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3.8 AVERAGE
3.8 AVERAGE
Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour was once quoted as saying Syd Barrett's story isn't romantic, but sad, and that it's "now over." He's right about it being sad and, now, finally over (Barrett died in 2006). But it's also romantic. How can it not be? Barrett is the only music personage I know who fronted a band, gave it its name, wrote almost all its material, was its most gifted, most artistic, and most magnetic member... and then who deteriorated (assisted by hallucinogens, mental illness, and a refusal to play the music biz game) to the point of living like a mute hermit for several decades...part of the time in his mother's basement...while the band he once fronted went on to massive international fame. That story alone is worth biographical treatment. But as Chapman reveals in this very thorough, affectionate, and painstakingly researched bio, Barrett's musical ideas were fairly revolutionary, and his lyrical gifts - although snuffed out early - used meter, rhythm, assonance, and imagery on a scale with the best English writers and poets.
Criticisms: the book (like its subject) is very "English." For example, educational terms like A- and O-levels and sixth forms are alien to an American like me. There's a lot of name-dropping of fairly obscure (to me) cultural figures without explanation. (Although I've heard of pop artist Richard Hamilton, I wonder how many other readers have.) There are minor errors: producer Joe Boyd attended Harvard, not Princeton; it's Dick Clark's AMERICAN Bandstand; John Cale brought to England the early Velvet Underground demos, not Kate Heliczer; and the index is often inaccurate.
My biggest criticism is that - and it's probably no fault of Chapman's - Syd's bandmates (excluding Rick Wright, who died in 2008) didn't want to be interviewed for the book. Their reticence is confusing and frustrating. It not only left large gaps in Syd's bio, especially during the crucial year of 1966, it also forced Chapman to go way outside his subject and to belabor discussion of Sixties cultural environment and to speculate on Barrett's influences and artistic peers. For example, other than where Syd dwelled and when/where his band performed, the entirety of Chapter 3 has very little of him at all.
Chapman's coup, however, was soliciting involvement of Syd's family. Toward the end Syd was closest to his sister Rosemary, who looked after him till his death of pancreatic cancer at age 60. Her recollections, as well as nephew Ian's and even a neighbor girl's, provide a fascinating if not dispiriting window into the Madcap's final years. The Barrett family has always been very guarded and protective of "Roger" - I tried to interview Rosemary and her husband for my blog, unsuccessfully, a few years ago -so it's to Chapman's credit that he was able to crack that formidable ice. The fact that he was a fan before Syd's disappearing act, and even contributed to a very early Syd Barrett "fanzine," gives him credibility even beyond his obvious writing skills.
Lastly...rest in peace, Roger Keith Barrett. And thank you for your inspired music and singular integrity.
Criticisms: the book (like its subject) is very "English." For example, educational terms like A- and O-levels and sixth forms are alien to an American like me. There's a lot of name-dropping of fairly obscure (to me) cultural figures without explanation. (Although I've heard of pop artist Richard Hamilton, I wonder how many other readers have.) There are minor errors: producer Joe Boyd attended Harvard, not Princeton; it's Dick Clark's AMERICAN Bandstand; John Cale brought to England the early Velvet Underground demos, not Kate Heliczer; and the index is often inaccurate.
My biggest criticism is that - and it's probably no fault of Chapman's - Syd's bandmates (excluding Rick Wright, who died in 2008) didn't want to be interviewed for the book. Their reticence is confusing and frustrating. It not only left large gaps in Syd's bio, especially during the crucial year of 1966, it also forced Chapman to go way outside his subject and to belabor discussion of Sixties cultural environment and to speculate on Barrett's influences and artistic peers. For example, other than where Syd dwelled and when/where his band performed, the entirety of Chapter 3 has very little of him at all.
Chapman's coup, however, was soliciting involvement of Syd's family. Toward the end Syd was closest to his sister Rosemary, who looked after him till his death of pancreatic cancer at age 60. Her recollections, as well as nephew Ian's and even a neighbor girl's, provide a fascinating if not dispiriting window into the Madcap's final years. The Barrett family has always been very guarded and protective of "Roger" - I tried to interview Rosemary and her husband for my blog, unsuccessfully, a few years ago -so it's to Chapman's credit that he was able to crack that formidable ice. The fact that he was a fan before Syd's disappearing act, and even contributed to a very early Syd Barrett "fanzine," gives him credibility even beyond his obvious writing skills.
Lastly...rest in peace, Roger Keith Barrett. And thank you for your inspired music and singular integrity.
An excellent book about Syd Barrett and his times. It succesfully deconstructs the myths about Syd and makes for a very melancholy excursion.
Chapman places Barrett's work solidly within an English culture which reinforces how much we should treasure the fleeting years of creativity.
Chapman places Barrett's work solidly within an English culture which reinforces how much we should treasure the fleeting years of creativity.
Finally a compassionate look at Syd Barrett. Chapman is honest in his telling and doesn’t paint Syd as a saint (and in fact seems annoyed with those who do), but neither does he leave him with the label LSD casualty. He paints a full picture of a man who was briefly famous, had some mental health issues, which weren’t helped by his drug use- and retreated from the limelight to live a quiet life. I don’t think Syd was quite the tragic figure he’s often made out to be. Chapman understands this and is fair in his recounting of Syd’s life, imho.
What an experience to read a story you think you know, only to find the reality completely different...less dramatic but more humane and interesting. Chapman does an excellent job of separating fact from fiction and giving Syd a voice and personality. My only quibble is the amount of quotes from Robyn Hitchcock vs other peers. It is clear that many who were a part of the picture were unwilling to participate in this book and that is a shame.
This is THE definitive biography of Syd Barrett. Well written and exhaustively researched, it also benefits from being written after Barrett's death in 2006 and so paints a complete picture of the legend's life. Chapman cuts through the mythology and puts to rest - though he admits it won't be permanent - all of the more hyperbolic tales of Syd's post-breakdown existence.
In addition to complete - or as complete as available - detail of Syd's life, the book delves deeply into Syd's lyrics both with Pink Floyd and as a solo artist. It offers an inside look into their meaning and Syd's influences. This can be a bit tedious to get through, especially if you aren't already familiar with late 19th and early 20th century British art and poetry, but the picture wouldn't be complete without the inclusion of this information.
An additional treat - many interviews with Syd's relatives, friends and former girlfriends as well as those who credit him as an influence. Interviews with the man himself - long out of print - are also available in great detail, as well as quotes and reminiscence by the journalists who conducted them.
This is a complete portrait of the artist and an excellent read.
In addition to complete - or as complete as available - detail of Syd's life, the book delves deeply into Syd's lyrics both with Pink Floyd and as a solo artist. It offers an inside look into their meaning and Syd's influences. This can be a bit tedious to get through, especially if you aren't already familiar with late 19th and early 20th century British art and poetry, but the picture wouldn't be complete without the inclusion of this information.
An additional treat - many interviews with Syd's relatives, friends and former girlfriends as well as those who credit him as an influence. Interviews with the man himself - long out of print - are also available in great detail, as well as quotes and reminiscence by the journalists who conducted them.
This is a complete portrait of the artist and an excellent read.
I only finished this book out of this weird pathological need to keep arguing with it.
It's a shame, too, because I was looking forward to this book. Pink Floyd has been my favorite band since I was 12. I didn't really encounter Syd's music from the early years of the band until I was in my early 20s, and though it never really spoke to me in the way the band's later work did, I found it intriguing. And even more interesting to me was Syd's haunting story--one of very charming, quirky young man's quick stardom that unraveled into an apparent breakdown before culminating in decades of seclusion.
The author of this book is a big Syd fan but to the point he is incapable of being evenhanded in writing about his subject. He constantly places Syd on a pedestal to the expense of everyone else, and in my opinion, it really erodes his credibility as a writer. He also has the bizarre tendency to just unequivocally assert that something is amazing or awful with no real explanation of why, and I usually ended up having the opposite opinion. I still have no clue why he thinks some lyrics that sound like absolute tripe to me are profound or why lyrics I've always found incredibly perceptive and moving are apparently tripe to him since he just seems to think his opinion is a universal law.
More damningly to his credibility, though, is his tendency to leave out inconvenient facts that don't support his version of events. He also doesn't even seem to have a coherent point that he is trying to make.
At times, he claims that Syd wasn't "crazy" at all and was just rebelling against the demands of a pop star and taking control of his own life. But his only evidence for this, despite credible stories he acknowledges comes from people without a motivation to make Syd look bad of how unhinged Syd was behaving, is that he doesn't *look* unwell.
He then turns right around and admits that Syd was clearly unwell and unable to function and accuses the band of jettisoning him cruelly, despite the fact that they actually did attempt to get him to see psychologists and even tried to keep him on as a songwriter with no performing duties before kicking him out and then afterward ensured he received his royalties, tried to assist him with solo projects, and ultimately respected his wishes that he wanted to be left alone.
One of the facets of this book that was most frustrating to me was that, even when addressing Syd's mental state, the author is clearly uncomfortable with the extent of Syd's behavior (particularly his increasing capacity for violence) and just skirts around that entirely. Like, he spends pages on incredibly tenuous theories about Syd and literature (more on that below) but only addresses his documented violent outbursts briefly in 2 paragraphs.
I'm all for acknowledging that Syd's condition and story is probably more complex than it is usually treated--as one of incipient schizophrenia exacerbated by heavy LSD use. I do think Syd had some mental health issues (and a lot of the stories about him have always sounded like depression to me, based on personal experience) that were compounded by the fact that he was ill suited to his sudden rise to pop stardom in the late 1960s and miserable as a result. Syd disliked the strain of touring and seemed to struggle with the discipline required for recording.
He was spontaneous in his creativity and not particularly disciplined in his approach to creating music--painting was his first love. The author seems to idealize this in a way that I--as someone who is both creative and has had to manage creative people--find pretty naïve. Syd disliking routines and schedules and wanting to paint more than make music doesn't make him a bad person anymore than the fact that his bandmates could show up on time, do what they were hired to do, and being interested in a career in music make them sellouts, but don't tell this author that.
And I don't think anyone, even the members of Pink Floyd, deny that Syd's exit from the band was messy and not always well handled (at a time when mental illness was not well understood) by a bunch of young men who never developed real skills at handling conflict even well into middle age. (See their messy split from each other in the 80s.)
But I don't really think anyone is the villain in the story, and I have never doubted that Syd's breakdown had a tremendous impact on all of his former bandmates. Even beyond the frequency that Syd is evoked in their songs, one only has to watch interviews with them about Syd even now to see how profoundly it still disturbs and haunts them (which even the author reluctantly admits seems sincere).
The author argues at times that everyone else in the band were talentless hacks who were jealous of Syd and nothing without him while also seeming perplexed that Syd visibly flailed around in his solo efforts without them. Hmm. Maybe they had some talent of their own after all? He also at times seems to believe that Syd's exit was an obvious coup attempt to make the band more commercial in appeal. Despite the fact that even at its most popular, the band was always pretty un-radio-friendly and wallowed in several years of confusion about what to sound like after Syd's exit because they had lost their songwriter (and their first managers, who followed Syd in the wake of the divorce in the mistaken belief that once he'd recovered he would make them way more money than the Floyd ever would). It's not really the makings of a coup and a quest to be the kings of pop. Compare that to the Rolling Stones after Brian Jones was jettisoned.
It's one of his lesser crimes against good nonfiction writing, but the author also loves to incorporate long, tedious diversions into the text. As mentioned earlier, he strains to connect Syd's writing to English literature as a whole and also brings in a lot of random critical texts that have nothing to do with the topic. It reminds me of bad literary criticism I had to read in grad school. Some of these diversions are not uninteresting or unmerited trains of thought, but this guy just doesn't know when to stop. He also loves to insert himself into the story, even when it has nothing to do with him.
To be fair, there is some good stuff lurking in here, despite the author. Essentially, when he gets out of his own way and just lets his interview subjects talk from Syd's childhood and early life, it's quite an interesting read that gives a lot of good context for his middle-class upbringing in Cambridge and his early years in London's underground music scene. (The lack of interviews with anyone else from the band is pretty noticeable, though.) In those anecdotes of his early years, you can see the Syd that people tended to find so endearing, which the author's tedious pontifications never really bring out.
I also thought the author made a fair point that some of Syd's songs are now always immediately interpreted as sure signs of madness, to the point that it overshadows the creativity behind them, and I can certainly see his point about Syd's former band writing so much about his sanity as seeming a bit exploitative, even if that was not the intent. (Though he seems rather un-self-aware of how exploitative and creepy his own possessive fixation on Syd can come across.)
Really, this book's biggest problem is the author desperately insists that Syd's story is always oversimplified, but he is just as guilty of this as anyone else. Syd Barrett deserves a better biography that treats him as a person rather than an idol or a madman.
As to quote a later Pink Floyd song--which I am sure this author hates because Syd didn't write it--this book is nearly a laugh, but it's really a cry.
It's a shame, too, because I was looking forward to this book. Pink Floyd has been my favorite band since I was 12. I didn't really encounter Syd's music from the early years of the band until I was in my early 20s, and though it never really spoke to me in the way the band's later work did, I found it intriguing. And even more interesting to me was Syd's haunting story--one of very charming, quirky young man's quick stardom that unraveled into an apparent breakdown before culminating in decades of seclusion.
The author of this book is a big Syd fan but to the point he is incapable of being evenhanded in writing about his subject. He constantly places Syd on a pedestal to the expense of everyone else, and in my opinion, it really erodes his credibility as a writer. He also has the bizarre tendency to just unequivocally assert that something is amazing or awful with no real explanation of why, and I usually ended up having the opposite opinion. I still have no clue why he thinks some lyrics that sound like absolute tripe to me are profound or why lyrics I've always found incredibly perceptive and moving are apparently tripe to him since he just seems to think his opinion is a universal law.
More damningly to his credibility, though, is his tendency to leave out inconvenient facts that don't support his version of events. He also doesn't even seem to have a coherent point that he is trying to make.
At times, he claims that Syd wasn't "crazy" at all and was just rebelling against the demands of a pop star and taking control of his own life. But his only evidence for this, despite credible stories he acknowledges comes from people without a motivation to make Syd look bad of how unhinged Syd was behaving, is that he doesn't *look* unwell.
He then turns right around and admits that Syd was clearly unwell and unable to function and accuses the band of jettisoning him cruelly, despite the fact that they actually did attempt to get him to see psychologists and even tried to keep him on as a songwriter with no performing duties before kicking him out and then afterward ensured he received his royalties, tried to assist him with solo projects, and ultimately respected his wishes that he wanted to be left alone.
One of the facets of this book that was most frustrating to me was that, even when addressing Syd's mental state, the author is clearly uncomfortable with the extent of Syd's behavior (particularly his increasing capacity for violence) and just skirts around that entirely. Like, he spends pages on incredibly tenuous theories about Syd and literature (more on that below) but only addresses his documented violent outbursts briefly in 2 paragraphs.
I'm all for acknowledging that Syd's condition and story is probably more complex than it is usually treated--as one of incipient schizophrenia exacerbated by heavy LSD use. I do think Syd had some mental health issues (and a lot of the stories about him have always sounded like depression to me, based on personal experience) that were compounded by the fact that he was ill suited to his sudden rise to pop stardom in the late 1960s and miserable as a result. Syd disliked the strain of touring and seemed to struggle with the discipline required for recording.
He was spontaneous in his creativity and not particularly disciplined in his approach to creating music--painting was his first love. The author seems to idealize this in a way that I--as someone who is both creative and has had to manage creative people--find pretty naïve. Syd disliking routines and schedules and wanting to paint more than make music doesn't make him a bad person anymore than the fact that his bandmates could show up on time, do what they were hired to do, and being interested in a career in music make them sellouts, but don't tell this author that.
And I don't think anyone, even the members of Pink Floyd, deny that Syd's exit from the band was messy and not always well handled (at a time when mental illness was not well understood) by a bunch of young men who never developed real skills at handling conflict even well into middle age. (See their messy split from each other in the 80s.)
But I don't really think anyone is the villain in the story, and I have never doubted that Syd's breakdown had a tremendous impact on all of his former bandmates. Even beyond the frequency that Syd is evoked in their songs, one only has to watch interviews with them about Syd even now to see how profoundly it still disturbs and haunts them (which even the author reluctantly admits seems sincere).
The author argues at times that everyone else in the band were talentless hacks who were jealous of Syd and nothing without him while also seeming perplexed that Syd visibly flailed around in his solo efforts without them. Hmm. Maybe they had some talent of their own after all? He also at times seems to believe that Syd's exit was an obvious coup attempt to make the band more commercial in appeal. Despite the fact that even at its most popular, the band was always pretty un-radio-friendly and wallowed in several years of confusion about what to sound like after Syd's exit because they had lost their songwriter (and their first managers, who followed Syd in the wake of the divorce in the mistaken belief that once he'd recovered he would make them way more money than the Floyd ever would). It's not really the makings of a coup and a quest to be the kings of pop. Compare that to the Rolling Stones after Brian Jones was jettisoned.
It's one of his lesser crimes against good nonfiction writing, but the author also loves to incorporate long, tedious diversions into the text. As mentioned earlier, he strains to connect Syd's writing to English literature as a whole and also brings in a lot of random critical texts that have nothing to do with the topic. It reminds me of bad literary criticism I had to read in grad school. Some of these diversions are not uninteresting or unmerited trains of thought, but this guy just doesn't know when to stop. He also loves to insert himself into the story, even when it has nothing to do with him.
To be fair, there is some good stuff lurking in here, despite the author. Essentially, when he gets out of his own way and just lets his interview subjects talk from Syd's childhood and early life, it's quite an interesting read that gives a lot of good context for his middle-class upbringing in Cambridge and his early years in London's underground music scene. (The lack of interviews with anyone else from the band is pretty noticeable, though.) In those anecdotes of his early years, you can see the Syd that people tended to find so endearing, which the author's tedious pontifications never really bring out.
I also thought the author made a fair point that some of Syd's songs are now always immediately interpreted as sure signs of madness, to the point that it overshadows the creativity behind them, and I can certainly see his point about Syd's former band writing so much about his sanity as seeming a bit exploitative, even if that was not the intent. (Though he seems rather un-self-aware of how exploitative and creepy his own possessive fixation on Syd can come across.)
Really, this book's biggest problem is the author desperately insists that Syd's story is always oversimplified, but he is just as guilty of this as anyone else. Syd Barrett deserves a better biography that treats him as a person rather than an idol or a madman.
As to quote a later Pink Floyd song--which I am sure this author hates because Syd didn't write it--this book is nearly a laugh, but it's really a cry.
Syd has always been a bit of a novelty for me. I enjoyed his work with the Floyd, and was amused by his solo work, but I never really considered myself a fan until I read Rob Chapman's book. Chapman humanizes Syd, and for a casual fan like me, it is a breath of fresh air. Finally, I see what all the fuss is about.
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced