The Other Time Syd Barrett Crashed a Pink Floyd Recording Session 

Pink Floyd had one of the great resurrection stories in classic rock. Founder, guitarist, and chief songwriter Syd Barrett’s creative genius put the band on the map. His deteriorating mental health led his bandmates to move on without him. Barrett crashed Pink Floyd’s recording sessions for Wish You Were Here, but that happened years after he unexpectedly showed up at the studio while his former band made another record.

Syd Barrett crashed Pink Floyd’s sessions for ‘Atom Heart Mother’

Barrett enjoyed the benefits of Pink Floyd’s success for roughly a year before the band moved on without him. The Mapcap received royalty checks for his early contributions but had nothing to do with Floyd’s most successful era. Or almost nothing to do with their commercial peak. Barrett showed up to the studio as Pink Floyd recorded “Shine on You Crazy Diamond,” the band’s epic tribute to their erstwhile founder from Wish You Were Here.

That wasn’t the first time Barrett walked into a Pink Floyd recording session after the band kicked him out. 

Ron Geesin, the composer and arranger who worked on the orchestral “Atom Heart Mother” suite, remembered Barrett coming to the studio while he tried to work on his portion of the track. The four Floyds weren’t there, but Barrett heard Pink Floyd were working on a new record and believed he could contribute after more than two years away from the band (via the Saucerful of Secrets biography):

“I just thought he was a nutter. He didn’t know what was going on and had suddenly become some kind of a Jesus figure. This is the fascinating thing about myth versus endeavor. By not doing anything, he was revered much more than if he’d done something.”

pink floyd collaborator Ron Geesin

Barrett dropped out of the music business after Pink Floyd dropped him. He made something of a comeback in 1970. That’s the year he released the solo albums The Mapcap Laughs and Barret. The Floyd’s Roger Waters and David Gilmour produced the former while Gilmour and Floyd keyboard player Rick Wright worked on the latter. It’s conceivable that working with his former bandmates was why Barrett crashed the Floyd sessions for “Atom Heart Mother” hoping to join in. But as he made clear in 1968, he was hardly ready to be an active member of a commercially successful working band. 

Geesin wasn’t too far off the mark with his Jesus-like figure comment. David Bowie stopped caring about Pink Floyd the moment they cut ties with Barrett.

Barrett’s only contribution to Pink Floyd’s music after 1968 was providing inspiration. Still, he left quite an impact without playing another chord or singing another word. 

Barrett influenced many Pink Floyd songs over the years 

Floyd’s founder dropped out of the music business in 1970. The only Madcap releases to come out after that were compilations or archive albums. Yet Barrett had an outsized influence on Pink Floyd’s music of the 1970s. 

The song “Brain Damage” from the influential album The Dark Side of the Moon was a clear nod to Barrett’s mental instability. 

The band wrote 1975’s “Shine on You Crazy Diamond” as a tribute to their long-lost first leader. In a textbook example of serendipity, Barrett crashed Pink Floyd’s recording sessions for the song. He showed up slightly overweight with a shaved head and eyebrows. His appearance hammered home just how distant he had grown from reality and his former self. 

“Shine On” appeared on Wish You Were Here. The album’s title song was also written about Barrett. And Waters combined his dissatisfaction with stardom with Barrett’s mental downfall in several songs on The Wall.  

Gilmour penned his own ode to Barrett with “Poles Apart” from the 1994 album The Division Bell. Nearly 30 years after the band parted ways with him, Barrett influenced Pink Floyd’s music even when he was nowhere near the recording studio.

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