R.I.P. Syd

I was handling the death of Syd Barrett pretty well until I read his tribute in the August 10 issue of Rolling Stone. That really depressed me. And yeah, I know this isn't especially timely, but it just reached a boiling point in my head, and I needed to say something.

There was so much music he could have/should have made, but the ingestion of LSD and other drugs took precedence. Instead of making music, he just ended up living the life of a hermit.

I can understand... There are times when life is pretty damned scary and intimidating, and you just want to pull the covers over your head and hide. Brian Wilson almost fell into the same trap, but thankfully, his loved ones, and prehaps even Dr. Landy, helped him get out of it. Syd just seemed to bask in his isolation.

Syd was always a fascinating figure to me, and Pink Floyd was one of my major bands during high school (more on that in the never-ending Steve's Favorite series, coming soon to a blog near you). One of the tapes that my friends and I passed around for Walkman consumption was Relics (the current CD version has a drastically different cover: I miss the old one...), a collection of early Floyd tunes. My two favorites on the collection were both Barrett tunes -- "Arnold Layne" about a guy who steals women's underwear off the washlines and then models it in the mirror, and "Bike," featuring some of the best nonsensical lyrics ever. In addition, the vocals and most of the instrumentation on "Bike" are panned hard right on the stereo mix, with echoes and piano happening hard left. The result is a lopsided feeling on headphones, until it reaches the "clockwork" section at the end -- a wonderful cacophony of clock sounds and other mechanical and freaky noises balanced equally across both speakers. It may be far-fetched, but I hear Syd setting the stage for some of the later sound collage of Ummagumma and the incorporation of everyday sounds into Dark Side of the Moon.

I know it sounds cheesy and all, but I do hope Syd died a happy man. I'm sad to see him go, and the selfish side of me hopes he's been working on some masterpiece all these years that's stashed under the floorboards of his house. But I'm not optimistic... Bye Syd.