Ep.9 - Rosemary Breen on her Brother Syd Barrett: „He never sought celebrity“ 

FROM THIS INTERVIEW WITH ROSEMARY, I THINK THAT , FROM NOW ON, NO ONE WILL KNOW MORE DEEPLY ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED TO SYD, SINCE HE STOPPED MAKING MUSIC AND BEGAN TO TAKE REFUGE IN HIS HOME, SHE DID...SHE HAS TRIED A LOT BECAUSE OF THAT CERTAIN COEXISTENCE SHE HAD WITH HIM....EVEN THOUGH ROSEMARY HAS THINGS SHE DOENS´T REMEMBER , BECAUSE MANY YEARS HAVE PASSED...AND REMEMBER THE TITLE OF THIS VIDEO ABOUT SYD BARRETT....´´HE NEVER SOUGHT CELEBRITY´´...SINCE SYD´ WAS MORE THAN ANYTHING, AN EXCEPTIONAL ECCENTRIC CARTOONIST...AND EVEN THOUGH HE WAS A GREAT MUSICIAN, HE TOOK THE WRONG PATH, IN WHICH HIS SCHIZOPHRENIA WAS ENHANCED BY NOT BEING ABLE TO STOP TAKING ´´LSD´´.......Greetings from Argentina

@@alejandrobonahora6484 Young man, why are you shouting?

I DON´T SEE WELL...THIS WHY I WRITE IN PRINT@@benedictearlson9044

Look up Daniel Johnson You will love him if you haven’t heard of him yet. Couldn’t agree with you more

Roger did contact his family about the drugs, but they said nothing was wrong.

Hi Margarita Yeah Syd Berret;s more posthumous fame or recognition kind of reminds me of American poet Emily Dickson . See Emily Play - Do know the lyrics?👻😂

Absolutely and this I think is what fans want to see. All the bits left in, everything. Truly real. Loved every minute of it. A breath of fresh air

There was in London 7 years ago

the problem is, the music, the music scene & the drugs all went hand it hand. Syd’s hangers-on, spiking his drinks with LSD on a daily basis.. would not have happened if he hadn’t been in the music scene. you can’t blame her for hating the music and what it did to him.

Same here. Most people from back then were judgy and square. Seems like the family didn't quite know him at all. They helped him with mundane chores, but that's about it

Thank you, something about her rubs me the wrong way

@@sarahb4745 same. Seems a bit jealous to me. There is also never a mention of the money that Syd left or what would presumably still be royalties received.

She is a nurse and the use of mind altering drugs is not something that any medical personnel of that era would have anything to do with. Syd heavily abused LSD to the point where he went way too far, and lost himself. I can only imagine what Syd’s family had to deal with from that point on.

David has always said that he made sure that Syd got every pound due to him. This includes the pounds from the best of and greatest hits releases. He passed on a trust worth several million pounds 😢

Keep in mind we all wear masks. This is a family where Roger says Syd's brother, a doctor, came and said Syd was fine. So I think her views of what Syds wishes were at any time are as spurious as anybodys. She is better able to describe events, but nobody knows anybody, not that well. Pink Floyd is pretty much the defnition of 'separation', which isn't surprosing about british celebrity, particularly after the beatles. The industry was geared on a clear separation between 'producers and consumers'. For more on that watch Richard Wrights interviews where he talks about how the band was NEVER using drugs, but their whole audience was. They refused to play their hits, pretty much out of spite, although Richard maintains it wasn't that. I think you are putting a little too much on Norman Smith. He did what any producer had to do, from his accounts Syd pretty much ignored anything he said and Roger prodded them all along.

​@@user-jp5nc8zf7m Fair enough about Rosemary, however the early gig situation was somewhat more complex. I don't think Pink Floyd intended to spite their audiences until at least when things started to fall apart in May 1973 with the loss of the camaraderie between The Floyd and their audiences. From roughly the time Pink Floyd first formed in early 1965 through well into spring/early summer 1967, they played different kinds of gigs with different lengths and audience demographics. On the one hand the underground club gigs (at places like the UFO Club) were comparable in terms of length at least to Pink Floyd's epic gigs in the years 1969-1975, 1977, 1980-1981, 1987-1989 and 1994. At these underground gigs (often dubbed "happenings") they played epic improvised instrumental jams. These originally were improvised epic extensions of existing R 'n B songs from early bands however in 1966 and early 1967 Pink Floyd were fully improvising original epic jams of their own entirely. These gigs of course included the classic epic Interstellar Overdrive. Some of these gigs were said to have lasted all night long but Syd Barrett enjoyed these shows the most as he got to explore the potential of his creativity. These shows were also where The Floyd experimented with their early space rock/psychedelic sounds and lightshows. The underground shows were also the ones where The Floyd built their initial loyal fanbase as this type of audience was all for experimental and epic music and was mostly part of the counterculture. However on the other hand there was shorter gigs in 1967 generally, where The Floyd still performed their longform jams including Interstellar Overdrive but the gigs were roughly only half an hour long give or take. Since these gigs were at more mainstream venues this meant the audience was also more mainstream and were also less welcoming of the epic jams. It was these audiences that were mostly angry about Pink Floyd not playing their hits like Arnold Layne and See Emily Play. Due to the combined effects of Syd's breakdown in May 1967 and the police raids on the underground clubs, the long gigs ended in May 1967 and the shorter mainstream venue gigs became the main type of Pink Floyd gig until almost The Man And The Journey Tour of 1969 with the 1968 transitioning of David Gilmour into Syd's place on guitars and vocals further delaying the return to fullblown gigs until the 1969 tour. The short type of Pink Floyd gig also took place in the US Floyd tour throughout late 1967 and when this tour came back across to the UK this became a package gig where The Floyd joined Jimi Hendrix, The Move, The Nice and Amen Corner on the bill. Another thing that didn't help was that Pink Floyd often had to do radio and television show appearances promoting their hits including See Emily Play from May through December 1967. Syd hated this, especially if The Floyd had to mime their hits rather than recreate them live as in concerts. Syd also hated touring in the US however the short late 1967 gigs began to have a shorter version of Interstellar Overdrive followed by Roger Waters's Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun. During the final year of the short Pink Floyd gigs in 1968, with David Gilmour slowly settling in and Syd having left, the setlist mainly consisted of the A Saucerful Of Secrets title track, Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun and Careful With That Axe, Eugene. Gradually Pink Floyd's loyal underground audience became the main audience demographic in the otherwise mainstream music venues during this time which helped to boost the camaraderie between The Floyd and their audience, as well as boost band morale and confidence despite the loss of Syd. The fullblown Pink Floyd gigs returned in 1969 with The Man And The Journey Tour. As for Syd after leaving The Floyd, even though he mostly just recorded short songs for his two solo albums during his sadly shortlived career, interestingly Syd recorded at least one super epic instrumental song called Ramadan which is a rarity not available on any of Syd's two solo albums. Ramadan shows that Syd was certainly capable of creating progressive rock epics with or without Pink Floyd at least until his breakdown became complete in the early '70s. At least in terms of length and complexity, Ramadan is comparable to The Floyd's super epics; Dogs/You've Gotta Be Crazy, the Atom Heart Mother title track and Echoes.

I was surprised that she's so very, very, incurious about, and dismissive of, her brother's music. It's understandable if it's forever linked in her mind with the pain his mental illness would have brought him, her, and the rest of the family, but surely listening to it would have given her another insight into his personality.

​@@user-jp5nc8zf7m @user-jp5nc8zf7m @Craigevansagain I had a friend who was a very peculiar individual, he passed a few years ago. Same age as Syd, lived in London, was a painter, then travelled to Nepal and lived in a monastery for years until he caught tuberculosis in the late 60's and was sent home by the monks to die in his homeland. Needless to say, he was a very colorful character, but I suspect he was also on the spectrum, as he was very unique, strange, charismatic, funny and talented, but never sought fame or fortune and died a recluse with very little money despite coming from a well-off family. He had a brother and a sister, and all 3 lived in a very large mansion and almost never saw each other, they each lived in a different 'wing', so to speak. Long story short, his siblings always dismissed him as strange and 'funny' and always were very condescending towards his 'antics' and his art. He was a very committed and prolific painter, and incredibly cultured and well-mannered. His siblings were, for lack of a better word, very prosaic and not inclined towards the arts, music or anything related to eastern philosophies, so they always thought he was crazy for having lived in a monastery and for reading the I-Ching every morning. They auctioned his weird belongings and paintings when he died, painted over his walls in modern colors, and moved on with their very square lives. Those of us who 'got' him were very few, and I think he's one of the best humans that ever existed, but even his family never ever understood him and constantly put him down and dismissed him. The way Rosemary talks about going to his concerts, how she was working when he was on Top of the Pops, how she was dismissive of his music, just shows how very little respect she had for his inner world and how judgmental she was about his way of life (i.e., him being gone with the fairies). I'm not saying she's a bad person, she probably helped him a great deal doing mundane chores, but I don't think she ever understood him. His songs are poetry, came straight from his heart, and he did that for years and even recorded solo albums. His music was important to him, he was just never understood by anyone around him, including The Floyd.

Agree especially when she described one terrible night that happened and their mother left the house never to live with Syd again. David Sore describes the police coming since he apparently attacked his mother. Rosemary respectfully doesn't divulge any further, I think she is very protective understandably and has a way of describing Syd's condition without telling too much.

I've read so many conflicting things about Syd Barrett it's hard to know what's true and what isn't sometimes. Roger Waters said he invited him then it's that he turned up out the blue so who knows but I am sure he was there on 3 occasions cause he's wearing different clothes in a couple of the pictures

@@iainstewart7104There is a lot of conflicting stories about that, He was there at at the SOYCD sessions at least least twice; June 5th and also July 7th for Gilmour's wedding;

Great insights! Thank you very much!

Dear Marc, thank you very very much for your extended feedback and the insights you share with us, most appreciated!