Credit: Far Out / Syd Barrett / Alamy
Wed 9 September 2026 22:18, UK
While David Gilmour was technically the replacement for Syd Barrett in Pink Floyd, their time in the band did overlap, and he was never viewed as a like-for-like substitute.
The rest of Pink Floyd knew that Barrett was an irreplaceable one-of-one, the likes of which the world would never see again. Therefore, finding somebody on the streets of London or Cambridge with his mercurial edge would have been a thankless task. If they wanted to survive without him, they’d have to become a whole new Pink Floyd.
Gilmour never had the opportunity to be in Pink Floyd with Barrett when he was firing on all cylinders. Towards the end of his time with Pink Floyd, Barrett was a mere semblance of his former self as he succumbed to schizophrenia.
Barrett’s mental health condition started impeding his ability to function and ultimately hindered his primary reason for living, which was his musical career. Eventually, his bandmates felt they had no choice but to remove him from Pink Floyd, and were somewhat naive about the struggles he was facing.
While recording their second album, A Saucerful of Secrets, Barrett had become increasingly unreliable, leading to Gilmour’s recruitment. He had known the band since they lived in Cambridge, growing close with Barrett as teenagers. However, the version of Barrett that he was confronted with was a different species from the one he knew as youngsters. He frequently didn’t turn up to the studio, and if it was the rare occasion when he would arrive, it was a lottery as to which version of him would show his face.
Eventually, it came to a head in early 1968, halfway through the album’s recording process, when Pink Floyd decided against picking Barrett up ahead of a concert in Southampton. Unsurprisingly, Barrett’s fingerprints are barely felt on A Saucerful of Secrets, but he did contribute the closing track, ‘Jugband Blues’, his final song for Pink Floyd.
At the time of writing the creation, Barrett was still conscious enough of his surroundings to realise he was drowning in deep water, but his state rapidly deteriorated further. On the haunting track, Barrett deals with his impending fate and sings, “I’m most obliged to you for making it clear that I’m not here”. At one stage, he also questions who is writing the song, which provides a harrowing insight into his frame of mind.
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For Gilmour, this remains incredibly moving, which he revealed during a 2001 documentary with John Edginton. He spoke of ‘Jugland Blues’ and remarked from the heart: “A very, very personal song about him and his condition, which is sort of very raw, and I think it’s quite brilliant.”
Gilmour then touched upon Barrett’s songwriting process, which he admitted that he never fully understood, stating: “I have no idea really how he wrote. There were many occasions when he would seem to be, either at his flat or my flat or in the studio, he would appear to just start something and it would all come out as if he’d never thought of it before that moment.”
He honestly added, “With the words and everything, in a way that I find hard to conceive with not being wordy as he was. It felt like he just made them up as he went along, but I’m sure it can’t have been that simple. It’s a nice idea, though.”
The Pink Floyd musician then mused over the notion of Barrett’s writing being a “stream of consciousness” before concluding, “Maybe it’s a stream of subconsciousness that he had some way of letting flow out of him, or maybe he did sit and think about it. I can’t quite imagine him doing it consciously.”
While Barrett’s songwriting process was a mystery to even those closest to him, it produced spectacular results, but only for a heartbreakingly short time. For that reason, while his music will always live on and be remembered for progressing psychedelic rock, his career will always have a question mark hanging over it.
Almost 60 years since he was kicked out of Pink Floyd, and 20 years on from his death, the thought of what could have been if the necessary help was on hand still lingers.
