The Cultured Girl

Syd Barrett, the emotionally troubled but musically gifted co-founder of Pink Floyd, has died at the age of 60 of undisclosed causes. Barrett left the band very early on, in 1968, and he’s been living in relative anonymity ever since. But in his brief tenure as guitarist, he wrote some of Pink Floyd’s best songs, including most of the seminal 1967 album The Piper At the Gates of Dawn, while exerting great influence on the early psychedelic movement in Britain. He was also the inspiration for one of Pink Floyd’s greatest (and most accessible) albums, Wish You Were Here.

If you’ve never heard Piper, or if you haven’t revisited it in a while, I strongly recommend giving it a listen. Barrett’s songs on that record are truly singular in the way they blend trippy guitar work and cheeky, whimsical lyrics. Think catchy space-rock meets nursery rhymes. Just last week, in fact, his song “Bike” surfaced on my iPod, and I found myself smirking at brilliant lines like “I’ve got a mouse / and he hasn’t got a house / I don’t know why / I call him Gerald.” (Seriously, you have to hear this song.) With mice named Gerald and songs titled “Intersteller Overdrive” without the slightest sense of irony, Piper is a valuable relic. For even more Syd, pick up his quirky solo album The Madcap Laughs, which covers everything from psychedelia to off-kilter pop and even stunning ballads like “Late Night.”