Syd

It is with great distress and sadness that I learned the news of Syd Barrett’s death. Although only 60 years old, to put an age on someone as timeless and mythical as Syd is like dating the Pyramids or Stonehenge — I’m sure if we’d learned that he was 10,000 years old, no one would have been particularly shocked. He had not contributed anything artistically to the public domain since the very early ’70s, but somehow knowing that he was still there somewhere in Cambridge, albeit in a supposedly vegetative state, was in some way reassuring. That his body and his soul must now be consigned to the Underworld makes all of us several psychic megatonnes lighter tonight. 

When I was given my first Barrett album by my then-girlfriend Jane Smith in 1973, Syd was already lamented as a probable casualty of the ’60s. At that point, 36 months since his last release, we’d all hoped for some sort of artistic rebirth, however reduced that statement may have been. It’s difficult now in the early 21st Century to explain just how divided were the opposing pro-Barrett and pro-Pink Floyd camps. We can gain some solace from Roky Erikson’s return to public appearances, but not much — as Syd has quit this planet far too young. 

I refuse to sign off with any dubious lyrical conceit, because I’m crying too much. Syd: thanks for staying as long as you did.

JULIAN