Six Things You May Not Know About Syd Barrett

Of the members of Pink Floyd, Syd Barrett is arguably the most misunderstood.

Though he helped found the band and came up with their name, Barrett’s legacy is a complicated one. He left Pink Floyd in early 1968, following a difficult period in which his declining mental health, drug usage and general inability to collaborate effectively with others came to a head. After that, he moved in and out of the public eye, exhibiting more erratic behavior and going through bouts of isolation.

In 1975, Pink Floyd released “Shine On You Crazy Diamond,” a song quite clearly written in tribute to their former bandmate: “Remember when you were young? You shone like the sun.”

Barrett passed away from pancreatic cancer in July of 2006. He was 60 years old.

“Do find time today to play some of Syd’s songs and to remember him as the madcap genius who made us all smile with his wonderfully eccentric songs about bikes, gnomes and scarecrows,” David Gilmour said then (via Billboard). “His career was painfully short, yet he touched more people than he could ever know.”

There was much more to Barrett than the many wild tales — some true, some not — that surrounded his life. Below, you’ll find six lesser-known facts about the late artist.

1. He Was a Scout Patrol Leader in His Youth

When Barrett was a teenager, he was a Scout with the 7th Cambridge troop, later becoming a patrol leader. Interestingly, this is where he crossed paths with a boy named Tim Renwick. Decades later, Renwick would serve as a touring guitarist for Pink Floyd, many years after Barrett had left. “I go way back with the band,” Renwick later explained. “I actually went to school with Roger Waters and Syd Barrett. They were four years older than me, but I remember them quite clearly…Syd, believe it or not, was my patrol leader in the Scouts! He was a very impressive and charismatic bloke, as was Roger.”

2. One of His School Teachers Was Roger Waters’ Mother

Barrett actually first met Waters when they both attended Morley Primary School. As it happened, Waters’ mother was a teacher there and Barrett one of her pupils.

3. His Family Did Not Call Him Syd

If you read any interview with Rosemary Breen, Barrett’s youngest sister and the person with whom he was closest in the last years of his life, you’ll notice that she only refers to him by his legal name, Roger. That’s because no one in the Barrett family ever called him by his nickname — he was only “Syd” outside of the home.

4. He Originally Went to College to Study Painting

In 1962, Barrett was an art student at the Cambridgeshire College of Arts and Technology, which is where he first met Gilmour. Two years later he attended the Camberwell College of Arts in London. Despite never graduating from formal art school, Barrett continuing painting throughout his whole life.

“Roger worked in a variety of styles — though he admired no one after the impressionists — and you could say he came up with his own type of conceptual art,” Breen, his aforementioned sister, said in a 2006 interview. “He would photograph a particular flower and paint a large canvas from the photograph. Then he would make a photographic record of the picture before destroying the canvas. In a way, that was very typical of his approach to life. Once something was over, it was over. He felt no need to revisit it.”

5. At One Point He Nearly Joined a Religious Sect

In 1965, the members of Pink Floyd, bolstered undoubtably by drug use, began exploring Sant Mat, a sect of Sikhism that dates back to 13th century India. Barrett wanted to fully convert, but he was reportedly deemed too young.

Watch Syd Barrett and Roger Waters’ Be Interviewed in 1967

6. He Wrote Most of the Songs on Pink Floyd’s First Album

Statistically speaking, Waters wrote the most songs for Pink Floyd overall. But what you might not know is that Barrett the majority of the songs on the band’s first album, 1967’s The Piper at the Gates of Dawn. “The era of Syd being in the band was something completely different,” Gilmour shared in 2019. ““But you know Syd was a friend of mine, and his talent was exceptional. A quirky original sort of thing.”

Listen to ‘Bike’ From ‘The Piper at the Gates of Dawn’