BARRETT: THE DEFINITIVE VISUAL COMPANION
Russell Beecher & Will Shutes ROCKET 88
VIEWING HIS LATER ART, IT’S EASY TO IMAGINE SYD HAPPY IN HIMSELF.
THE LYRICS OF SYD BARRETT
OMNIBUS PRESS
A celebration of Syd’s words and art.
Half a century after he ceased to be a recording artist Syd Barrett continues to loom in our consciousness like a cautionary tale. The young, impishly goodlooking songwriter, who became lost and entangled in the dark woods of pop mythology, briefly reemerges as a bald, bloated wreck of his former self, ambling around Abbey Road unrecognised by Pink Floyd then working on Wish You Were only to then disappear for good. It’s the stuff of legends.
We variously juggle with a procession of archetypes and stereotypes: Syd the fool, the magician, the catalyst, the visionary, the acid casualty, the hermit, and, of course, ‘mad’ Syd. An army of Syd seekers have written about all of these aspects over the years. Perhaps the very best of these is Rob Chapman’s 2010 A Very Irregular Head and appropriately enough, Chapman provides authoritative commentary in two new additions to the expanding Barrett library.
Beecher and Shutes’ exquisite paperback of their highly collectable 2011 hardback edition chronicles Syd’s early and post-Floyd artwork. Its meticulously annotated and richly illustrated pages take us deep into Barrett’s creativity. Here it’s possible to see his musical career as a mere blip. Fizzing with vibrant colour, his paintings encompass charming figurative works, stirring abstracts, pop art japes, and a series of contemplative landscapes and still lives that run up to his death in 2006. Viewing these latter tranquil works it’s easy to imagine Barrett happy in his work and in himself thereby adding ‘content Syd’ to that list of archetypes.
However, seeing his lyrics separated from their original musical settings, laid out on the white slab of a page like an autopsy subject, isn’t always a rewarding experience. The Lyrics Of Syd Barrett sets out, in alphabetical order and accompanied by photos, the 52 songs published in his lifetime. Rob Chapman’s persuasive introduction places Barrett’s writing in the same experimental continuum as the poetry underground of the period and in this context helps vivify Barrett’s conversational cadences.
However, Chapman’s enthusiasm for his subject doesn’t blind him to the fraying untidiness of what had once been crisp wordplay and sharp imagery as Barrett the musician and singer approaches the point of no return. Yet whether read or heard, Opal’s closing refrain of ‘I’m trying to find you’ resonates with unbearable poignancy.