May these crazy diamonds shine on

Syd Barrett, crazy diamond.

I'm not exactly sure why, or what it says about me, but I have always enjoyed psychedelia (art directly or indirectly inspired by the use of psychedelic drugs, such as LSD). I am a particularly big fan of psychedelic music, especially psychedelic rock (although I am always fascinated to hear examples of genre variants such as "psychedelic jazz" and "psychedelic country").

The heyday of psychedelic rock came in the late 1960s; 1967, if I had to put a specific year on it (and I would guess "Wednesday" if I had to put a specific day on it). That year saw the release of, among other albums, The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Rolling Stones' Her Satanic Majesties Request, The Who's The Who Sell Out, The Moody Blues' Days of Future Passed, and Pink Floyd's The Piper at the Gates of Dawn. Four of those are great albums; one (Request) is an intriguing misfire.

Two news items this week have reminded me of my love for all things psychedelic*. The first was the passing of what would have been Syd Barrett's 70th birthday on January 6 (he died on July 7, 2006**). Unfortunately for Syd, he is not as well known as the band he helped create: Pink Floyd. This is in part because he left the band shortly after founding it. But while in Pink Floyd, he was its primary creative force, and put it at the vanguard of the sonic experimentation and musical innovation of the psychedelic era.

The Piper at the Gates of Dawn was Pink Floyd's first album. Though it is one of my favorites, and though I am a fan of later-era Pink Floyd as well, it bears little resemblance to the music for which Pink Floyd would become famous. "Matilda Mother"is probably my favorite song on the album, but "Interstellar Overdrive" is also a great track, while also sounding the most like something later Pink Floyd would do (I think it has echoes of "Echoes"). Really the entire album is great; you should listen to the whole thing. The track that best demonstrates the essence of Syd, however, is "Bike," a short, whimsical, unpredictable listing of a few of a (probably drug-addled) man's favorite possessions, including, of course, a bike:



Syd left Pink Floyd after its next album, A Saucerful of Secrets, but not before completing "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun," the only Pink Floyd song with contributions from every member the band would ever have. After leaving the band, Syd kept his distance (the remaining members even lost track of his whereabouts), and Pink Floyd's sound moved in a much different direction.

But they never stopped thinking about him. He pops up obliquely in "Brain Damage" on Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, as the lyrics identify "when the band you're in starts playing different tunes" as a sign of madness. Near the end of his time with Pink Floyd, Syd, even more drug-addled than the rest of the band, would often go on stage and do exactly that: Sing songs different from the rest of the band (it beats having to deal with Jim Morrison). And Wish You Were Here, Pink Floyd's successor to Dark Side of the Moon, has Syd all over it; he is the express subject of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" and the anthemic title track. Pink Floyd also dedicated the album to him. Bizarrely, he even showed up unannounced and unrecognizable at one of the recording sessions for the album.

Syd didn't accomplish much musically after leaving Pink Floyd, burnt out from too much drug use ("you reached for the secret too soon/now you cry at the moon" as Pink Floyd put it in "Shine On You Crazy Diamond") and died in relative obscurity. But he is eminently worth remembering as one of the founders of Pink Floyd, and one of the most creative musicians of the psychedelic era.

"Yellow Submarine"

The other news item that made me recall the psychedelic era was the January 7th death of Robert Balser, the animation director for The Beatles' animated musical film Yellow Submarine (he was 88). If the life of Syd Barrett shows the dark side of psychedelia, then Yellow Submarine shows the light side. Mostly an excuse to set The Beatles' music to some incredible animation, the film whimsically, humorously, and beautifully tells the story of The Beatles' quest to rescue the "unearthly paradise" of Pepperland from the anti-fun, anti-musical tyranny of the Blue Meanies. This trailer gives a pretty good sense of what it's like, but not as good a job as the whole movie, which I wholeheartedly recommend.


The Beatles, too, were fans. Because of critical failure of Magical Mystery Tour, their previous film effort, non-Beatle voice actors perform as The Beatles in the movie. But The Beatles liked the finished cut so much that they filmed a short scene to tack onto the end.


Perhaps it was fated that I should like Yellow Submarine, as my father--an influence on me in many ways--saw it in the 70s and enjoyed it as well. He caught it in a Kentucky theater that met with raucous applause one particular exchange of dialogue in the film:

"Look, blue glass!"

"Must be from Kentucky."

He also began (but never finished) painting two of the characters from the movie on the wall of his parents' (my grandparents') garage in Dayton, Ohio. His effort is pictured below.

Pictured: Evidence my father is a better artist than I am.

Again, I am not sure why I like psychedelic art so much. But I don't have to answer that question to wish well to Syd Barrett and Robert Balser, two men responsible for two of its greatest examples.

May these crazy diamonds shine on.

*Except for the drugs. The drugs are bad.
**My 13th birthday, as it so happens.