{"id":306731,"date":"2025-12-09T10:21:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T10:21:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/306731\/"},"modified":"2025-12-09T10:21:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T10:21:11","slug":"syd-barretts-haunting-final-meeting-with-pink-floyd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/306731\/","title":{"rendered":"Syd Barrett’s haunting final meeting with Pink Floyd"},"content":{"rendered":"

In June 1975, Pink Floyd<\/a> were in Abbey Road nearing completion of their ninth album, Wish You Were Here. One day a stranger walked into the studio: a dishevelled looking man, overweight and shaven-headed. Except after closer inspection, Roger Waters realised it wasn\u2019t a stranger: it was, incredibly, Syd Barrett, the band\u2019s former psychedelic leader.<\/p>\n

None of the members of Pink Floyd \u2013 Waters, Dave Gilmour<\/a>, Nick Mason or Richard Wright \u2013 had seen Barrett since 1969. He had left the band in 1968, becoming a recluse after a drug-induced mental health breakdown. Aubrey \u201cPo\u201d Powell, longstanding friend of the band and creator of their album artwork, lived with Barrett in London in the late 60s. \u201cIt was over a long weekend,\u201d Powell says. \u201cOne day he was there, all bouncing and bubbly. And then by the Tuesday, his eyes were black, and he\u2019d spent the weekend taking vast amounts of LSD. Something happened whereby it burnt out his brain. He was definitely gone. He couldn\u2019t play the guitar. He couldn\u2019t function.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet there Barrett was, borderline unrecognisable (Waters was the only one who realised it was him), looking, as Waters later put it, like \u201ca great, fat, bald mad person\u201d. Before Barrett had got to Abbey Road he had turned up at the Hipgnosis studio in Soho, where Powell was based with his partner, the art director Storm Thorgerson. Barrett had been asking for Pink Floyd. \u201cI was shocked, and I was stunned at the state of him,\u201d Powell says. \u201cIt was everything that I\u2019d heard that had happened to him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"PinkNick Mason in the studio (Photo: JD Mahn\/Sony Music Entertainment)<\/p>\n

There are various versions as to what exactly happened that day. Some say Barrett was asking for a guitar, expecting to play. Apparently, he told people there the music Pink Floyd were working on \u201csounds old\u201d. Another story says he took out a toothbrush and started dancing around brushing his teeth. But whatever happened, he was no sooner there than he was gone. None of the members would ever see Barrett again. \u201cI think it freaked everybody out,\u201d says Powell. \u201cThey were a bit shaken by it.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the strangest, most surreal incidents in rock music history was actually a rather apt one. \u201cIt was very appropriate that he suddenly turned up,\u201d Powell says. Wish You Were Here was a reckoning of sorts for Pink Floyd: with the mammoth success of 1973\u2019s The Dark Side of the Moon and their newfound fame; with a music industry that they found fake and immoral; and yes, with their history with Barrett, whose shadow the band had struggled to escape. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt took them a while to find their mettle after Syd,\u201d Powell says. Themes of absence and alienation ran through the album, with Barrett a haunting presence. The album\u2019s opening and closing nine-part, 26-minute opus \u201cShine On You Crazy Diamond\u201d, was a tribute to their erstwhile guiding light. They had written about Barrett before \u2013 notably 1973\u2019s \u201cBrain Damage\u201d \u2013 but this was heartfelt and direct. In bizarre, barely believable serendipity, the band were working on the final mix of \u201cShine On You Crazy Diamond\u201d when Barrett walked into the studio.<\/p>\n

\u201cWish You Were Here is partly dedicated to that,\u201d Powell says. \u201cBut only partly. People think it\u2019s an album about Syd. It\u2019s not. It\u2019s partly. It\u2019s also very much an album about absence, particularly the absence of sincerity.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"PinkThe band were shaken by Barrett\u2019s absence (Photo: Storm Thorgerson\/Sony Music Entertainment)<\/p>\n

The incredible success of The Dark Side of the Moon \u2013 45 million album sales and counting \u2013 had taken Pink Floyd from cult band to rock aristocracy. It sat uneasily with them. In the aftermath they felt emotionally depleted, cynical and suspicious of their success and the industry at large, and with a looming question: what next? \u201cIt was the end,\u201d Waters once said. \u201cWe\u2019d reached the point we\u2019d been aiming for since we were teenagers. There was really nothing more to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gilmour concurred, later saying: \u201cThe success\u2026 scared us. You do start thinking, was that a fluke?\u201d In hindsight, it was the moment the band began to rupture. \u201cIn 1975 they were still tight as a band and very friendly, but the money had allowed them to drift apart as a unit,\u201d Powell says. \u201cThe success and the money \u2013 it was overwhelming. It allowed them to have separate lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

It seemed it was Waters who felt the most disenchanted. \u201cThat\u2019s true,\u201d Powell says. \u201cRoger\u2019s always liked fame, and he\u2019s always liked money. But nevertheless, he at that time was definitely disillusioned with the way that record companies ran. And I think he was slightly confused by The Dark Side of the Moon\u2019s success. And being Roger, all he could do was write about it in his lyrics.\u201d<\/p>\n

It made the process of writing and recording Wish You Were Here protracted and arduous. \u201cAfter Dark Side we really were floundering around,\u201d Gilmour later said. Pink Floyd actually began work on a follow-up to Dark Side in October 1973, when they started an album they called Household Objects, which was as literal as it sounds: they were writing songs using everyday appliances as instruments. The idea was soon ditched, but the sound of wine glasses can be heard in the introduction to \u201cShine On You Crazy Diamond\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"PinkThe album was recorded between tours (Photo: Sony Music Entertainment)<\/p>\n

The band were in and out of the studio between tours of the US and Europe that proved difficult. In November 1974, the famous rock critic Nick Kent wrote a scathing review of their show at Wembley Arena, particularly the new songs \u201cRaving And Drooling\u201d and \u201cGotta Be Crazy,\u201d saying Pink Floyd \u201cseem incredibly tired and seemingly bereft of true creative ideas\u201d.<\/p>\n

After three months of no headway at Abbey Road, in March 1975, Waters called an emergency meeting to clear the air. Deciding to scrap the new songs other than \u201cShine On Your Crazy Diamond\u201d, he told the band they needed to write some new songs that \u201chave some relevance to the state we were in at the time\u201d. They then wrote three songs that made up the rest of the album. \u201cHave a Cigar\u201d, with Roy Harper on vocals due to the song being beyond Waters\u2019 vocal range, was a diatribe against the record industry, which included the sarcastic line: \u201cOh by the way, which one\u2019s Pink?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is a true story,\u201d Powell says. \u2018The band went to Capitol Records in LA and walked into the managing director\u2019s office and he said, \u2018Oh, hi guys. By the way, which one of you is Pink?\u2019 I mean, that\u2019s how removed the labels were in those days.\u201d<\/p>\n

The title track became one of the band\u2019s most loved songs, the most straightforwardly beautiful and mournful Pink Floyd ever got. Again, the ghost of Barrett is evident, but the song goes further: Waters once said the song was \u201cbattling elements within myself\u201d, which included the separation from his first wife, Judith.<\/p>\n

Wish You Were Here\u2019s themes extended to the album cover, iconic even in an era of classic \u2013 and expensive \u2013 artwork: two businessmen shaking hands, with one of them on fire \u2013 literally. Powell says for previous Pink Floyd covers, he and Thorgerson would never listen to the music or read the lyrics before creating it. But Wish You Were Here was different. \u201cIn this case, we\u2019d been to Abbey Road and heard the record and knew what the thing was about.\u201d He recalls how during creative brainstorming, the artist and Hipgnosis collaborator George Hardie made an off-the-cuff comment. \u201cHe just happened to say, \u2018In business, somebody\u2019s always getting burnt.\u2019 That gave Storm the idea.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"PinkThe iconic album artwork cost \u00a350,000 (Photo: Sony Music Entertainment)<\/p>\n

Waters made them present the idea to not just the band, but the entire staff of Abbey Road, cleaning ladies and all. \u201cWe were very nervous. At the end of it, everybody gave a big round of applause.\u201d Why do you think Waters did that? \u201cThis is typical Roger. Roger is Roger \u2013 there\u2019s no accounting for why he does things.\u201d<\/p>\n

But it presented Powell with a problem. \u201cI said, \u2018How the f**k are we going to do this?\u2019 Because there was no digital apparatus in those days. And Storm said, \u2018Well, we\u2019re just going to set a man on fire.\u2019\u201d Stuntman Ronnie Rondell Jr, who\u2019d made the 1974 film The Towering Inferno starring Steve McQueen and Paul Newman, agreed to do it, with the shoot taking place at the backdrop of Warner Bros studios in Burbank, California.<\/p>\n

After trying having Rondell run towards him (\u201cit looked shit\u201d) they eventually decided to have him shake hands with another man while his back was on fire. \u201cHe said, \u2018This is a dangerous stunt.\u2019\u201d They dressed him in a special asbestos suit with napalm. \u201cIt was very dramatic. After the 15th time, the wind came up and blew his face and singed his moustache. He said, \u2018Right I\u2019m done.\u2019 He was furious.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"UNITEDFrom left, the band in Barrett\u2019s era: Roger Waters, Nick Mason, Barrett and Rick Wright (Photo: Andrew Whittuck\/Redferns)<\/p>\n

But Powell had his shot. He added some similarly thematic (and expensive) shots to the inner sleeve, most famously a man diving into Mono Lake in California. \u201cThat is about absence, because he\u2019s making the perfect dive, but there\u2019s no splash. Then there\u2019s the invisible businessman, who\u2019s very representative of the record company.\u201d The album cover cost a staggering \u00a350,000. \u201cBudgets were unlimited in those days,\u201d Powell says. Yet the album first went on sale in the shops with the record cover hidden from view, wrapped in black shrink-wrap. \u201cThe record company went apoplectic,\u201d Powell smiles. \u201cBut it was the ultimate symbol of absence.\u201d<\/p>\n

When it was finally released into the world on 12 September 1975, Wish You Were Here was given a mixed reception. While there were some good reviews \u2013 Sounds magazine heralded it as \u201clight years better than The Dark Side Of the Moon\u201d \u2013 others were less positive. \u201cWish You Were Here sucks!\u201d was Melody Maker\u2019s verdict.<\/p>\n

But Pink Floyd had won the people over: Wish You Were Here topped the charts in both the UK and America, and has now sold more than 23 million copies. And retrospective consensus heralds it as a classic (in the new 50th-anniversary box-set reissue, Poet Laureate Simon Armitage writes a poem in tribute).<\/p>\n

It is often thought of as the last truly cohesive record Pink Floyd made. \u201cI think that is true,\u201d Powell says. \u201cBecause they went on to make Animals, which was, without any doubt, Roger\u2019s complete invention. And Roger and the band at that point was becoming rather fractious. And it is a magnificent record. It is one of the most important records Pink Floyd ever made.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Wish You Were Here 50<\/a>\u2018 is out on Friday<\/p>\n

\t\tYour next read<\/p>\n


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