Syd Barrett's "Problem"

One of the more poignant stories circulating about the late Syd Barrett (creative genius behind early Pink Floyd who died this past Friday) goes like this. A psychiatrist was explaining the symptoms of schizpohrenia to him when Syd responded with the comment, "Are you sure this is Syd's problem?"

It's still uncertain what explained Syd Barrett's dramatic and tragically abrupt decline in mental and physical health. At the height of his creative powers in 1966, he was the driving force behind the group's early pop hits "Arnold Layne" and "See Emily Play" and the groundbreaking debut album "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn." Between the summer of 1966 and late 1967 something happened that would change him forever. Was it the overindulgence in drugs (particularly LSD)? Did he have an epileptic seizure of catatonic proportions? Or was he reacting in his own eccentric way to the fawning attentions that sudden fame had brought him? No-one has offered a definitive explanation. All we do know for certain is that a shining light went out in the mind of Syd Barrett some time in 1967 and he was to spend the following four decades putting on excessive weight, losing his hair, and retreating into a reclusive life in his mother's Cambridge cottage.

Rock stars are either meant to self-destruct at a young and tender age (Keith Moon, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix) or grow old gracefully and tastefully (David Bowie, Peter Gabriel, David Gilmour). They are not meant to simply turn off and walk away from the high life, are they? Yet this is the enduring mystery behind Syd Barrett's legacy. Perhaps he continues to intrigue us so much because we can't box him in or categorize him easily. He defies easy explanation and for that reason we are slightly unsettled by the manner of his later life.

Syd's retort to the psyciatrist's diagnosis, likewise, raises more intriguing questions than answers. How are we meant to interpret his comment? Here are three possible scenarios.

Scenario #1. "Are you sure this is Syd's problem?" he asks rather vacantly, staring into the far corner of the room. (Syd as a lifeless vegetable who has had the stuffing knocked out of him and fails to recognize himself as the architect of his own destiny).

Scenario #2. "Are you sure this is Syd's problem?" he snarls with a knowing glare. (Syd as the archetypal bohemian hero whose genius has been callously used and abused by those around him, and he wants to make sure that they know he knows. Syd's problem--his physical and mental wretchedness--is also their problem that they will take to their graves).

Scenario #3. "Are you sure this is Syd's problem?" he says calmly and slightly sardonically, sipping his tea and munching his chocolate biscuit. (Syd as the former rock-star who knowingly fled the madness and now looks back at the whole scene with amused detachment. He prefers to weed the garden and do the daily crossword puzzles).

Who can say which scenario seems more like the truth?

Did Syd himself even know?