Syd Barrett (1946-2006) - The piper is gone

Roger "Syd" Barrett, founder of Pink Floyd, died last week. For more than 30 years he disappeared from the music scene which had once made him the prince of swinging London in the summer of 1967. He was the genius of the band that came out of the project "The Architectual Abdabs" with Mason, Waters and Wright, he created a completely new sound, he wrote almost all the music and lyrics on Pink Floyd's debut album "The piper at the gates of dawn". With intergalactic psychedelic sounds and quadrophenic amps, Pink Floyd smashed the UFO-club playing songs like "Astronomy domine" and ear-movies like "Interstellar overdrive". The drugs worked and a permanent consume of LSD left his traces in Barrett's head. For some time it pushed his creativity to write psychedelic pop-songs, but then he developed more and more eccentric and confused, in some concerts he is said to have played only one chord ever and ever again through the whole time.
"And if the band you´re in starts playing different tunes, I´ll see you on the dark side of the moon." his former colleagues sang later. Barrett left Pink Floyd during the "A soucerful of secrets"-recordings in 1968 and was replaced by the more balanced blues-guitarist David Gilmore. A few solo recordings with some golden moments remained, like on "The madcap laughs", then he left the music-scene completely. The Pink Floyd-musicians were shocked when Barrett who had changed to an overweight, bald-headed, shy man visited them in the studios in 1975. Where was the old Syd, the master-mind, the genius, the poet? The songs "Wish you were here" and "Shine on you crazy diamond" are dedicated to him:

"You reached for the secret too soon,
You cried for the moon.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Threatened by shadows at night,
And exposed in the light.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Well you wore out your welcome
With random precision,
Rode on the steel breeze.
Come on you raver, you seer of visions,
Come on you painter, you piper, you prisoner, and shine!"

But Barrett prefered living in quietness with his family, far away from the Pink Floyd-hype, just concerned with his own thoughts, painting and daily work.
"Once something was over, it was over. He felt no need to revisit it.
That’s why he avoided contact with journalists and fans. He simply couldn’t understand the interest in something that had happened so long ago and he wasn’t willing to interrupt his own musings for their sake.", his sister said in a Sunday Times-interview (on 16th July).
Now it is clear that the piper has left for ever. But also if it "had happened so long ago" his spirit is shining on through his music ...