David Gilmour has always been realistic about the contours of his career. There’s no doubt that he’s a guitar hero and a master songwriter, as 2024’s Luck and Strange reaffirmed. However, for the former Pink Floyd leader, such soaring highs are counterbalanced by ample regret concerning his old band. Although much of this involves his old songwriting partner, Roger Waters, there is also a lingering internal conflict about the psychedelic pioneer’s original leader, Syd Barrett.
Pink Floyd were founded by Barret, Nick Mason, Waters and Richard Wright in 1965. Putting a celestial, experimental twist on the bluesy grooves of Bo Diddley, the group would soon find themselves at the forefront of London’s burgeoning psychedelic scene, an underground din that would soon reverberate across the globe and catapult culture into a new epoch. After building much excitement live, the band’s 1967 debut album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, firmly placed them at the forefront of British music.
Although such early success propelled many of their contemporaries into the stratosphere, for Pink Floyd, things weren’t so simple. During this time, Barrett suffered an alarming collapse in mental health. Several factors are suggested as the reason, such as his extensive use of LSD and the death of his father in 1961. However, Gilmour maintains “it would have happened anyway” and “it was a deep-rooted thing,” with LSD just the “catalyst”.
Unsurprisingly, Barrett’s collapse negatively impacted Pink Floyd’s live show and the making of their hotly anticipated 1968 second album, A Saucerful of Secrets. So, to help assuage the increasing absence of Barrett from proceedings, in early January 1968, they drafted in his old friend, Gilmour. He quickly became central to the operation and provided the band with an answer to what they would do in the likely event of Barrett departing, which he eventually did in April 1968.
Gilmour and Barrett had a long history. They met as teenagers in Cambridge, with the naturally reserved former attracted to the magnetism and charisma of the latter. As both were up to date with the latest cultural advancements, voracious readers and keen music lovers, they would meet up at lunchtimes during their A-Levels at the Cambridgeshire College of Arts and Technology, and play their favourite songs by the likes of Diddley and The Rolling Stones.
The pair were so inseparable that one summer they travelled to the South of France, and were arrested for busking in Saint-Tropez. Despite that legal hiccup, the trip was formative for both. They got their hands on banned books such as The Naked Lunch and The Story of the Eye, with the former influencing their generation’s metamorphosis into hippiedom.
It was this deep friendship that caused consternation for Gilmour when he joined Pink Floyd. He simply couldn’t shake the feeling that replacing his best friend was “tragic”. In 2001’s documentary Pink Floyd and the Syd Barrett Story, he reflected: “I was 21, and one is fairly ambitious… You want to get on with stuff. That sort of offer is a very hard one to turn down. And, logically speaking, it wasn’t working. Syd was not performing at all on stage. It was kind of tragic. I don’t suppose I saw any option, but to just do the best that I could. I’m sure we were all full of some sort of guilt, and remained that way for a long time.”
This sad, but life-changing period clearly left a lasting impact on David Gilmour. ‘Wish You Were Here’, his 1975 tribute to Barrett, remains his definitive song. It is laced with the complex emotions and the tragedy of Pink Floyd’s founding frontman.
Editors’ Picks
- 1960s Psychedelia
- David Gilmour
- Friendship in Music
- Mental Health
- Music Legacy
- Pink Floyd
- psychedelic rock
- Regret & Tribute
- Songwriting
- Syd Barrett
