![\"Syd](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Syd-Barrett-Pink-Floyd-1975-Abbey-Road-Studios-Far-Out-Magazine-1140x855.jpg\")
<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
(Credits: Nick Mason)<\/p>\n
Thu 21 August 2025 15:30, UK <\/p>\n
No matter what anybody says, everything great about Pink Floyd<\/a> can be found on The Dark Side of the Moon. But one thing some aren\u2019t quite ready to admit is that they also couldn\u2019t have done any of it without Syd Barrett.<\/p>\n Writing about \u201cthe things that make people mad\u201d, The Dark Side of the Moon hinged on the dark parts of Barrett\u2019s story while evolving into something different. Capturing insincerity, the pressures of being in the band and Barrett\u2019s mental health, the record wasn\u2019t just a pivotal moment in the band\u2019s developing sound. It was a reflection on their entire narrative and everything that led them to that point.<\/p>\n It mulled over everything wrong about the music industry as well as the passage of time. But again, a big part of why it\u2019s great is Barrett\u2019s part in a story that was no longer his; the ghost of the past catching up with their conceptual style and bridging the gap that eventually led to Wish You Were Here. Which, like the album artwork, looked deeper into the duality of fighting yourself when one part was always at odds with the other. Much like Barrett\u2019s demons. But this time, things were different. <\/p>\n Although David Gilmour made sure Wish You Were Here captured the \u201cindefinable, inevitable melancholy\u201d linked with Barrett, it also seemed more conceptually straightforward. But maybe this was because a lot of what they were doing was still about coming to terms and processing. Especially when it came to Barrett, who, whether they liked it or not, was still a lingering presence in their world, and not just figuratively. For instance, at one point during sessions, he turned up at Abbey Road while they were finishing up \u2018Shine On You Crazy Diamond\u2019, and they didn\u2019t even recognise him at first. Because, brutally, he was just a shell of his former self at that point<\/a>.<\/p>\n But being oblivious to or blindsided by Barrett\u2019s attitude or strange antics was a bit of a thing for the band. It was something of a common theme that constantly crept up, even when he was still a part of the group. They\u2019d look at each other and shrug, or joke about leaving him behind, when in hindsight, they should have been doing anything but making light of it all. Nick Mason even reflected on this later, saying they had no idea what they were doing or what to make of it all. But if they could go back, things would be different. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not that we were unsympathetic, but I just don\u2019t think we had a clue as to what was happening or why it was happening,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n It\u2019s easy to understand why he\u2019d feel that way. Especially considering the times when it seemed they tossed around Barrett\u2019s situation like it was a common quip between them. Like in 1968, when they were all riding along in a Bentley, on their way to a concert at Southampton University, when someone \u2013 Roger Waters, according to Gilmour \u2013 casually mentioned leaving him behind. And they did. <\/p>\n Discussing the moment with Guitar World in 1993, Gilmour recalled, \u201c[It was] certainly not me \u2013 I was the new boy. I was in the back. Someone probably said, \u2018Shall we go and pick up Syd?\u2019 And Roger probably said [in conspirational tones], \u2018Oh no, let\u2019s not!\u2019 And off we went down to Southampton. We were playing with the Incredible String Band and Tyrannosaurus Rex that night.\u201d<\/p>\n It was their first-ever show without Barrett. In their defence, it had been inevitable for a while. And at that point, he was genuinely holding them back (\u201cMost of the time we now wanted to strangle him\u201d). But what they probably didn\u2019t realise was that that offhand \u201clet\u2019s not\u201d sparked the beginnings of a completely new era. One that unknowingly turned them into one of the biggest and most innovative rock bands on the planet. <\/p>\n No matter the ins and outs of Barrett\u2019s toll, they couldn\u2019t have done any of it without him as their origin story.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Nick Mason) Thu 21 August 2025 15:30, UK No matter what anybody says, everything great about Pink…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":84195,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[32620,96,128,15742,34789,42434,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-84194","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-david-gilmour","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-music","11":"tag-pink-floyd","12":"tag-roger-waters","13":"tag-syd-barrett","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84194\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}