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

Last night they showed the induction ceremony for the UK Music Hall of Fame on VH1. I didn't see the first part of the show, only the last part where they inducted Pink Floyd, but that was well worth it. Pete Townsend did the induction, which is appropriate given his friendship with the band and…
The World's Fair has a post up asking the ScienceBloggers the following question: If you make a music mix that is a reflection of your informative years, what would those dozen or so songs be, and maybe more interesting, why? You don't have to be proud of the song choices - they're not necessarily…
Boiled in Lead, "Blackened Page": An interestingly mysterious song, written by one of my favorite fiction writers, the brilliant Steven Brust. J.S. Bach, "Cantata #77": Bach's Cantata's are some of the finest pieces of music ever written. Amazing. Mandelbrot Set, "And the Rockets Red Glare": very…
I haven't done a FRT in a while. Mogwai, "Kids Will be Skeletons": a typical Mogwai track; brilliant post-rock. The Redneck Manifesto, "Bring Your Own Blood: more post-rock in the same general vein as Mogwai. This one is a bit up-tempo, with a very cool rythym. Gogol Bordello, "Dub the…

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.