Original subtitles

"Pow R. Toc H." by Pink Floyd playing]

- Why has it all got to be so terribly loud?

For me, frankly, it's too loud, I just can't bear it.

I happen to have grown up in the string quartet which is a bit softer.

If one gets immune to this kind of sound,

one may find it difficult to appreciate softer types of sound.

Syd, yes, no?

- I don't think that's so.

- No?

- I mean everybody listens, we don't need it very loud to be able to hear it

and some of it is very quiet, in fact.

Personally, I like quiet music just as much as loud music.

We play in large halls and things where obviously volume is necessary,

and when people dance, they like volume. Comes in on its own.

But when we play, I think, the way the act has developed in the last six months

has been influenced rather a lot by the fact that we've played in ballrooms

necessarily because, you know, that this is obviously the first market.

And I think concerts have given us a chance to realize that maybe

the music we play isn't directed at dancing necessarily like normal pop groups.

- There's no shock treatment intended?

- No, certainly not.

Some people think that we deliberately try and sort of

shock the audience by the volume, but this isn't so.

- Long before I met him, about a year before I met him,

I used to see him around Cambridge and he stuck out in the crowd.

He was so different, he just shone.

He had the spring in his heel, he just was radiant,

he had longish hair,

he'd either be wearing a fisherman's jumper and skintight jeans winkle pickers,

next time you saw in dark glasses, John Lennon hat,

plastic Mac, tight jeans, winkle pickers, but he just stuck out,

he just threw out some kind of charismatic energy.

And I thought then, I want to know that guy.

- Syd was so talented that even though may have been some of his last words

in the context of the Floyd, his last recording words,

he still managed to make something of it,

which has got its own inner beauty and I think that's extraordinary.

♪ The black and green scarecrow is sadder than me ♪

♪ But now he’s resigned to his fate ♪

♪ 'Cause life’s not unkind – he doesn’t mind ♪

- Syd obviously made music that hits people at a certain age in their life,

because he gets discovered by the young continuously.

There's a certain romance about the myth, but the romance about the myth

wouldn't last if the music didn't have something in itself.

- I first met Syd in 1964,

I was in Cambridge, Center of Cambridge,

just walking around the back streets.

There was a load of mates, five or six of them and Syd happened to be there.

I was introduced to him, it was outside of boutique called Paraphernalia,

and for somehow I went into this weird kind of spill,

and I said something like,

It was an ambiguous day under blazing sun that hammered down on us,

which caused Paraphernalia,

Syd actually laughed head back and we hit it from that moment.

And that's how I first met him.

A friend of mine said, I'm going over to see a friend, do you want to come along

and I said why not, so I went along and it was the house of Syd and his mother,

and this guy, Adrian Taylor he says,

This is Syd, and we just looked at each other and laughed and he said,

Oh you know each other, we said, Oh, yeah.

So after that I used to go around and see Syd quite a lot at his house.

And then one particular evening I called over

and he said, I'm going over to see a friend,

which was Storm Thorgerson, who later became part of The Floyd

doing the graphics for their album,

so we wandered off walking into Center of Cambridge

over I think was called Christ Peace,

there was a big park in the middle of Cambridge

and we started looning around, doing cart wheels and laughing and joking.

And I did a couple of flips and I landed wrong

and I actually severely bruised both my ankles.

So Syd said, Right, we'll get a bus up to the hospital,

and he kind of got me to the main road.

Fortunately, another friend was going by on his Vespa, Dave Gail,

and Syd flagged him down, he said,

Take Pete to the hospital, he has hurt himself,

and strap him up, when he comes back, back to my house,

and I stayed there for four days,

so I was around Syd for four days in his mother's house,

and that's when we really got to know each other a bit more.

And he was painting, he was doing his pop art stuff at the time.

He had a huge, quite a big canvas and it was circles within circles,

quite thick circles and they were all different colors,

so he was going through like the spectrum of color, the rainbows.

But I didn't really talk to him about what he was doing,

I just watched him paint and he was there every day.

He'd be up from 10 in the morning until afternoon,

he'd paint, have a break and pick up the guitar and we'd have a chat and play.

It was four days, I mean sometimes there'd be a bit of talking,

discussing about music, playing the radio, analyzing stuff.

I can remember the Troggs, when they come out Wild Thing,

and I said to him,

What do you think about the Troggs, do you like it?

and he said, I like it but it's so commercial.

If it wasn't for the bloody ocarina, it would be really good and he agreed.

[plucky guitar sounds]

At that time there was a body, a group of people

that were very much into the blues, R&B scene,

from Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, Rolling Stones of course,

and there was a group of people which formed,

there was about 3, 4 different bands with this group of people

and you didn't know who was going to be playing at what time,

because the personality changes, the name of the band changed.

So there was The Hollering Blues, Blues Anonymous and Such Weak Thunder.

Now those three bands were more or less the same people

but they would add or get rid of somebody, Syd was part of that.

And I was called up on stage for two numbers,

one was a Rolling Stones, Walking The Dog,

which I've kind of whistled and sang backing vocals,

the other song was a Jimmy Reed number, Baby What You Want Me To Do,

where I played harmonica.

I played quite insignificant part in this but I was part of that scene

but just doing it for fun.

We were experimenting I guess

we're just finding our way where, obviously Syd was more into,

not making it big, I don't think that ever crossed his mind,

but he really enjoyed what he was doing and when he was there to practice

he kind of led the way.

It was him that kind of gave ideas and instructions to do this or do that.

So it was a very interesting time.

Syd left Cambridge, he knew that he was going to London,

we all knew that he was going up to London to go to art school.

And I think it was at the art school that he had met certain musician,

I think Roger Waters was obviously one of them, also a Cambridge guy,

and they already had a band, I think, and he was invited,

Syd was invited to play with them, which he did.

He kind of led the way I think, he got into something totally different.

- I don't actually remember when I met Syd, I don't remember where I met Syd,

just suddenly he was part of my life.

1963 to 64 I was at architecture school, 1964 I started art school.

Somewhere along the line all the Pink Floyd became part of my world.

I remember Roger being more vocal and more articulate and more driven,

perhaps than any of the others,

Nick was very quiet, Rick was very quiet.

In all the time I spent with them, I don't remember much conversation

with either of them.

So it was Roger and Syd, and Syd was jovial and jolly and wanting to play.

We had a flat that was on two floors and they were,

I was on the top floor and they would be rehearsing on the top floor

and it would sometimes just drive me mad and I'd have to go downstairs

and I'd put on American rhythm and blues as loud as I could,

because I thought they had no sense of rhythm,

and I thought maybe subtly this would get into them.

But it was sort of a lot of, a lot of noise,

a lot of, they didn't know where they were going,

I wasn't sure I particularly liked all their directions.

Some of it I did like, some of it I didn't, but at the same time

I would go to rehearsals that were out of the flat and performances

and obviously there was something special happening with them at the same time.

So, mixed emotions.

- I hadn't seen Syd for quite some time.

He'd come back to Cambridge occasionally and if there was a music scene going

he would join in and play guitar or whatever.

But I lost contact with him for a bit and the next I heard about Syd

he was on the radio Pink Floyd, Arnold Layne,

and I thought, Bloody hell, you know,

this is my mate up there doing it, brilliant.

♪ Collecting clothes Moonshine washing line ♪

♪ They suit him fine ♪

- The UFO Club, it originated in a thing called the London Free School

in Notting Hill and among the people

who set up London Free School were Andrew King and Peter Jenna

who later on turned out to be the first managers of the Pink Floyd.

Anyway, it was,

the enterprise stumbled along in the summer of 1966 in Notting Hill,

but it was always short of money and we decided to run a benefit

at the local church hall.

And somehow or other, we got the Pink Floyd to play there.

It got to be rather popular because it was the first time

anybody used light shows and the band at the same time.

And people got quite turned on by this.

Joe Boy turned around to me one day and said,

Look Hoppy if we can find a venue in the West End

why don't we take this to the center of town and sent them into a club.

So I looked at him and after five seconds later I agreed.

And then we went on the hunt for some premises.

We found a place in Tottenham Court Road

and we opened the UFO Club just before Christmas in 1966.

A lot of their stuff was what I would call pastoral or childlike

which was probably due to Syd Barrett and his part of the creativity.

Because after Syd went there was really, if not a total absence,

there was much less of this sort of childlike,

if you like, innocent yearning sort of stuff

and there was much more of the sort of monumental sledgehammer approach.

I don't say that in the negative way but four people managed to make

a huge amount of sound and that was something in itself.

- I got them a deal with Polydor

and everybody was very happy.

And at the same time I was happy and I also started this club

called the UFO Club.

And so they were playing at the UFO Club at the same time that I was,

I brought somebody from Polydor down to see them,

they loved them, they said yes here you go,

and I set up my production company for the purpose of recording The Floyd.

I got a call from Jenner to say that

they've been very impressed with Arnold Layne,

we played the song for them, they thought it was great,

and they could get us a much better deal with EMI

than the deal we had with Polydor.

And I was crushed of course because the Polydor was my deal,

it was going through my production company.

And, but they wanted me to produce the single and I said,

Well, I'll do that but I want to be assured that I'll be the producer

of the album that follows the single,

and Brian Morrison said, Well, EMI doesn't like to be tied down like that.

Somewhat reluctantly but I felt if I do a good job on the single

they'll want to keep the team together.

So we went in the studio, we made Arnold Layne

and the B side Candy And A Currant Bun

and then subsequently EMI loved the record,

signed them, gave them a big contract and said we're going

to use our in-house producer, so thanks very much.

And that was the end of my professional relationship with Floyd.

♪ Why can't you see? ♪

♪ Arnold Layne ♪

When I first met them in the Autumn of '66,

Roger was the strong character, he was the spokesman in the way,

although everybody had something to say.

But Syd was a great kind of sparkly eyed, witty, funny,

charming guy who girls loved him.

I got along very well with him, he was a very nice guy, very easy to talk to.

And he continued to be pretty much like that all during the recording sessions

and the gigs at UFO January, February, March of '67.

And then there was a period from March till May,

when I didn't really see them very much,

and I ran into Syd and his girlfriend Lindsey

in Cambridge Circus one evening in May,

and she looked really worried and he was just lying in the gutter.

And she told me that he'd been taking acid every day for seven days

and she looked really anxious.

And then when they came back and played in June

Syd was no longer the same Syd,

he was kind of like nobody home.

And the glint was gone from his eyes and he just stood on the stage

and went long stretches without playing the guitar at all that night.

And you could see the rest of the guys were,

you know, really didn't know what to do,

but they sort of work through it and played.

Rick did long noodley keyboard solos

but it was very sad.

- A man called Brian Morrison who was,

I'm not sure whether he yet had signed agency of Pink Floyd,

but he was certainly looking for it,

and he had some good relationship with their management then.

And he came to me and he said, What is this group called Pink Floyd,

you go, What? Pink what? He said, Pink Floyd.

What are they?

He said, They are appearing at UFO.

I said, UFO, what is UFO?

So then he taught me to this underground freak up in Tottenham Court Road.

When I saw them, it wasn't so much them

as the light show they had which was very impressive.

What they were playing, loosely called music, didn't appeal to me very much

because I, you know, I'm a jazz man from birth.

So I didn't know too much about that kind of music or that kind of noise

or whatever you might call it.

But anyhow, I didn't talk to them there.

So Brian and I came away, went on a drink

and he said, What do you think, so I said,

Well, it's not so much the group, very impressive their show,

the light show and all that I said, but it's the number of people

that were there, fans of theirs,

it showed that they were extremely popular and they were,

I don't know if it was the drugs they were all taking, the fans or whatever,

but they were extremely popular.

So I said to Brian, "Yes, I am interested."

I might well have said to them and made it clear

that I would be looking for a single,

but they didn't set out to write a single at all.

It was only my choice when I had particularly heard See Emily Play

up to that time I thought, I'm not gonna get a single.

But then, when they played me See Emily Play I thought, Ah, it struck a note.

I thought, I think I'll make a single out of this, which I did

and it was one that I was really able to dress up in my own way as well.

And I think Syd hated it to be honest with you, in fact I'm sure he did.

He was not interested one little bit for singles, but I thought,

Please God, this is gonna happen.

And of course fortunately they got to number two I think was it.

♪ Free games for May See Emily play ♪

♪ Soon after dark, Emily cries (Ah, ooh) ♪

By then as it started to climb up the charts,

I thought the next thing is gonna happen is Top of the Pops.

So I thought, I think the best thing I can do is to bring them into EMI

to let them see what would happen once they go into the Top of the Pops studio.

Anyway, of course I mean,

Syd did not perform at all very well and when he came to Top the Pops

he virtually was motionless and didn't do a thing.

Before they went on they actually went into makeup

having their hair washed and makeup, etc, hair set,

I was waiting for them in their dressing room,

they came back in out of makeup and as soon as they walked in

I saw Syd and he looked wonderful.

The way they had styled his hair and the makeup.

So straight away I made the mistake of saying,

Syd, you look absolutely wonderful and he went, Ah?

And he walked over to the mirror, saw himself, Ugh,

and he immediately scuffed up all his hair,

got tissues and started wiping off the makeup, etc, and I thought,

What am I going to do with this guy.

Anyway, we went on like that.

♪ See Emily play ♪

The second Top of the Pops he was even worse,

because he stood there with his guitar just dangling,

didn't even try to play it, head sort of bowed, complete and utter of nothing.

I was furious.

And that was the end of their Top of the Pops career.

- I think he probably hated going on Top of the Pops,

doing the same thing over and over again,

he just saw it as miming, how can you mime that's fault.

If you're going to get up there in front of cameras

you got to do it live, surely.

Why mime, it becomes a very commercial hype.

♪ There is no other day Let’s try it another way ♪

♪ You’ll lose your mind and play Free games for May ♪

♪ See Emily play ♪

- Syd was into the experimental in music.

And being a pop star you're into repetition and you do a defined performance

and you have to keep on doing it.

Whereas Syd, big problem I think for him was that he was wanting

to experiment continuously and just didn't have the discipline

to repeat and repeat and repeat the same.

So he would both challenge people when he should have been repeating

because he wanted to do, he didn't want to, it was too constrictive.

♪ A fight between the blue you once knew ♪

♪ Floating down, the sound resounds Around the icy waters underground ♪

- I would bring the band after doing a take on any particular song,

bring them into the control room and then to make my suggestions.

Mainly to Syd because he was the mainstay, he was the writer

and he was the big influence of the psychedelic feeling

among the rest of the group.

You know, he really was a kind of a leader I suppose.

Anyway, I would listen to this tape with them and then afterwards

say, mainly to Syd because as I've said I regarded him as the leader,

What I suggest blah, blah, blah, why don't you try this, that and the other

instead of what you're doing at the moment,

try and then make a suggestion.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, so I say,

Okay Syd would you go ahead with that and do another take in the studio?

So he says, Yeah, yeah, okay.

So off they would go back in the studio.

OK, the engineer, do that take, so off we go.

He would do exactly the same show and so would they,

the same thing, almost ignoring either what I said for suggestions

and he'd come back in and I said, OK come back in and I would say,

You know, you didn't blah blah, Oh, didn't I, no, no, that kind of thing.

Probably not wishing to do my suggestions of that particular kind.

So I did have this with Syd Barrett to contempt with not only for one song

but many songs.

So it was pretty damn difficult with Syd Barrett, friendly enough.

I mean, I was friendly enough with him and particularly the other boys

and I think particularly Roger Waters.

Roger would show me, he would gesture to me,

if perhaps I was talking to Syd and suggested one or two things.

He would make sort of facial suggestions, of that kind,

Will he do it, did he get what you are talking about?

He was a bit dubious himself, that's the impression

I got anyway from the other guys.

But of course, they were relying on him for song writing,

to write enough songs at least for the first album

The Piper at the Gates of Dawn.

- Before the album came out they actually came and played it

at the art school in Cambridge where Syd and myself had gone.

And I saw them for the first time and I thought, I don't like this,

you can't dance to it, it's not what I'm used to,

it was loud, it was obscure, very abstract,

although I was very much into modern jazz at the time, especially John Coltrane.

But I thought at least Coltrane has got some discipline about note to note,

where this sounded, everything was at random and noise

and someone was trying to be cool and say, Yeah, it's really good isn't it,

but inside your mind you were saying, Don't like this.

And when The Piper at the Gates of Dawn came out

I thought, This is nothing like Arnold Layne.

Something had obviously shifted with Syd's thinking about taking music wherever.

I think the Interstellar Overdrive and the more kind of heavy kind of rock

they should have put that on another album.

I think if they were to kept Bike, Scarecrow, The Gnome,

kept to that kind of genre it'd have been a more fulfilling album I think.

But it was a kind to me like a mismatch.

You had folk, folk rock, then you had progressive psychedelic rock on one album

so it was a bit disjointed.

If you analyze it now, looking back in retrospect, I can now understand,

I can see Syd and I think he was taking on board his surroundings,

he loved nature, he loved walking in the country.

So when I hear things like Scarecrow and The Gnome,

it's very Cambridge, very English.

It's to do with Syd's little experiences, whether he was on his own or whatever.

Even if he was, you know, probably in the city in London

and whatever was happening around him

he would somehow fit that into his writing.

♪ The black and green scarecrow as everyone knows ♪

♪ Stood with a bird on his hat and straw everywhere ♪

♪ He didn’t care ♪

♪ He stood in a field where barley grows ♪

♪ His head did no thinking ♪

♪ His arms didn’t move except when the wind cut up rough ♪

♪ And mice ran around on the ground ♪

♪ He stood in a field where barley grows ♪

- There would be a period where I didn't really see much of Syd

which is when The Floyd really started taking off.

Years later, years, years, years later, I read their touring schedule

and I thought, what madness, whoever programmed them to run around England

in the way they did, in the conditions they did

and I thought that would have been exhausting and debilitating for anyone.

Let alone throw in drugs and there was bound to be some kind of price for that.

It was just so illogical to have them driving here in England and down there

and then over there and up there, sort of like that, crazy.

♪ He stood in a field where barley grows ♪

- They were booked to do the thing on radio,

BBC Radio called Saturday Club with Brian Matthew.

When you were booked for that you would have to sit around until your time,

until Brian had found time to bring you in,

so sometimes it was quite a long wait before you went into broadcast.

Anyway, I was siting about there

and then came the call from Brian to come in

we looked around, couldn't find Syd, where's Syd?

Oh, I don't know he was taking a cup of coffee or something,

where the hell is he anyway.

I think it was a doorman that came with earshot of this,

he said, Well I saw somebody leaving the front door,

and I said, Did you notice what he looked like?

He said, I don't know but he looked as though he might be a musician.

So Roger Waters went down at the front door,

looked up the road just to see Syd disappearing around the first turning.

So Roger ran after him and brought him back.

And that was really the start of his freak out

and the eventual leaving the group.

That was the first, it wasn't really the first signs for me,

but it was the last final sign that he was freaking out,

mentally something was missing, something was going.

♪ It’s awfully considerate of you to think of me here ♪

♪ And I’m most obliged to you for making it clear that I’m not here ♪

- Syd seem to have the ability to produce oddball lyrics

but with melodies or tunes or riffs

which managed to crystallize each one into something

which was really brilliant.

Even his terminal pieces like Jugband Blues, still they have,

they have a sort of musically rounded nature

which you wouldn't say that someone who is mentally in that condition

could possibly produce anything.

It's almost as if his last words came out set to music,

it was what that feels like.

He was a very special talent.

No he wasn't a genius but he was very talented and I think,

something must have happened to him early on in his life

so that his brain became wired for music and lyrics.

It doesn't happen with many people.

[bright music]

- It has been said that Syd probably would have had a breakdown at some point.

He was quirky, zany before he went loopy, I mean, he was eccentric.

I can remember him kind of saying, No rules, there's no rules, no rules.

I mean, he was brought up in,

his environment being brought up as a kid, was very, very, very liberal.

There were no rules, he could do what he wanted

he was loved, he had security, money.

Then his father died of course.

But he was basically brought up with his mother,

I think it doted on him.

And I can remember she would bring tea and cakes and biscuits to us

and then he'd say, Mom, fuck off.

She said, OK Syd, and laugh.

He could say anything, there was no disrespect,

it was just the normal thing to do, I don't want you here now mom, fuck off.

OK Syd, and laugh it off, you know.

And I was impressed by that because I was brought up in a very kind of Victorian

very, very strict environment.

And I had to be in certain times for my lunch, evening meal, whatever,

I had to be there, if I was late I got ripped for it.

But he could just come and go and have all his friends around,

he had his own room and that was enviable.

♪ And the sea isn’t green And I love the Queen ♪

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

- Syd was the lead vocalist and the lead guitar and the rhythm guitar

variously, and that's quite a heavy load to take on.

If you're being the vocalist,

then, at that point when you're singing, you're the center of attention.

But a lot of The Floyd stuff was

instrumental and without words, particularly Interstellar Overdrive,

which is like very long usually,

and it has got lots of things in it and didn't have any words in it.

So, I think, really what I'm saying is that

part of the magic of The Floyd, the secret ingredient was

that the group as a whole was greater than the sum of the parts.

And that's why The Floyd managed to survive after Syd left.

Because that essence of what they were doing together survived.

And David Gilmour who was already good friends with the group

and probably played and jammed with them a good deal

and naturally stepped in to fill the gap left by Syd when he split.

-I thought that they wouldn't last,

that without Syd where are they gonna get the songs,

where are they gonna get the spark of genius.

The other guys were great musicians and they had a wonderful sound

but the idea that they could carry on at the same level without Syd

to me was impossible.

In a way, one of the things that in retrospect you could say

that they gained maybe by the next album

the taboo against songs longer than three minutes had been lifted in a way.

There have been different groups doing longer

sort of extended instrumentals and things like that.

And so they were able to put on record

the way that they sounded in person much more.

And in a way, as a guitar player rather than as a songwriter,

but as a guitar player, Dave Gilmour is probably more accessible

than Syd was as a guitar player.

If you'd had a record full of stuff like Interstellar Overdrive

as the second record with Syd still in full control of his fact faculties,

he might have written some very clever wonderful songs,

maybe better songs than appeared on subsequent Floyd records.

But his way to fill a 10 minute stretch of instrumental

was a lot more grating and hard for people to deal with,

I think mass market to deal with,

than the sort of spacey, blues guitar playing of Dave Gilmour

which is much more accessible.

So in some ways I think given that that was the direction they were going in,

to have longer and longer tracks

and more emphasis on the instrumental component of the group,

switching Syd for Dave Gilmour probably worked.

- There was a certain period in that point of the 60's

when the generalization was that fame and fortune and success

were kind of irrelevant to people's lives,

that creativity wasn't low and the present wasn't.

I never remember having a conversation with Syd

about being a pop star until he wasn't, and then it was

a significant memory of him going I'm a failed pop star.

Then he turned to me and said,

But who are you, you're 23 and you're not famous,

then he turned to his girlfriend and said, You're just a waitress.

And that was a real put-down of all three of us.

It was devastating in the fact that he was putting himself down as well.

And it was like, you don't want your friends putting you down.

The level of being put down was kind of,

I don't necessarily agree with that either,

but Syd was always challenging when he was good, when he was bad.

♪ Got a flip-top pack of cigarettes in her pocket ♪

♪ Feeling good at the top, shopping in sharp shoes ♪

♪ Walking in the sunshine town Feeling very cool ♪

♪ But the butchers and the bakers in the supermarket stores ♪

♪ Getting everything she wants from the supermarket stores ♪

♪ Apples and oranges ♪

- I came up to London in '68,

I was living in Shepherds Bush,

got married down the Hammersmith and then moved to Earl's Court.

My wife, my new wife from Cambridge, Jenny Hole,

we were walking down the high street in the Earl's Court and along came

Syd's girlfriend, Lindsey Corner, saw me and said Oh, PV

what are you doing out, I said, We're just moving here,

Where? Earl's Court Square.

Well that's where we live, Syd would love to see you.

And lo and behold, they lived about 4, 5 doors away from me.

I was at Number 10, they were at Number 5, I can't remember, Number 2, whatever.

So I went round after not seeing Syd for about two years

and I knocked on the door,

he opened it, he shook my hand, PV it's lovely to see you, like normal,

got inside the room there was no conversation,

he would just...

And I didn't think anything at that time,

it didn't actually kind of dawned on me that anything was wrong.

I mean, I hadn't seen him for two years, probably longer.

We didn't stop long, we just kind of exchanged

a little bit of, you know, How are you, and he said, Come and see me again,

and it was a few weeks down the line.

I went over one evening and completely different thing altogether.

Knocked on the door, he said, Hello PV come in.

And he'd moved this table into the middle of the room

there was a stereo playing full blast, TV full blast, two chairs,

we sat down and he just went blank,

there was a stare and he stared right through me.

And he just sat there peeling an orange like it was a globe,

or whatever, the universe.

And I felt very kind of, it put me very uneasy,

I felt, I started getting a little bit like what's going on here

and I knew then something wasn't right but I didn't know what.

I put it down to, well maybe he's just being super cool, being a big rock star,

maybe he's just being some...

But I didn't realize, no, it was more than that.

So I left and I felt a bit paranoid actually, he just stared right through you.

And he was like a greeting me at the door, everything was hunky dory

then all of a sudden there was nothing, like blank,

and he'd gone somewhere in his own mind, he was just gone.

♪ Cornering neatly she trips up sweetly ♪

♪ To meet the people, she's on time again ♪

♪ And then I catch her by the eye, then I stop and have to think ♪

♪ What a funny thing to do cause I'm feeling very pink ♪

Then I hadn't seen him for maybe a month or so.

I was walking down Earl's Court road and this big white car pulls up

and it was David Gilmour and he said,

We're recording Syd down at Abbey Road, do you want to come along?

I said, Yes, I'd love to, I've have never been inside of recording studio

and I thought, Well, why not?

So we went along and Syd was already there behind this glass cabinet

playing his guitar, well not playing.

Somebody said, Well Syd.

What are you going to do? How many songs you've got?

He said, I've got 12, 13, Well what are you gonna do,

he said, All of them.

And I heard this guy in the background say. Get him out of here,

I mean the way that Syd was playing the guitar was

like running fingers down the fret at random without any, it was nonsensical.

And then I knew there was something seriously wrong with him and I thought,

My God, I felt I was looking at a pathetic character

and I felt very kind of like sad, I felt very sad.

I thought, No, he's mad.

And this guy said get him out of here.

I can remember David Gilmour saying, No,

this is the second solo album and he was actually prepared

and about to do Dominos.

Dave Gilmour turned around to this guy, engineer, whatever he was and said,

No, I'm paying for this, he does what he wants.

He was so adamant, no he's going to do what he wants to do,

you know, like bug off if you like.

So there was Syd, they were going into Dominos which is a song that I love

and it will haunt me for the rest of my days,

I think it's one of the best songs they've ever done.

And, he thought, Well there was no band, that was just him

doing his guitar bit up and down the frets,

and you are thinking, God, this is bloody obviously embarrassing.

But he went on hour, after hour, after hour,

and we were there from like lunchtime to like one in the morning.

And they hadn't even completed one song.

And I thought nothing more of it and that was it,

that's the last time I saw Syd, I'd moved back to Cambridge in '71

not realizing that Syd was back there at the same time as me,

but we never had any contact after that Abbey Road recording.

- I think he was quite lost on the second one,

in that, I remember going to the studio with him

and Syd having to be told what to do,

and then he would sort of sit there and just zone out,

or he wouldn't know what he was supposed to do,

or he would stop doing something,

and you didn't know if he was deliberately messing it up.

Because he would play mind games with people

and you didn't know if that was deliberate or not.

That was the period where he started getting really, you know,

but he wasn't, he was just closed off inside himself.

- I haven't listened to a lot of Syd's solo stuff,

I mean, I've listened to it but not over and over again.

And I suppose for me I find it a little difficult to listen to,

because I'm kind of in mourning for two things,

one is for the Syd that existed before the summer of '67

and the other for the tape that he gave me that I lost

which had all these great, wonderful, simple, just guitar and voice versions

of a lot of the songs that appear on those records.

It was around the time we made Arnold Layne, because he had,

he mentioned in a conversation that he had

a bunch of songs that The Floyd weren't using.

And he was I think at the time quite prolific, he was writing a lot.

And I was...

I've just been hired to record, in fact the same week as I recorded Arnold Layne

I also recorded a single with a group from Makerfield called The Purple Gang.

And I had in mind that they could sing some of Syd's songs

and so I said, Syd could you give me a tape of your songs?

So he just sat in front of a microphone, just strummed and sang the songs

and gave me the tape,

but then somehow I didn't end up doing a record with an album with them

and the whole thing just, you know.

You don't think about how important

these things could be historically at the time.

- When you've met a person who's young, 18, 17, 18,

and they are happy, laughing, joking together, doing all nice things,

creating from writing to painting, to playing music, having laughter, good times

and then you see somebody with black holes staring through you

and there was nothing there.

I mean, I can remember walking down Earl's Court road

I'd bumped into him and it was like being with a small child.

To me he seemed dyspraxic, these are new labels that have come out,

he seemed like he was a bit dyspraxic or maybe Asperger.

To me, that's how Syd seemed, he would hesitate before crossing the road

or he would do things.

I don't know, he also seemed very sensitive.

It was like, if you made a sudden movement, a jerky movement,

he would recoil and look paranoid.

So something was definitely wrong with him.

He changed from a most beautiful intelligent guy

to another level of intelligence, he went somewhere else.

And I don't think anybody could ever reach him.

- I was very fond of him at one period, very impressed by him.

I felt very privileged to be in his company, to be sharing his life.

And then it turned to being, God he's a nightmare to be around,

it's a tragedy and I can't co-exist with this anymore.

And then, then there's like how melodramatic was that

and, you know, time changes everything.

Let's say I feel very fortunate to have lived through that

but it was just part of my life and it was ordinary

and normal to me at the same time that my friends were creative

and talented and special.

- He was a shining character.

I've never known anybody like him in my whole existence that shone,

apart from probably the Dalai Lama.

He was such a charismatic person, he did shine, I mean,

it was like electric sparks coming out of him

when you saw him walking down the street he just stood out in the crowd.

Yes, he was a very special man.

Probably he could have been a guru if he didn't put his mind

to something else, you know.

So, I don't know why people share this whole thing about Syd,

he obviously had something that a lot of people just don't have.

He was a very special guy, lovable Syd, without a shadow of doubt.

♪ Emily tries but misunderstands (Ah, ooh) ♪

♪ She's often inclined to borrow somebody’s dreams 'til tomorrow ♪

♪ There is no other day Let’s try it another way ♪

♪ You’ll lose your mind and play Free games for May ♪

♪ See Emily play ♪

♪ Soon after dark, Emily cries (Ah, ooh) ♪