak of Barrett's output. Three love songs, with constantly shifting atmospheres — acoustic one moment, charged with barely whispered electricity the next — forever balanced between the measured and the muffled, united by that psychedelic-tinged mood that is Barrett's true trademark.

"It Is Obvious", declares the next track, though nothing here is truly obvious: Barrett's singing is dazed, the lyrics begin to definitively lose their grip on reason, the melody grows unsteady. It's the bridge leading us into the album's maddest stretch: the two oddball blues numbers "Rats" and "Maisie", though built on a rhythmic fabric as well-worn as it was dear to Barrett, shine with a light of their own thanks to their strangeness, their otherness compared to the rest of the album. Where "Rats" has an obsessive drive, "Maisie" settles everything down, with Syd seemingly even trying, unusually, to play the tough guy.

Then comes "Gigolo Aunt", perhaps the best-"polished" song on the whole album, which unfortunately also remains the only one Barrett actually took part in during the final recording stage. Marked by an insistent bassline, over which effective embroideries of electric guitar and organ are laid, it draws more than a smile thanks to its bizarre, ironic lyrics ("'Cause I know who you are, you're a gigolo aunt").

“Waving My Arms In The Air”, a kind of revival of Swinging London and those days when Syd led Pink Floyd through their first, fortunate light shows — perhaps literally waving his arms in the air — brings the melodies back onto more familiar tracks, blending into the following “I Never Lied To You”, a classic love song that echoes the successful first half of the record. “Wined And Dined”, extraordinary in its simplicity, stands out for the delicacy and perfection of its chord progressions. A classic lull before the storm, it is, paradoxically, the ideal lead-in to the album's final abrupt turn.

"Wolfpack", probably Barrett's own favourite track, is as fierce as the pack it sings of with such anguish, its lyrics strangely raw ("The life that for a moment was ours / has fallen away in the end / brief circling / fresh prey / dripping with flesh and bone"). In the song it's almost as if Syd wanted to schizophrenically pour out all the latent violence of his precarious state of mind. The album closes with the whimsical nursery rhyme "Effervescing Elephant", one of Barrett's very earliest compositions, dating all the way back to when he was 16 and dug up for the occasion.

Despite all the limitations of a record born from material barely superior in quality to a demo tape, and a sound that Gilmour had to invent from scratch, Barrett possesses merits that go well beyond the purely musical: an extraordinary collage of moods, it is the perfect musical transposition of inner conflicts, faded memories, loves and fears of a vanishing rock star — a true analysis from within a state of alienation that, sadly, offers no way out.

Superior in emotional charge to its predecessor, Barrett is Syd's true artistic “testament”, his last high note just months before he left behind a stage he had trodden as intensely as briefly, retreating into his own world of small pleasures, naive obsessions and simple daily routine.

After a long hospital stay and a period of rest at home, in 1977 Barrett showed up again at Pink Floyd's recording studio, and in 1982 he gave his first interview in twelve years.

The anthology Wouldn't You Miss Me came out in 2001, more than ten years after the Opel outtakes and eight years after the final box set Crazy Diamond. It is the first collection to gather, on a single CD, the best of the former Pink Floyd member's brilliant solo career. Tracks like “Octopus”, “Terrapin” and “Golden Hair” still manage to sound current, even though at times they may seem paradoxical, almost naive. And masterpieces like “Effervescing Elephants” or “Baby Lemonade” retain all their light intact even thirty years on. Throughout Syd's lysergic journey there is always a great deal of irony — a subtle irony that at times seems to twist into a sardonic grin, but which conceals a sense of desolation, of defeat. It's the quiet resignation glimpsed among the notes of tracks like “Waving My Arms In The Hair”, “Wolfpack”, “Long Gone”.

Twenty-two tracks across more than seventy minutes of music, all carefully remastered, offer a sufficient, if not exhaustive, overview of his career. But for the fans there's also a real gem, a true unreleased rarity: “Bob Dylan Blues”. It's a folk-blues number taped in 1970, in which Syd has fun impersonating Dylan down to the smallest detail — a sort of near-rhyming parody of the more or less likeable traits of the American songwriter. A small jewel that only adds to the regret over what Barrett might still have given to the world of music.

All that remains, then, is to echo what Graham Coxon writes in the album's liner notes: “I like to imagine him happy while painting or walking in the park. He's not the one who's lost touch with the pop circus.” Indeed, it's probably quite the opposite.

Syd Barrett died in Cambridge on 7 July 2006, at the age of 60, after living thirty years in isolation. He leaves behind one of the richest legacies rock has ever known.

Contributions by Nello Giovane – IAMR (“Madcap Laughs”)

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