Syd Barrett, Founder of Pink Floyd band, Sufferer of Schizophrenia, Passed Away

Syd Barrett, a founding member of the band "Pink Floyd" and one of the most legendary rock stars to develop a mental illness - most likely schizophrenia (triggered, it is said, by significant drug use as well as the stress and pressure of his career), died Friday from complications related to diabetes. He had been living in a cottage in Cambridge, England, where he had lived a quite life for the past three decades. He was 60 years old.

He seems to have had the genetic predisposition to schizophrenia, and and also experienced some of the noted environmental factors that have been linked in research to increased risk of developing schizophrenia. Comments by Roger Waters and others suggest that Syd always had "odd thoughts" - a factor that has been linked to a biological predisposition for schizophrenia. He also suffered from a highly stressful childhood (his father died suddenly when Syd was a child), and by his early-twenties he was in a high stress career and he was using a wide array of street drugs - especially cannabis and LSD. Syd was also highly creative - and psychological studies indicate that highly creative people share an elevated risk of serious mental illness (see this story on Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, another sufferer of schizophrenia/schizoaffective disorder).

In his late teens and early twenties, when schizophrenia usually starts in men, Syd began to show the progression of symptoms that typically define the brain disorder - including increasingly odd thoughts, and odd behavior, and then later psychosis, (delusions and "visions"), bizarre actions, paranoia, disorganized thinking, catatonia and social withdrawl. These symptoms that Syd's band members and friends describe him going through are all key symptoms of schizophrenia. Later in life Syd also developed diabetes - another common problem for people who have schizophrenia, frequently accelerated by some of the antipsychotic medications.

Unfortunately, much of the public and Press do not recognize the typical symptoms of schizophrenia and have mis-labeled his disorder as a "psychedelic drug-induced breakdown" or "nervous breakdown" - terms that have long since been replaced by well-defined medical terms like schizophrenia. (It seems that public mental health education has a long way to go). Most of the world's news writers seems to have "glamorised" Syd Barrett's mental illness, or completely glossed over something that ended his career just as it was getting going. A few blogs (see this Syd Barrett commentary by JR Kinnard) picked this up - but most of the world remains ignorant to the true nature of Syd Barrett's illness.

A Pink Floyd band member who recognized and spoke about Syd's mental illness was Roger Waters. Pink Floyd's bassist Roger Waters said Barrett's use of LSD compounded an existing condition [though schizophrenia researchers now say that people have a biological predisposition to schizophrenia, and that it is triggered by environmental factors and stresses]. Waters told VH-1's Legends in 2002: "There is no doubt those [street drugs] are very bad for schizophrenics ... and there is no doubt that Syd was a schizophrenic." (see these good VH-1 Syd Barret Documentary videos on YouTube - Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.1 , Part 3.2, Part 4), Pink Floyd, Behind the Wall (part 1). In these videos the band members describe Syd's behavior and if you compare it to the defining symptoms of schizophrenia, you can easily see the correlation, as Roger Waters has so accurately identified.

Interestingly, in the VH1 video interviews the band members talked about how Syd Barrett's personality and social skills changed as the disorder progressed (for example many of his band members talk about how Syd seemed to stare a lot, or "look right through them"). Coincidentally, a few months ago a researcher focused on schizophrenia (Demian Rose, PHD MD - of the University of California, San Francisco Medical School) gave a talk about these changes seen in people who develop schizophrenia - and used Syd Barrett as an example of this change: Social Cognition and Schizophrenia (video) - Syd Barrett reference (the section on Syd Barrett is about a few minutes into the video, after a short introduction on Social Cognition) - click on the arrow directly below the video window below.

The Observer reports that "By the autumn of 68, he was homeless. Periodically he returned to Cambridge, where his mother Win fretted, urged him to see a doctor, and blindly hoped for the best. In London, he crashed on friends' floors - and began the midnight ramblings which would continue for two years."

Pink Floyd would pay tribute to Mr. Barrett (and include mental illness as an ongoing theme) on its best and most successful albums, pondering the causes of mental collapse on "The Dark Side of the Moon" (1973) and "The Wall" (1979) and speaking to him directly in the songs "Wish You Were Here" and "Shine On You Crazy Diamond," which featured Waters' lyrics urging, "Come on you raver, you seer of visions/Come on you painter, you piper, you prisoner and shine!"

Without overtly admitting it, Waters wrote of Barrett: "Now there’s a look in your eye/ Like black holes in the sky." It echoed the sentiment of famed Brit folk producer Joe Boyd in June 1967, who seeing Barrett for the first time in months noted a change. "He just looked at me," said Boyd, who had produced Pink Floyd's "Arnold Layne" single. "I looked right in his eye and there was no twinkle, no glint. You know, nobody home."

Newspaper reports say that Mr. Barrett's former bandmates were haunted by the question of whether they could have helped their friend if they'd only been more attuned to his mental problems and drug abuse. Sadly, Roger Waters says that they tried to get Syd to see a therapist but were unsuccessful (as is very common with schizophrenia). Given the knowledge of early treatment benefits we have today - there is much that could be done now.

"Could we have saved the day? Could we have prevented Syd from going off the rail? I suppose this is the issue exercising me the most," Mason said in 1995. "But we are not really talking about four lovable moptops here -- we are talking about a bunch of poised individuals who were so busy pursuing their own ends that they weren't even capable of looking after each other."

Barrett spent his final years in his mother's house in Cambridge, England, living comfortably off the royalties that his former bandmates made sure he collected. Reportedly, his pastimes were painting and gardening, and he was often seen by neighbors on his bicycle. It sounds like a pretty nice life, actually...

Instead of just reminiscing about Syd Barrett's best days - we'd like to see the many musicians who benefited from Syd's work hold a fund-raising concert to support schizophrenia research that might allow the many other diamonds in the rough to shine as Syd Barrett did, while at the same time reducing the stigma of mental illness. We encourage advocacy groups to work to make this happen. With the renewed interest in Syd Barret - now is the time. Why don't we have "Live Aid" concerts for schizophrenia? We see world famous musicians fund raising for poor people 8,000 miles away - but neglecting the mentally ill (and frequently poor) people that live 8 miles away. We think that helping both groups of people are equally valid.

David Gilmour: Syd was a strange guy even back in Cambridge.

Peter Jenner, the Floyd's first manager on Syd Barrett:"He'd sit around with copious amounts of hash and grass and write these incredible songs"

Peter Jenner: ... The acid brought out his latent madness. I'm sure it was his latent madness which gave him his creativity. The acid brought out the creativity, but more importantly, it brought out the madness. The creativity was there - dope was enough to get it going. He wrote all his songs, including the ones on his solo LP's, in a eighteen month period.

David Gilmour: I remember I really started to get worried when I went along to the session for 'See Emily Play'. Syd was still functioning, but he definitely wasn't the person I knew. He looked through you. He wasn't quite there. He was strange even then. That stare, you know?

Peter Jenner: Even at that point, Syd actually knew what was happening to him. 'Jugband Blues' is a really sad song, the portrait of a nervous breakdown. 'Jugband Blues' is the ultimate self-diagnosis on a state of schizophrenia.

JUGBAND BLUES (from 'Saucerful of Secrets')

It's awfully considerate of you to think of me here
And I'm much obliged to you for making it clear
That I'm not here.

And what exactly is a dream?
And what exactly is a joke?

Nick Mason: Syd went mad on that first American tour in the autumn of 1967. He didn't know where he was most of the time. I remember he detuned his guitar onstage in Venice, LA, and he just stood there rattling the strings which was a bit weird, even fo r us.

John Marsh: On their first American tour the Floyd were being taken by some A&R man around Hollywood. They were taken for the classic tour of the stars' homes and so on. And they ended up on the corner of Hollywood and Vine. The band are looking around : 'Hey, made it, Hollywood,' and the A&R man's saying, 'Yes, here we are, the centre of it all, Hollywood and Vine,' and Syd's wandering around the place, wide-eyed, reckless and legged. 'Gee,' he says, 'it's great to be in Las Vegas.'

Lindsay Korner: (During the fall of 1967) it got a bit crazed. (By Christmas) Syd had started to act a little bonkers, schizophrenia had set in.

Duggie Fields: Oh, he went more than slightly bonkers, it must have been very difficult for him. I think the pressures on Syd before that time must have upset him very much, the kind of pressure where it takes off very fast, which Pink Floyd did - certainly in terms of the way people behaved towards them.

Peter Jenner: We tried to stop him going crazy. I put all my textbook sociology, all the stuff I'd read about psychology in action; we took him to R.D. Laing. Laing didn't say much. We tried to take what he said literally, we tried to use the inner meaning of what he was saying, we tried to change the objective situations. We moved him out of Cromwell Road but ... it was too late.

David Gilmour: He functions on a totally different plain of logic, and some people will claim, 'Well yeah man he's on a higher cosmic level' - but basically there's something drastically wrong. It wasn't just the drugs - we'd both done acid before the whole Floyd thing - it's just a mental foible which grew out of all proportion. I remember all sorts of strange things happening - at one point he was wearing lipstick, dressing in high heels, and believing he had homosexual tendencies. We all felt he should have gone to see a psychiatrist, though someone in fact played an interview he did to R.D. Laing, and Laing claimed he was incurable. What can you do, you know?

Peter Barnes: (on interviewing Syd) It was fairly ludicrous on the surface. I mean, you just had to go along with it all. Syd would say something completely incongruous one minute like 'It's getting heavy, isn't it?' and you'd just have to say, 'Yeah, Syd, it's getting heavy,' and the conversation would dwell on *that* for five minutes. Actually, listening to the tape afterwards you could work out that there was some kind of logic there - except that Syd would suddenly be answering a question you'd asked him ten minutes ago while you were off on a different topic completely!

Jerry Shirley: Sometimes he does it just to put everybody on, sometimes he does it because he's genuinely paranoid about what's happening around him. He's like the weather, he changes. For every 10 things he says that are off-the-wall and odd, he'll say one thing that's completely coherent and right on the ball. He'll seem out of touch with what's gone on just before, then he'll suddenly turn around and say, 'Jerry, remember the day we went to get a burger down at the Earl's Court Road?' - complete recall of something that happened a long time ago. Just coming and going [between reality and fantasy], all the time.

Jenny Fabian: Years later I found him again living up the road from Earls Court in a flat where he had room. Again he didn't speak much. He was sitting in the corner on a matress and he'd painted every other floorboard alternate colours, red and green . He boiled an egg in a kettle and ate it. And he listened over and over again to Beach Boys tapes, which I found distressing.

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