Music Nov 19, 2014 at 4:00 am

Syd Barrett

Comments

1
You got it right. Syd was a founding member of Pink Floyd and his solo albums, tragically, were the beginning and the end of a too-short career. Syd lost his mind to drugs and Pink Floyd sailed on to infamy. Have a listen to Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here and The Wall and you will hear songs haunted by his ghost: Brain Damage, Shine on you Crazy Diamond, and Nobody Home.
2
@1 meso: You beat me to it!! I saw the name Syd Barrett and my head jerked up. Shine on, you crazy diamond.
3
Syd Barrett is one of the very few things that I fell in love with in High School and 30 years later I still feel the same way. His music blows my mind and it almost always feels fresh and new. One Of A Kind for sure!

His life is a tragedy and his influence is larger then most would believe. The Damned wanted him to record their first album... which happened to be the first Punk record... if he would have stayed sober he could have changed the way we think of pop music
4
Also BTW don't google him... Enjoy the recordings he left and let his story fade away. Shortly after his recording days he became someone else entirely and hated his former life.
5
Is this the Syd from Syd and Nancy?
6
Somewhere, there are maybe three dozen starving prog rock bands that are just ecstatic that The Stranger is sharing a postive review of a Sud Barret album from a lifetime ago.

Next up:
Kinda Blue is a kinda good jazz record.
Bob Dylan wrote some good lyrics.
7
No Idaho. No, it's not.
8
Effervescing Elephant was the first song I learned on guitar. Get that one on your zoo playlist. Terrapin is easy guitar also. .
9
"Remember when you were young? You shown like the sun. Shine on you crazy diamond."

So yeah, if you liked Barrett's solo albums, go directly to iTunes (or wherever) and grab the two Pink Floyd albums that were made with him as a member: "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn" and "A Saucerful of Secrets". They're pretty much as good as 60s ambient psychedelia gets, and some of the few examples of the genre that you don't need to be high as fuck on acid to find tolerable, which is not to say that a tab wouldn't improve the experience.

(n.b. Barrett's mental illness basically incapacitated him midway through making "Saucerful" and he's only on a few tracks)

After that, skip forward a decade and pick up "Wish You Were Here", which is the rest of the band's album-length tribute to Barrett. Easily the best album that Pink Floyd ever made, and pretty much the high water mark of 70s prog rock.
10
True story. My wife used to think the Czechs must be up to something really cool, with all this talk about "Prague Rock."
11
guys she said she didn't want to know.
12
yeah, uh huh, you name drop pink floyd but claim you don't know any of his backstory. i ain't buying it, sister.
13
And name drop Oar as well? She must have known something.
14
David Gilmour covered a few of Syd's solo songs. The results are fantastic.



Dominoes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yuHQfvb…



Terrapin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAVC5oY0…



Dark Globe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GCM6EV9…
15

I've got a bike. You can ride it if you like.
It's got a basket, a bell that rings and
Things to make it look good.
I'd give it to you if I could, but I borrowed it.
You're the kind of girl that fits in with my world.
I'll give you anything, ev'rything if you want things.


No sweeter love-poem this side if `If I had two dead rats I'd give you one.'
16
First you'll fall in love with his music.



Then, you'll fall in love with him.



What a man, what a talent.


17
Actually, you can skip the related Pink Floyd songs and just enjoy Syd on his own terms. You are correct: "Late Night" is mad dreamy romantic and was an obsessive unrequited love song for me in college. If you want to fast forward a decade plus on this train, go directly to Chris Bell's album "I Am the Cosmos."

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