It’s hard to listen to SYD BARRETT’S music without wondering what might have been. His story is, in many ways, one of the saddest in Rock history. It includes a brief, but astronomical brush with fame as Pink Floyd’s original leader, but also a meteoric, acid-fuelled burn-out and a withdrawal from both the music industry and (if some of the stories are to be believed) life itself.
Of course, Syd’s cautionary story is the very stuff of legend. Tales of his madness are legion, but while some of them are undoubtedly true (his eerie, unannounced appearance in the studio while Pink Floyd were recording their Syd tribute ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’), others (the melting mandrax incident on Floyd’s last tour with Barrett, Syd nipping down from the attic to paint his Mum’s fridge green during his self-imposed exile in Cambridge years later) are quite possibly apocryphal. I’m expecting to be enlightened by Rob Chapman’s ‘A Very Irregular Head’ biography of Barrett which is in my ‘to read imminently’ pile.
In the cold light of day, Syd’s legend is actually based on a very slim volume of officially-sanctioned recorded work. With Pink Floyd, he recorded the classic Psych-Pop album ‘The Piper at the Gates of Dawn’ (1967) but his fractured solo career spawned only the two LPS ‘The Madcap Laughs’ and ‘Barrett’, both released during 1970. Barrett was in no fit state to tour either, though he did manage a revealing and enjoyable pair of John Peel radio sessions and an album of out-takes (‘Opal’), both of which have been doing the rounds for years.
There was a previous Syd ‘Best of..’ collection in 2001 (‘Wouldn’t You Miss Me?’). Its’ major selling point was the inclusion of the warm, yet sarcastic ‘Bob Dylan Blues’, one of those ‘previously unreleased’ bombshells that forces long-term fans to fork out once again for songs they already know backwards. ‘Bob Dylan Blues’ again makes the cut here, but it seems this time round the unique selling proposition is to collect both Floyd and solo Syd cuts on one compilation. From what I know and can gather, that’s a first.
Thus, the self-explanatory ‘An Introduction to Syd Barrett’ is just that. Its’ typically surreal Storm Thorgerson artwork and some decent, Dave Gilmour-sanctioned re-mixes of a few tracks are its’ bonuses for long-term Barrett heads and it also works as a good starting point for the uninitiated. We get 18 tracks, fairly proportioned between ‘the hits’, ‘Piper at the Gates of Dawn’ and the two solo albums. It’s arranged pretty much sequentially and does Syd’s legend no harm at all.
Proceedings open with Floyd’s flirtation with the charts. The Joe Boyd-produced ‘Arnold Layne’ sounds as quaint and queasy as ever, while Syd’s stab at mass acceptance, ‘See Emily Play’ distils his ‘out-there’-ness beautifully for the Top 10. Floyd’s ‘Piper at the Gates of Dawn’ was recorded at Abbey Road while the Beatles were making ‘Sergeant Pepper’ next door and we get several cuts from it, including a robust re-mix of the dreamy ‘Matilda Mother’, the I-Ching influenced ‘Chapter 24’ and the lunatic whimsy of ‘Bike’ which has long since split the purists. Personally, I love its’ Lewis Carroll-style innocence and madcap bike bell symphony.
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From then on, Barrett’s behaviour became increasingly unhinged and erratic and it wasn’t arrested by ‘Apples & Oranges’, his unlikely attempt at a third hit single which sank without trace. By the spring of 1968, Barrett’s long-time Cambridge friend Dave Gilmour had replaced him in Pink Floyd and Barrett began his protracted retreat from the rigours of the commercial world.
Of his two albums, the first ‘The Madcap Laughs’ has the reputation as the more together of the two. Personally, I would dispute that. There’s some great stuff – the determined, acid-campfire strumming of ‘Terrapin’, the (almost) disciplined two-step ‘Here I Go’ and a decent re-mix of the aquatic, Psych-pop classic ‘Octopus’ – but the likes of ‘If It’s In You’ and ‘Dark Globe’ (where Syd desperately implores “wouldn’t you miss me...at all???!”) are harrowing to say the least. There again, the record’s seat of the pants charm acts the blueprint for Julian Cope’s legendary ‘Skellington’ album, so it’s not all bad.
The second album ‘Barrett’ benefited from Dave Gilmour’s steadying guidance behind the desk and it bequeaths several great tracks, mostly with a fleshed-out, full band sound. ‘Baby Lemonade’ and ‘Gigolo Aunt’ are both recognisable idiosyncratic Pop classics, while the rangy, blues-y ‘Dominoes’ is again well-structured and smart. The much-maligned ‘Effervescing Elephant’, meanwhile, is so child-like it almost regresses to the womb, but it’s lovely and makes me smile regardless.
Post-‘Barrett’, Syd had one more brief stab at music with the ill-fated power trio Stars, but in terms of recording it was all over bar the shouting. Rumours of his crazy, reclusive ways appear to have been exaggerated as it seems he actually lead a normal enough life surrounded by his family in Cambridge until his death in 2006, but it’s sad to think he couldn’t have had something of a creative renaissance in the way Brian Wilson and even Roky Erickson have had in recent years.
Still, we owe Syd a truckload of respect. His wonderful, whimsical music has endured remarkably well and it’s hard to imagine we’d have the eccentric likes of Robyn Hitchcock, Julian Cope and Graham Coxon without him either. ‘An Introduction to Syd Barrett’ omits several crucial tracks like the riff-heavy ‘Lucifer Sam’ and the eerie ‘Golden Hair’, but it’s still a satisfying listen and will amaze those coming to it cold.
Syd Barrett official website
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