Syd Barrett

I've been thinking about topics to blog about. I usually go for the sexual stuff. I mean my blog is a "secret diary of an online stripper" but today I honestly don't have any interesting sexual stories to tell.

I do however feel the urge to talk about something I've been reading about, and since this is a diary, I guess I'll bore everyone with this.

I've been reading a book called Comfortably Numb. The inside story of Pink Floyd. It is a biography of the band.

I have been a Pink Floyd fan since I was born. My parents brought me up on it... I had to be... I was born in the late 70s.

The thing that caught me the most was the figure that brought the band together. For those of you who don't have any Pink Floyd background, his name was Syd Barrett. He was this brilliant mind that wrote many of their first songs. He was innovative and psychedelic. He took way too much acid and then got the brunt of it later when he was no longer able to perform. He had been put under incredible corporate pressure to produce and obviously couldn't deal with the weight.

He was one of the few rock stars of that era who didn't die young.

 

He was extremely handsome and was truly a genius. 

He was the epitome of the kind of man I adore, the kind of man that I'd love to love, but would eventually find it impossible.

The thing that caught me the most about his story is that he spiraled uncontrollably into a severe depression and probable mental illness. The story is incredibly sad.

I have seen it in others, including people I've loved. Geniuses have a hard time dominating their minds, The madness is a side effect of trying to deal with all the information, all of the ideas, and how open the soul and mind is to everything.

 

I will not be posting pictures of what he became, because as with most others, I would rather remember him as the genius he was. The pictures of him later in life are sad. You can see the sadness in his eyes with the knowledge of what he had become. He knew (at times) what had happened to him. And that he was, as he had said, a "failed pop star". But many others would like to think that he was smarter than the rest in retreating from the music scene avoiding the decline. His status is that of a dead pop star like Jim Morrison, but he got that status without dying young. 

Shine on you crazy Diamond. RIP Syd Barrett 1946-2006