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Any truth to the “psychedelics broke his mind” story?
yes, or rather it induced and exacerbated his schizophrenia. using psychedelics when you are prone to schizophrenia (it's in your immediate family for example) can trigger it. and he was doing a lot of acid. would binge it for days in a row which you should never do normally, so yes psychedelics quite literally broke his mind, but sent him over the edge because of his predisposition to schizophrenia
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Weren’t they recording Shine On You Crazy Diamond, which was essentially a song about him?
Exacerbated
thank you, i thought i had it wrong 😂
English is a crazy language. Exasperated vs. exacerbated.
He was alledgedly hanging with a crew of hippies that would dose his morning coffee without his knowledge... yikes.
That was John and Paul.
Not entirely true. Many emerging schizophrenics will self-medicate with hallcenogic drugs. My brother was one. He would have had schizophrenia either way.
Treatment in the 70s was pretty abyssmal and it is not much better now. More public awareness and less stigma has helped tremendously for people to feel comfortable seeking treatment.
Watch the movie squaring the circle. Sid destroyed his brain with LSD as told by those doing it with him.
No thank you.
I watched my brother's brain be destroyed by schizophrenia, up close and personal, as a 15 year old. It was heartbreaking, traumatizing...just no.
Kids in school told me probably the same shit that is in that movie. "Oh he just did too much acid!"
I will not watch a movie that spreads some totally incorrect information about a horrifying disease. Acid does not give you schizophrenia. There is a period at the end of that sentence.
Thank you
When I was in eighth grade, this incredibly sweet girl started screaming and grabbing at the air and had a walleyed look in her eyes. Turns out her older sister put LSD onto the rim of her Pepsi can that she was drinking from in class. We never saw her again, and a couple of years later I heard she was at home suffering from schizophrenia
That’s horrible, oh my god
That’s terrible just by reading about it.
That’s really fucking horrible.
Sounds 100% made up to me.
Exactly. Reminds me of Reefer Madness propaganda
I did Ayahuasca w/ Dennis McKenna a few years ago....he said that schizophrenics and sociopaths are the only people he wouldn't drink with. He told me this before the trips and it freaked me out a bit. I've had some pretty maddening nights on shrooms and even cannabis. I came out the other end ok though purple monkey dishwasher.
I’m on board with the recent push to show that hallucinogenics and psychedelic drugs have not only gotten a bad rap, but are potentially therapeutic.
I also acknowledge it’s possible that Syd had a predisposition to schizophrenia.
However, we don’t know that for sure, and it seems honest and logical to assert that, at certain doses, or if dosing occurs over a certain period of time, these substances could absolutely “break someone’s mind”. Perhaps schizophrenia, specifically, couldn’t be induced (idk enough to know if it can be “acquired”), but a generally wrecked brain/psychology leading to debilitating and long term hallucinations, depression, delusions, etc seems possible.
I guess I resist the implication that any time someone overdoes it on psychedelics, it wasn’t REALLY the drugs’ fault, and the person would’ve gotten it eventually or was a special case based on predisposition. The pendulum seems to have swung in the direction that drugs, at worst, reveal something that was already there, which seems a little too naive when it comes to drugs in general.
just read that some of his flat mates were spiking his coffee with LSD unbeknownst to him smh
Yeah I heard that too, it was fucked and definitely needed people in his life that weren't tripping all the time
i knew a guy who had it happen to him on Mushrooms..one real bad trip, never was the same
Same here, a friend from highschool took mushrooms three times total. The first two trips were alright, but after the third he was never the same. He threatened to kill his own mother, was kicked out of his house, and now lives with extended family. He had a future in wrestling, but now he’s a shell of his former self that spends his days talking to walls and scribbling actual nonsense onto notebooks.
I remember reading about one of his friends finding Syd and a female friend literally laying in the gutter tripping on acid, the girl was bawling her eyes out because she didn't know what to do she was tripping so bad. They'd been on it for days.
Sounds terrifying.
Wish you were here was about him.
Shine on you crazy diamond was definitely about him.
Yea his name is in the title... Shine on You crazy Diamond... Syd
Is that like Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds by the Beatles, LSD?
Supposedly that song is based on a drawing of a school friend Julian Lennon made and maybe just a little bit about acid too.
The song name is literally Mr. Barrett's nick name, Syd S(hine) Y(ou) D(iamond) and references either schizophrenia or hallucinogenics or both. Both songs reference "abnormal" states of awareness.
I've always found it very strange, even when I was a youth, that the band actually seemed to be making fun of Syd in their songs. I didn't realize it was he that they were "making fun of" (exploiting or otherwise maligning) until years later. That was before it became widely known that he had an organic disease. Now aware of it, I find the (enormously talented and captivating, if not downright hypnotic) band despicable (retrospectively). BUT I will have to be a self confessed hypocrite as I STILL play the songs, "Money" and "Run Like Hell" and sing to them over and over and over again (like a broken record and I quite sound like a badly scratched one doing so 😂). The former is one of the very few songs of Pink Floyd not glorifying the underground, dark world of "tuning out" of life in an almost zombie like indiscernible "code" as in many of the rest of their compositions which featured zoning out or otherwise dark passages. Even "Mother" was quite dark. I'm surprised they never wrote an ode to Timothy Leary.
"The Dark Side of the Moon" and "The Wall" were albums that many of my friends cut their teeth on. Back then (1970's) I couldn't help but notice the (unless some huge coincidence) gigantic common denominator of those two albums and those of my friends who gravitated towards EXTREMES of drugs and alcohol abuse. I don't just mean recreational use... I'm talking about die hard "gotta" have my acid (or booze, or ludes, --- fill in the blanks) or I'm not doing anything" kids. SOME of them made it out of that dark phase of their lives but MOST of them did NOT (to this very day prefer "altered states" to responsible, productive living). Some of them did not even live past 18 years old 😓 and I know for a solid fact that drugs and that influence were behind it and in every single instance these albums were a major facet of their lives. Many of you will say what came first, the chicken or the egg? I honestly cannot even answer that except that I know that those two albums were ABSOLUTE common denominators. Of course, I was a common denominator as well because I was their friend, hence a common denominator. I remember events like they were last night or yesterday afternoon. I will never forget my very best friend swallowing bottle after bottle of vodka when she was 16 years old and the most important thing to her was to get her acid or she wouldn't leave the house. Her brother was exactly the same way. "Comfortably Numb" played on the 8 track constantly. I cannot forget the two friends that committed suicide when they were 17 years old and one had the 8 track tape somehow still playing in his vehicle after it was hit by the train (killed instantly, it was reported) and the other face down into the phonograph after ingesting pills and liquor (I don't know what specifically as the family was to devastated to speak on it and what it was isn't really important but I knew her to take ludes and something called purple microdot) ...but that one album was playing as both of them died 😞
Rant over ✌️☮️
I apologize to you for getting so long-winded. I came upon this post quite by accident and my mind traveled back nearly 50 years in a heartbeat two things I've not even thought about in all this time.
Sounds like a stretch, maybe just look at what the band members said
I believe they said it was about Syd
Every pink Floyd song and album was about him it was demented how everything they did seemed to be a tribute to him.
EDIT: MOST EVERY
How does Animals have even a little bit to do with drugs or insanity?
I should have said “most”
Time, Money, Us & Them, Great Gig in the Sky, only one song of nine on Dark Side.
I knew exactly what you meant. People are quick to pounce on the tiniest little thing. I've grown so used to people pouncing on the tiniest little thing that I elaborate excessively (and redundantly 😜) in an attempt to ensure that I clarify myself.
You have no idea what you are talking about. Heard of The Wall? Not at all about Syd.
The first half is about Roger. The second half is loosely based on Syd and loosely based on Roger and the other band members experiences.
About a rock star going mad. Yes it was
Roger Waters has said it was about Syd
He received 1/5 of the corporation Pink Floyd as well. I.e. profit split 5 ways
And was inducted into the Hall of Fame with the rest of the band, which doesn’t always happen with members who departed relatively early.
He got the royalties from the songs he wrote, not from any of the later stuff
An easier way to say this is 20%
You’re five-fifths correct on that.
Not only that but each of the five band members shared equally in the distributable net proceeds
Presumably profits for the corporation were minus the band members touring and recording salary.
Shine on you crazy diamond ❤
"remember when you were young? you shone like the sun"
Now there's a look in your eyes, like black holes in the sky
:/
SOOO sad 😥
And we all know people like that 😞
He had quite decent solo work, and David Gilmour specifically made sure he was in a financially okay position even after everything that happened with Pink Floyd. His family personally requested that the members don’t speak to him, as it induced a long-term depressive episode.
I think his life after Pink Floyd was a hell of a lot more complicated than that thread title.
how come?
struggles with what was suspected to be schizophrenia, although he was never officially diagnosed
thanks!
I thought that he checked into a mental health facility. No?
He also had diabetes and suffered from pancreatic cancer. He died at his home in Cambridge, he was 70.
60
Fine line between genius and insanity
He was the ultimate example of that. God bless him
It's not that all geniuses are crazy, but that intelligent people can have mental health problems too. Most geniuses are not insane though. Sorry. I know it makes people feel smugly better about not being a genius to pretend they're all insane and miserable, but it's just not true. The real truth is that "genius" isn't a real thing at all.
That is absolutely accurate and so true of geniuses historically! I have noticed that some of the most intelligent individuals have a tendency to be a bit "unique" and I will be happy to just use that term, "unique" 😉
Thank you Syd for your crazy brilliance.
Shine on you crazy diamond 💎
Wow! I thought that was a later pic of Christopher Hitchens at first glance.
You reminded me of the 60 minutes clip where the interviewer quoted an ex-friend of his calling him a hypocritical, egotistical fat ass. Hitchens says “Well, he should see my ass now” because cancer had made him thin.
Haha!! He was one witty sonofabitch right till the end. Even able to whoop ass in debates while almost dead. Genius.
Very curious what happened to Syd. I was always amazed by the story of Pink Floyd (post-Syd) recording ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’ in the studio, a song written about Syd; only to have an overweight, shaved-eyebrowed, unrecognizable Syd, wander into the studio and watch the recording. I learned later that the scene where Pink (in the movie The Wall) shaves his eyebrows was influenced by Syd’s appearance that fateful day. R.I.P. Syd! Jugaband Blues remains one of my favorite songs to this day! Shine On You Crazy Diamond!
Sad end for a brilliant guy.
Lucite Sam Siam cat ! Always sitting by your side, alwayyyyyys by your side…. That cats something I can’t explaiiiinnnnn
Shine on your crazy diamond…
that bald and fat syd picture from when he visited them during the making of "wish you were here" is comedy gold. he looks like uncle fester.
r.i.p the one that is pink.
It’s harrowing, not comedy gold. He suffered greatly, have some compassion.
of course i do. those were dark days...
inspirational quotes
:/
they would have never started without syd... but at the same time, they would have never took off.
Bands often take a few albums to find their footing, or hone and develop their sound. And I am a big Floyd fan. But, In my opinion, they were way better without him. Their first few albums are gobbledygook. Just nonsense.
They were a lot more palatable without him but Piper at the Gates of Dawn is just as stunning to me as Wish You Were Here. He was a complicated weird guy and that was clearly on display with his songwriting. I think of it more as a fascinating insight into someone's mind, while the Waters / Gilmour material always seemed more objective.
I had a hard time feeling like Roger Waters was more objective, because most of what he wrote was all personal anger and issues from growing up. He was a better songwriter than Barret, though
Agreed for sure. I just meant that a lot of us can "get" where Waters is coming from, with the things he writes songs about. I think that's one detail that makes him so great. Barrett on the other hand just wasn't even coming from a place that is even remotely relatable but that's also exactly what makes him so great.
Waters' music is as personal as something that sells that many millions of copies could personally be, in my book. But Barrett was just coming from another dimension and it was a freak accident that those two guys would ever play together in the first place, being as self-sufficient as they were.
Barrett was an odd duck, as the saying goes. He did write eminently less approachable music. Waters and Gilmour did write much more accessible stuff.
You're completely and utterly wrong. Piper is one of the best albums of the 60s.
Not as nonsense as this comment imo
I agree!
Are you leaving out the part where he went nuts from LSD?
Yes
I never liked his music. IMO, the band would have never had the type of music they did or have had such a lasting impact on R&R. Had Sid not melted down and David not been brought in.
agreed, the band got better after
Finally, Thank you!
I thought this was the general consensus. Everything sounded polished, better and grander
I miss Syd :(
I know this is an old post but I wasn’t really aware of who he is (not a fan of pink floyd) but wow he lived an interesting life and to think he was only 29 when he decided to live in isolation