Syd Barrett - Dark Globe

Unlike most of outsiders, Syd wasn't always on the outside. During 1967, amidst Great Britain's counterpart of the U.S. psychedelic Summer of Love, Syd was definitely in. He was the glamorous face, guitarist, and songwriting genius behind one of the United Kingdom's most exciting and influential new bands. But within a year, Barrett had migrated permanently to the outside. He was banished from Pink Floyd, as he tumbled into a psychological maelstrom and became pop music's premiere acid-fry. But his recording career didn't end―hence, his inclusion in this gallery. Although mind-altering chemicals were part of Syd's daily nutritional intake, some of his friends felt drugs merely aggravated a predisposition to psychic disturbance that would have overtaken Barrett sooner or later. His father's premature death when Syd was 12 had affected the lad greatly, and his mother seems to have overcompensated with relentless pampering. "We all felt he should have gone to a psychiatrist," said Pink Floyd replacement guitarist David Gilmour. "Someone in fact played an interview [with Syd] to [psychotherapist-author] R. D. Laing, and Laing claimed he was incurable.