The decline of Syd Barrett’s health was pinned on Roger Waters, the bassist has claimed.
Barrett, a founding member of Pink Floyd, would be kicked out of the band shortly after the group’s debut album, Piper at the Gates of Dawn, released. Waters was blamed by Barrett‘s mother, Winifred, for the songwriter’s eventual decline. Barrett, who died at 60 in 2006, had little contact with his former bandmates after leaving the band. According to his sister, Rosemary Breen, Winifred asked members of the band to have no contact with him as it left Barrett distressed for weeks after the encounters, according to an interview given by keyboardist Richard Wright in 1996. Opinion is split on whether Barrett had suffered from mental illness or if the frequent use of psychedelic drugs had affected him. The songwriter would spend time at Greenwoods in Essex, and years later would meet with a psychiatrist at Fulbourn Hospital in Cambridge.
Waters spoke of the impact the band had on Barrett, and he on the remaining members. In an interview with Word Magazine just a year before Barrett’s death, Waters said: “Syd’s mother always blamed me for his decline, I guess because she was uncomfortable with the idea that his illness didn’t have anything to do with Pink Floyd or rock and roll.
“It’s probably that his symptoms were exacerbated by his doing lots of acid, but that didn’t cause his illness. One of the symptoms of schizophrenia is that you hallucinate. So hallucinogenic drugs are a bad idea. Syd’s been in and out of Fulbourn Mental Hospital in Cambridge for the last 35 years, and he’s well looked after.
“But he does not want to see me or anyone else from those days. It makes him uncomfortable. It agitates him. He doesn’t want to dig up the past ‘cos he can’t make sense of it. It annoys him. It upsets him.”
Breen has suggested Waters was wrong to suggest her brother was a “recluse”, saying: “Roger may have been a bit selfish—or rather self-absorbed—but when people called him a recluse they were really only projecting their own disappointment. He knew what they wanted, but he wasn’t willing to give it to them.”
Barrett’s appearance in the studio while the band recorded Wish You Were Here was a clear influence on the album. Waters has since suggested both Brain Damage from The Dark Side of the Moon and Shine On You Crazy Diamond were directly influenced by Barrett.
Waters said: “Absolutely! It was a huge shock to me to see the ravages of schizophrenia at those close quarters.”
The songwriter would go on to suggest it was one of the “elements” featured in The Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here. He said: “Yeah, maybe. I think that’s certainly one of the elements. There’s no way to deal with it. Certainly there wasn’t with Syd.”
