Roger Waters Tells the Tragic Story of Syd Barrett

So when you guys, like in the early days of the band, what was, like that's always the connection with rock and roll and drugs. Like this is like, that's the narrative. Was that in the early days of Pink Floyd, was that the case? It wasn't really relevant. I mean during the time when I was smoking hash every day was 1970, 71, 70. So it's pre-Darkside. It's when we were making medals, so it's echoes and things. But I don't think it had, I don't think it impinged on my burgeoning writing career, if you like, when I was starting to write songs because Sid went crazy in 1967. And so by 1690, we weren't seeing him anymore. He disappeared completely. And was that because of LSD? Or was it- No, I don't think so. But you know- That's the narrative, right? Yeah, that's the narrative, or one of the narratives. It may be because he was mixing with people who were doing acid on a regular basis, I think, in 67. And I'm sure he did too much of it. Was he teetering on the edge of what might be called schizophrenia at the time? I think so, probably. A lot of the things that he was saying, and it was right at the beginning of us getting our first record in any job, which was Arnold Lane. No, it was after Arnold Lane. It was when C. Emily play came out, and we were beginning to do TV shows in England. And he went very odd. I remember him at top of the pops in the dressing room one day. He had hair a bit like that painting on the wall. And then going, looking worried and a bit frightened, and then going, John Lennon doesn't have to do this. Which was kind of wacky. This was like three quarters of the way through the Beatles' career, because they only had that one decade, really. And so he had misgivings about being on a miming pop show. You know, and it said this is what we've worked towards for the last four or five years, is to be on top of the pops and make a few quid. You know, buck up, boy. Let's get on with it. But he never did buck up from sort of that moment on, really. He wrote a few more songs, but nothing of any real note. And he just got more and more and more detached until he was completely wacky and not making any sense. And I mean, I made a lot of attempts to find out what was wrong and to involve his family. You know, he had older brothers, so I would ring up and say, hey, there's something really wrong with Roger, as they called him. Because his name was Roger Barrett, not Sid Barrett. I said, he's not well, I think. And one of the brothers actually came to London and went and saw him and called me up and went, he's fine. You know, he's had some troubling times, but he's actually fine. And I went, Alan, he's not. He's not. Trust me. I live with him. Anyway. And we tried to get him to a shrink. So on a number of occasions, but he would never go in. And then he just got weirder and weirder. Like in what way weird? Like what was... Incommunicative, not making any sense at all. Not making any... It's like, I actually mentioned one of the periods, one of the moments is in the show, because it's in when we play Wish You Were Here. And I do wish he was here. And I mean, he's partly what that song's about. And Shine On You Crazy Diamond is just completely about Sid. But we were... I told the story in text in the show and it goes, we'd been to a meeting at the Capitol Tower in Los Angeles. And Sid and I were walking down the street after it. And we stopped at the traffic light at Hollywood and Vine, Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street in Los Angeles. And he looked at me and smiled and he said, it's nice here in Las Vegas, isn't it? Well, we were in LA. So he already had no idea where he was even like that. But then he... I say in the thing, you'll see it in the show, it says, then his face darkened and he looked down at the ground and spat out one word, people. And that sort of encapsulates what it was like. Nothing made any sense. Disjointed. Blank, disjointed. And there we were all young, all very young and trying to make our way. By that time, David already joined the band to play guitar because Sid didn't play. I'm not saying he couldn't. Well, he couldn't really because both of us made his solo records with him, helped produce his solo records after that point. And it was pretty kind of disjointed and difficult to get him to do anything. Did he continue to deteriorate further after that? Yeah. And then he went home to live in Cambridge and he lived a very solitary life. And I spoke to his sister Rosemary after that and I said, does it make any sense, you know, to go and visit? No, don't do that. And she told me, I said, why not? And she said, well, he gets very agitated and upset when if he's reminded of what happened before, whatever this is, he doesn't like it. He doesn't want to see people from his past. He'd rather be left alone. And he did and he used to paint a little bit and live just on his own in Cambridge until he died when he was 60. Wow. So I don't know what else to say about it, really. It was tragic, obviously. And but those of us who were in Pink Floyd at the time experienced it as an existential threat as well. Fuck me, what are we going to do? He writes the bloody songs. Well, I wrote about 20 percent of them before, but there were nothing. SIDS songs were the things that were different. They had that weird English romanticism about them. You know, they were beautiful. I've got a book. You can write it if you like. It's got a basket, a bell that rings and things that make it look good. I'd give it to you if I could. But I borrowed it. That's so quirky in terms of its meter, the way the lyric attaches both to the melody and and to the time signature and the tempo of the thing is remarkable. And it wasn't just you know, there were lots of quirky little songs like that all in a very English romantic tradition and whatever. So how could we possibly survive if the guy who writes the songs in the band goes crazy, you're fucked basically. Unless somebody else learns to start to write. Luckily, I did. I did start to write. I don't mean to laugh because he was a huge loss. And I did love him.