The taking from Syd
The
With a very
limited body of work, he influenced. With a total lack of interest for the
silly "business" of music, he influenced. With an unstable psyche and
a growing inability to function in a normal day to day way, he influenced.
A very simple
answer to a complex question. Syd Barrett was a
genius, nothing less. I, at one time in my life listened to nothing but Syd, as I did at times with various bands. Bands like the
Stones, Kiss, Elton John, and Alice Cooper. To the point of obsession I would
go through these stages of listening to nothing but these artists. Mother was
very patient with me. Of course there was plenty of other music and outside
influences to mold and make me what I am today, a songwriter. There are hundred
of thousands songwriters in the world today. As a songwriter, let me tell you
it is not that complicated, you are a good songwriter or a bad songwriter.
Money and fame have
nothing to do with it. What there are not hundreds of thousands of in the world
today are geniuses. And to be an artist and a genius is very rare. Oh, sure
there are mùany artists who believe themselves
to be geniuses and oh so gifted, but this usually is nothing more than
pretentiousness and over inflated egotism.
Syd influenced
many artists, from Robyn Hitchcock, who at one point of his career believed he
must be "the second Syd", to David Bowie
who was blown away at a club in early 1967 where on the stage this pale pancake
faced madman sang sci-fi psychedelia and waved his
arms in the air, as if he indeed were were an air
traffic controller guiding in the wildist of space
crafts he adored writing about so much. I have been greatly influenced by Syd Barrett myself and although I am not on the verge of
obsession anymore, I will always believe That it was
this madcap who took the musician I was and turned him into a songwriter.
For Syd, being a genius must have been terribly difficult to
handle. He was, or seemed to be, very unhappy in our world. He retreated to
another plane through songwriting, painting, and ,yes,
his acid. Wether or not it was the LSD, fame or his
father's death that finally did him in is pointless to muddle over. It was
probably a combination of these and other things we couldn't even fathom. What
didn't seem very difficult for Syd was creating. Wether it was a song, a painting, or an outfit for stage or
street, he was a natural. His imaginations seemed endless and the burning out
of his imagination is indeed one of the great tragedies or Rock and Roll. Jim
Morrison; Brian Wilson; Brian Jones; Janis and Jimi;
the list goes on and on. The difference between Syd
and these other casualties is that Syd's contribution
was so small yet his influence is still fellt today. Along
with the continuing members of the Pink Floyd, Bowie and Hitchcock, many others
have nipped from the madcap's cup. Especially the
bands from today's underground movement, a movement which Pink Floyd helped
pioneer in early 1966. Not to mention the decadent spiritualist, Juilan Cope; Michael Stipe, the
ever pretentious Robert Smith of the Cure (Hey, that's Syd's
hair!) and what about old Alice Cooper who hung with the Floyd in Los Angeles
while they were in the middle of their first tour of the USA, Syd's first and only trip to America.
"Barrett was a huge
influence on me, absolutely. I thought Syd could do
no wrong. I thought he was a massive talent. He was the first I has ever seen
in the middle '60 who could decorate a stage. He has this strange
mystical look to him, with painted black fingernails and his eyes fully made
up. He was like some figure out of an indonesian
play or something, and he wasn't altogether of this world." - David Bowie,
1990
The fashion, yeah, that
hair is everywhere, thos eyes with the vacant stare. Syd and all who
have been introdiced to his surreal world. He's
in me, and at times the presence can be an uneasy one. For an artist or anyone
who has a passion to create, dicontent fuels
imagination. There is so much more I could ramble about but I have the sudden
urge to write a song ... Gotta go. Oh, and
Syd, thank you.