He Stood in a Field Where Barley Grows

Some thoughts on the new Syd Barrett documentary

I love rock documentaries (or “rockumentaries,” if you will), at least in theory. In practice, however, the rock-doc can often be an extremely frustrating form.

Documentary films of any sort are rarely big money-makers, which means it’s usually really difficult to find investors for them. Ever wondered why so many rock docs seem to interview the same famous musicians or celebrities (Dave Grohl, Henry Rollins, Bono, Tom Hanks, etc.) who have nothing to do with the subject matter? Well, put it this way — if you’re trying to raise funds for your documentary, potential investors are generally far more dazzled by the “get” of a well-known talking head than they are by the inclusion of an obscure person who was an actual participant in (or witness to) the events your film is discussing.

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But as easy as it is to bag on the seemingly ubiquitous trope of bring on Dave Grohl to talk about how his older cousin changed the course of his life by taking him to see Naked Raygun (or Black Oak Arkansas, or Roger Whittaker, or Mickey Rooney and Ann Miller in Sugar Babies), I would actually rather watch yet another professionally made rock doc with Grohl holding effusively forth than one of the countless cheapo ones that are currently stinking up the place on Tubi.

These time-wasting barrel-scrapers are generally identifiable right off the bat: No one from the band or its immediate circle is actually in the doc; none of the artist’s music is included, because the filmmakers couldn’t afford the clearances; and the same photographs are used over and over again, because the filmmakers couldn’t afford to pay for footage or photo clearances, either. I often get suckered into watching them because the topic is a compelling one, then wind up hitting the “Off” button on my remote in frustration within ten minutes.

So when I recently learned that a Syd Barrett doc had been released — one that was made by longtime Pink Floyd compatriots, and not only included interviews with all surviving members of the band but also featured a copious amount of actual music and footage from the band’s Barrett-led incarnation — I was tremendously optimistic. I was even more excited when I realized that my two-day trip to NYC this past week would coincide with Have You Got It Yet?: The Story of Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd’s final night at the Quad Cinemas on 13th Street. At the very least, it would be a thrill to hear Barrett’s music over the theater’s high-end audio system; but beyond that, I was thrilled that a favorite (not to mention deeply fascinating and mysterious) musical figure of mine was finally getting the documentary treatment, courtesy of people who knew and loved him. What could possibly go wrong?

I first found out about Syd Barrett via Nicholas Schaffer’s 1982 book The British Invasion: From the First Wave to the New Wave, a tremendously important source for me at a time when I was initially trying to go deeper into music history than The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll could take me. Even though I was enough of a Pink Floyd fan to recognize Roger Waters when I saw him on a beach in Rhodes back in the summer of 1981 (as well as to know that it would not be in my best interests to ask him for his autograph), I had no real knowledge of their albums before Dark Side of the Moon, and no idea at all that they had once been led by another, now-vanished singer, guitarist and songwriter. Late-night DJs on commercial FM radio might get choked up over the sad strums of “Wish You Were Here,” but they wouldn’t clue you in to who the song was actually about, nor would they typically play anything from The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, the band’s psychedelic 1967 debut. As with so much music in those days, you had to know someone else who knew about Syd in order to be introduced to his work, and none of my friends did.

Nicholas Schaffner knew plenty about Syd, though, and the Pink Floyd chapter in The British Invasion leaned heavily on the band’s early days with him, as well as the grisly but compelling details of his LSD-fueled breakdown. Like a psychedelic Icarus, Syd had flown too close to the sun and never returned, leaving only a small body of strange and whimsical work behind him. Fascinated (as so many teens before me and since have also been) by the fine line between genius and madness, and intrigued by Schaffner’s descriptions of Syd’s groundbreaking and deeply personal music, I resolved to track down everything by him that I could find.

There wasn’t much out there, but it still took some time to find it; first there was Relics, the 1971 compilation of Floyd singles, B-sides and deep cuts from ‘67 to ‘69, which included four Barrett songs (“Arnold Layne,” “Interstellar Overdrive,” “See Emily Play” and “Bike”). Then, during my first year and a half of college, I scored both Piper and the two-LP set Syd Barrett, the latter of which compiled his two solo albums, The Madcap Laughs and Barrett. And then, finally, Opel — a collection of outtakes from those same solo album sessions — was released during my senior year in college. It was all wonderful, out-there and/or disturbing stuff, but it put me no closer to unraveling the enigma that was Syd Barrett. Was he always teetering on the edge of madness, only to be pushed over the cliff by psychedelics and the pressures of fame? Or was he just one of those unlucky “heads” of the era who took too much blotter acid without considering the potential consequences?

Several books over the years — including Schaffner’s subsequent Saucerful of Secrets: The Pink Floyd Odyssey — did what they could to flesh out the tale, complete with chilling tales of ego-destroying debauchery and lysergic recklessness. But Syd remained a recluse for decades, and his family, whom had been entrusted with his care, dutifully kept the press at bay; he died in 2006 at the age of 60 without the question of SYD: WHAT HAPPENED? ever being firmly or fully resolved.

I didn’t go in to Have You Got It Yet? expecting a new answer to that question. I did, however, figure that this documentary would do justice to Syd’s brilliance, artistry and influence — not just on Pink Floyd, which simply wouldn’t have existed without him, but on so many artists who followed his lead to one degree or another: David Bowie, Marc Bolan, Robyn Hitchcock, Julian Cope, Robert Smith of The Cure, Paul Weller of The Jam, Nick Salomon of The Bevis Frond, XTC, R.E.M., The Jesus & Mary Chain, Blur, Television Personalities, Camper Van Beethoven, at least half of L.A.’s “Paisley Underground,” etc. I have also long been obsessed with the all-too-brief bloom of the original British psychedelic movement, which Syd and the Floyd were at the forefront of, and would have loved some discussion in the film of the experimental aspects of Piper’s recording, as well as the album’s impact upon the band’s paisley-draped UK peers. Unfortunately, there’s precious little of any of this to be found in Have You Got It Yet?

What Have You Got It Yet? does do well is paint a vivid picture of pre-breakdown Syd, using footage of the Floyd at their early peak, rarely seen photos, and the voices of people — classmates, colleagues, neighborhood friends, girlfriends — who knew him when he was still a charming, clever and quite happy-go-lucky chap. The documentary was co-directed by Roddy Bogowa and legendary Hipgnosis designer Storm Thorgerson (who died ten years ago, which gives you an idea of how long the film was gestating); a friend of Syd’s since early on, Thorgerson was also acquainted for decades with most of the people he interviewed for the film, which no doubt made them feel comfortable enough to be unusually candid in their response to his questions.

Unfortunately, Have You Got It Yet? also suffers from this sense of clubby insularity — Thorgerson and the interview subjects clearly know what they’re talking about, but too little effort is made to clue the less-informed audience in. For instance, there’s a brief mention of “Arnold Layne,” the Floyd’s debut single, charting in the UK despite being banned by the BBC; no mention is made of why the song was banned from airplay — specifically, because the titular character is a cross-dresser — or what inspired Syd to write about such a then-controversial subject.

At one point, someone recalls that Syd played many of the songs that would later wind up on his solo albums during college parties, but there’s no real discussion of where these whimsical songs came from, or how they went over with pre-psychedelic audiences. In fact, I don’t recall any mention of Syd’s musical or lyrical influences in the film at all, other than Roger Waters remembering that he was a fan of West Coast psych, and a handful of vague allusions to Syd reaching back to the wonder of childhood for his songs. And how did such a cutting-edge band go over with more provincial British audiences outside of London’s psychedelic scene? We never find out.

The sections of the film regarding Syd’s breakdown and immediate aftermath are done well, though many of the interviewees unsurprisingly disagree on what exactly caused Syd’s psychotic break; Have You Got It Yet? also seems to tread lightly around the now-canonical horror stories of Syd being abused and/or dosed without his consent by various groupies and hangers-on. The film’s emotional climax, in which Syd makes his infamous surprise appearance at the studio during Pink Floyd’s recording of “Wish You Were Here,” is quite powerful; unfortunately, the film quickly shuts down after that, with little detail given as to what his daily existence was like in the three decades between the WYWH sessions and his death. (Syd’s sister, his primary caretaker, does appear in the film; but if Thorgerson asked her any questions along these lines, the film does not include her answers.)

I found these sort of oversights frustrating enough, but what really drove me crazy about Have You Got It Yet? was its repeated use of impressionistic sequences, lavishly filmed by Thorgerson, which are supposed to visually represent Syd’s descent into madness. These look beautiful enough, but are so agonizingly obvious in their symbolism that I actually groaned aloud in the theater during some of them. Most involve attractive young men who vaguely look like Syd diving, falling or sliding in slow motion into swimming pools or natural bodies of water; in one of these, two Syd lookalikes wrestle in the water while we hear someone discussing Syd’s inner turmoil. Subtle as a flying mallet, as Dave Edmunds once said…

Several of my friends — hardcore Syd fans like me — have mentioned that they weren’t particularly bothered by these sequences; but for me, they left a really foul taste. Not only are they completely unnecessary to the story, but there’s more than enough period Floyd footage out there to have filled the gap without resorting to hitting you repeatedly over the head with ham-handed visuals that would have made more sense in one of Pink Floyd’s late-’80s videos. Have You Got It Yet? had the potential to be a truly great Syd Barrett documentary, what with the input and cooperation of all those folks who knew and worked with him. It’s still an entertaining watch, and it’s certainly several leagues above the aforementioned Tubi chud, so I wouldn’t dissuade anyone from seeing it. This isn’t a waste of time, but it is kind of a missed opportunity; I dearly wish the time, energy and money spent filming and editing Thorgerson’s fantasy segments had been focused instead upon giving us a deeper understanding of Syd’s visionary music and its lasting importance.

Oh — and no, Dave Grohl isn’t in this, talking about how, you know, his older cousin changed the course of his life by taking him to the 14 Hour Technicolor Dream two years before he was actually born. But aside from Blur’s Graham Coxon, who has some legitimately insightful things to say about Syd’s music, none of the Syd-influenced artists I mentioned several paragraphs earlier seem to have been interviewed for this film. Instead, you have The Catherine Wheel’s Rob Dickinson, who adds absolutely nothing of worth to the discussion, and Andrew VanWyndgarden of MGMT, who talks about how he’d heard the urban legend about Syd living entirely on a diet of hash, and admits with a smirk that he’d tried to do the same for a while. Cool story, bro.

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