Name: Roger Waters Tells the Tragic Story of Syd Barrett
Uploaded: 2022-10-06T17:18:13.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Roger Waters Tells the Tragic Story of Syd Barrett' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-10-06. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Roger Waters Tells the Tragic Story of Syd Barrett' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-10-06. Transcript available.

The Joe Rogan Experience
So when you guys like in the early days of the band
what was
Like that's always the connection with rock and roll and drugs like this is
like that's the narrative
Yeah, was that in the early days of Pink Floyd was that the case?
It wasn't really no relevant. I mean during though the time when I was smoking
hash every day was
70s 71 70s, so it's pre
Pre dark side. It's when we were making medals. So it's echoes and here, but I
don't I don't think it had I don't think it impinged on
my burgeoning
writing career if you like when I was you know starting to write songs because
Sid
Went crazy in
1967 and so by
It's not he wasn't we weren't seeing him anymore. He disappeared completely and
was that because of LSD
Or was I know I don't think so but you know that narrative, right? Yeah, that's
the narrative or one of the narratives
It may be because he he was mixing with people who were doing acid on a regular
basis. I think in
67
and
And and I'm sure he did too much. He did too much of it
Was he teetering on the edge of what might be called schizophrenia at the time?
I think so probably a
A lot of the things that he was saying and it was right at the beginning of us
getting our first record in any chart which was
Arnold Lane now it was after on Lane
It was in when C. Emily play came out and we were beginning to do TV shows in
England and
And I and I he went very odd and he started I remember him at top of the pops
in the dressing room one day
um, he had hair a bit like that painting on the wall and
and uh going sort of like and then going
Looking worried and a bit frightened and then going
John Lennon doesn't have to do this
You know, which was kind of wacky
um
This was like three-quarters of the way through the Beatles career because they'd
only had that one decade really
Um and so he he he had misgivings about
being on a miming pop show you know and do it said this is what we've worked
towards for the last four or five years
It's to be on top of the pops and make a few quid you know buck up boy. Let's
get on with it
And uh, but he never did buck up from from sort of that moment on really
He wrote a few more songs, but nothing of any any real note
And he just got more and more and more detached until
He was completely wacky and not making any sense and we may I mean
I made a lot of um
Attempts to find out what was wrong and to involve his family
You know, he had elder brothers who I would ring up and say hey, there's
something really wrong with
Roger as they called him because he wasn't his name was roger barrett not sid
barrett
I said he's not well, I think and one of the brothers actually came to london
and went and saw him and called me up and went
He's fine. You know, he's had some troubling times, but he's actually fine. And
that's when alan. He's not he's not
Trust me. I've been I live with him, you know
anyway
And we tried to get him to a shrink
Um, so on a number of occasions, but it would never go in and but and then it
just got weirder and weirder
Like in what way weird like what was incommunicative not making any sense at
all
Not making any it's like I actually mentioned one of the one of the periods one
of the moments is in the show
Because it's just it's in when we play wish you were here
And I do wish he was here and I mean he's it's partly what that song is about
and shine on you crazy diamond
Is just completely about sid
But we were I tell the story in text in the show and it goes um
We'd been to a meeting at the capitol tower in in los angeles
And sid and I were walking down the street after it
And we stopped at the traffic light at hollywood and vine hollywood boulevard
and vine street in los angeles
And he looked at me and smiled and he said
It's nice here in las vegas isn't it well, we were in la
So the he he already had no idea where he was even like that
But then he i say in the thing you'll see it the show it says then his face
darkened
And he looked down at the ground and spat out one word
people
And it that sort of encapsulates what it was like nothing made any sense
disjointed blank disjointed
You know and there we were all young or very young and trying to make our way
and
By that time dave had already joined the band to play guitar and because sid
could didn't play i'm not saying he couldn't
Well, he couldn't really because both of us
made solo his solo records with him helped produce his solo records after that
point and he was
It was pretty kind of disjointed and difficult to get him to do anything
Did he continue to deteriorate further after that yeah?
And then he went home to live in cambridge
And he lived a very solitary life now
I spoke to his sister rosemary after that and saying
Does it make any sense you know to go and visit she no don't do that
And she told me I said why not and she said well
He gets very um agitated
And upset when if he's reminded of what happened before whatever this is
He doesn't like it
He doesn't want to see people from his past he'd rather be left alone and he
did and he used to paint a little bit
And live just on his own in cambridge
until he died
When he was 60
So I don't know what else to say about it really it was tragic obviously
And but but
Those of us who were in Pink Floyd at the time experienced it as a
existential
threat as well
Fuck me. What are we gonna do? He writes the bloody songs. Well, I wrote about
20% of them before
But there were nothing sid songs were the things that were different
They had that weird english romanticism about them
You know, they were beautiful
I've got a bike you can ride it if you like it's got a basket a bell that rings
and things that make it look good
I'd give it to you if I could but I borrowed it
That's so quirky
In terms of its meter the way the lyric attaches
both to the melody and and to the
time signature and the tempo of the thing
is remarkable
And it wasn't just you know, there were lots of quirky little songs like that
all for it all in a very english romantic tradition
And whatever so well, how could we possibly survive if the guy who writes the
songs in the band goes crazy you're fucked basically
Unless somebody else learns to starts to write luckily I did I did start to
write
I'm not I don't mean to laugh because he was a huge loss
And I did love him
Thank you.