Nowhere MAN?
Poet, pop star and clown prince of psychedelic rock, Syd Barrett’s painful decline into an apparent world of acid-induced mental anguish merely served to enhance the myth that surrounded him. This feature, originally published in the first issue of Prog, asks whether we knew the real story.
Words: Tommy Udo
Cambridge, mid-90s: to paraphrase the words of that bloody song by the Television Personalities, we knew where Syd Barrett lived. It wasn’t really very hard to find his house - a few phone calls, a couple of letters and there we were. It’d been a quarter of a century since Syd’s last disastrous stage appearance - with Stars, also featuring ex-Pretty Things and Pink Fairies drummer Twink - and since then all had been quiet. Too quiet… His absence had been maddening. In our arrogance, we’d come to seek him out, to doorstep him as though he was some dodgy company director or politician. To get him - force him, even - to explain himself. How dare he revolutionise rock’n’roll and then give it all up and just walk away without a word! Not even having the good manners to die young!
Of course there were no illusions that we are the first hacks, fans or weird obsessives to go looking for Roger ‘Syd’ Barrett. And, as one grouchy neighbour made clear to us, we weren’t even the first to turn up that day.
After half an hour of knocking on the door, we stuffed a note through the letterbox, sat in the car and waited. By midnight there was still no sign of anyone. If he was hiding in the house, he was sitting there with all the lights out. We gave up and left; if we’re honest, we were relieved not to have found him. It was never that Syd was ‘lost’, he just really never wanted to be found.
Like Robert Johnson, Syd Barrett’s recorded legacy is slim. There are 40-odd songs, mostly written during a rich creative period from 1966 to 1967, ranging from the cosmic freak-out of Interstellar Overdrive to the childish whimsy of The Gnome to the cracked and melancholy Jugband Blues. Yet these songs drew up the blueprint that would shape Pink Floyd for three decades - they never really emerged from his shadow - as well as for the post-psychedelic progressive rock scene.