Believe it or not, there has been other news this week, non war and non political, worth commenting upon. I have had a long-standing interest in the intersection of Psychology and Psychopharmacology. As part of my occasional look at the issues that arose from the poorly understood impact of the drug culture of the 60s on our zeitgeist, I was struck by the coincidence of the death of Syd Barrett last week and the publication of an article suggesting the utility of Psylocibin in inducing mystical states. Both of these items reflect the persistent echoes of the 1960s.
So much of what afflicts us started in the 60s. In 1960, Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert, Psychology professors at Harvard University, conducted a series of scientific investigations of hallucinogenic drugs. They started with volunteer prisoners, then began to use the drugs themselves (and Leary, in 1965, was quoted as saying that he "...learned more about...(his)brain and its possibilities....(and) more about psychology in the five hours after taking these mushrooms than...(he)had in the preceding fifteen years of studying doing (sic) research in psychology...") Shortly thereafter they began to share their hallucinogenic drugs (LSD, Psylocibin) with undergraduates, conspicuously not under the auspices of university approved research protocols. Both eventually were relieved of their employment by Harvard, but their imprimatur had a significant effect in glamorizing and normalizing the use of hallucinogenic drugs in the 60s.
Drugs were touted as liberating minds and expanding consciousness. Middle class American youngsters, raised in conditions of unparalleled material bounty, invested with an inordinate amount of their parents' post-war fueled narcissism, increasingly spiritually impoverished by the loss of belief in old discredited authority (including the death of God via existentialism) no longer had to consider devoting a lifetime to spiritual quests for enlightenment; enlightenment was (supposedly) available through a pill, a mushroom button, a sugar cube, or a tiny piece of blotter paper upon which a drop of LSD had been deposited. A lot of young people were only too ready to "turn on, tune in, drop out," to quote Leary's infelicitous rubric. It certainly seemed more appealing than entering the robotic ranks of corporate man, or going off to die in a distant country fighting for corporate America (as the choices were so often described.) A generation raised with only a limited and passing acquaintance with the concept of "delayed gratification" was ideally situated to avail themselves of "instant enlightenment". Sadly, like so many promises of Utopia in a pill, or a bottle, or an ideology, such hopes were soon dashed, but not before too many succumbed to the siren call and many were lost.
Syd Barrett, the brilliant enigma who founded the seminal Psychedelic band Pink Floyd, was a casualty of the Psychedelic 60s.
Barrett used drugs heavily in the middle to late 60s and his behavior and functioning deteriorated over the space of several years until he was essentially allowed to drift away from the band, replaced by David Gilmour, at which point Pink Floyd went on to achieve the heights of success. Several of their albums were characterized by their sense of loss and despair at the deterioration of Barrett. 1973's Dark Side of the Moon dealt explicitly with the departed Barrett's descent into madness; it continues to resonate with its focus on the ephemeral nature of relationships, the passage of time, and the impact of a lost soul's absence on those who were left behind. The song Brain Damage, which beautifully segues into Eclipse (a paean to loss) contains lyrics that directly deal with Barrett's deterioration, pointedly including his tendency to play his own idiosyncratic music, which only he could hear, while working with the band toward the end of his involvement (1968). The "lunatic", a depersonalized (ego-dystonic) madness perhaps drug induced, starts outside, moves into the house and finally:
The lunatic is in my head
The lunatic is in my head
You raise the blade, you make the change
You re-arrange me till I'm sane
You lock the door
And throw away the key
There's someone in my head but its not me.And if the cloud bursts, thunder in your ear
You shout and no one seems to hear
And if the band you're in starts playing different tunes
I'll see you on the dark side of the moon
Two years later, the band recorded Wish You Were Here, in which they further lamented their loss. The album starts with Shine On You Crazy Diamond:
Remember when you were young,
you shone like the sun.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Now there's a look in your eyes,
like black holes in the sky.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
You were caught on the crossfire
of childhood and stardom,
blown on the steel breeze.
Come on you target for faraway laughter,
come on you stranger, you legend, you martyr,
and shine!
According to the wikipedia entry on Wish You Were Here, during the recording of the album, Syd Barrett showed up at the studio. He was disconnected and perhaps not quite fully present:
According to the book Saucerful of Secrets: The Pink Floyd Odyssey, Barrett himself actually turned up at the studio in the middle of a recording session of the backing vocals for "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" on 5 June 1975, which was also the day David Gilmour married his first wife, Ginger. He arrived unannounced and had put on so much weight that some of the band did not recognize him at first. He also shaved off all his hair, including his eyebrows (which was alluded to in The Wall). Jerry Shirley mistook him for a Hare Krishna devotee. Others were close to tears; Waters later confided that he cried. They played a song for him (Mason says he doesn't remember which but mentions some "legends" alluding that it was Shine On You Crazy Diamond). When they were done, Barrett sat motionless. When someone said to play it again, Syd asked what would be the point, as they had already just heard it. They also played him "Wish You Were Here", and asked him what he thought, to which he replied, "Sounds a bit old". He asked at one point if there was anything he could do and that he was available if needed. Later on one of the band's technicians, Phil Taylor, saw Syd looking for a lift. Avoiding an awkward situation, Taylor ducked down in the car as he passed and it is not known how Barrett managed to get back home. Barrett hadn't been seen by the band in five years, and wasn't seen again after that point. Echoing Barrett's presence, Rick Wright plays a subtle refrain from See Emily Play in the final seconds of the album.
In a 2006 interview with a New York City radio station before Barrett's death, in July 2006, Gilmour indicated he had not talked with Barrett since 1975.
From all indications, Syd Barrett did not have a traditional, DSM-III or IV characterized Psychiatric disorder, though a case could be made that he had an Atypical Psychosis that may have been triggered by his use of hallucinogenic drugs.
Joe Boyd, the promoter who found Pink Floyd in in 1966 was interviewed by the Guardian Unlimited's Jon Dennis last week, Syd Barrett: a true rock legend, and recalled seeing Syd Barrett after a several month break during which Pink Floyd went form stardom to superstardom. Barrett was markedly different:
And Syd, I would have to say, was a very, very different person that night in June from when I had seen him previously. He was very vacant-eyed, didn't really say anything.
But he had always been very witty, made under-his-breath little sarcastic comments and funny little comments here and there. But none of that, that night. And when he went on stage, he just stood there, for long stretches, while the rest of the band played. It was very awkward and very disturbing to see.
I then kept in touch with the group's management, with Peter Jenner and Andew King. They told me how they were going to have to bring in Dave Gilmour, who was an old friend of the group's from Cambridge, to play with Syd, so when he would stop playing there would be another guitar player who could carry on. So it became a five-man group.
But it was clearly very difficult.
And I think that at the time it was a phenomenon that we weren't really familiar but I think as soon as the concept of "acid casualty" became part of the parlance of the day, Syd was identified as the first one that we knew.
Not that any of us had any information as to what was the cause of his disturbing behaviour, but it was assumed that it was from taking too much acid.
I wonder if his hallucinogenic experiences led him to a kind of autistic enlightenment which could be thought of as the inversion of the kinds of positive mystical experiences the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions researchers found in their Psylocibin experiments. I will address this further next week, including some closer observations based on my professional experiences with just such a patient.
Syd Barrett spent his last 30 years in seclusion, refusing interviews. He developed Diabetes which he too often neglected, and died alone at the age of 62.
[For an additional perspective on Barrett, Tim Willlis at the Guardian Unlimited describes his "interview" with the reclusive Barrett in You shone like the sun, from October 6, 2002.]
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