To the Floyd Fans

i-d1a6531f1f005ba72cbd57c90e05a7c1-SydBarret.jpgI'm a huge Pink Floyd fan. I still look upon the time I saw them live in 1994 as a religious experience. Unlike many Floyd fans my age, though, I prefer their early albums to their later ones (up to and including Obscured by Clouds, but especially A Saucer Full of Secrets, Ummagumma, Atom Heart Mother, and Meddle). That means I'm also a huge Syd Barrett fan. Barrett's story, as I'm sure you know, is a pretty sad one. His musical career was cut short (Pink Floyd's first album was released in 1967, and he was, for all intents and purposes, out of the music industry by 1972) as a result of what was most likely schizophrenia. He died in July of this year.

Anyway, I stumbled across these two articles about Barrett at Schizophrenia.com, the first of which contains the thoughts of people who knew him well. I thought they might be of interest to the Floyd fans out there.

More like this

I love all things Floyd. It used to be the tradition at my house to play Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast during Sunday morning breakfast (of course!) and Careful with that Axe, Eugene with the volume way up on Halloween.

Other obscurities: biologists must listen to Roger Waters' The Body. I've got it on an ancient LP, but unfortunately, now lack the technology to play it.

These lyrics are from Pink Floyd, but are not Barrets. Anyway, I find them ingenious.

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain.
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today.
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you.
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.

So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again.
The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older,
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death.