Better known for having been a photogenic acid casualty than anything he did musically, save founding the band that would epitomize angsty Brit boredom, Syd Barrett authored some of the most insipid fairy tale Hobbit rock to ever hit a set of ears over the age of six. I mean, with his songs about unicorns and outer space and gnomes named Grimble Gromble, he was literally a psych-era cartoon of an English art school Carnaby Street dandy dropout with too much time on his hands. Even his drug induced breakdown, which had him living at his fucking mom’s for the remainder of his life, was a sixties cliché.

But hey, don’t take my word for it. Here are some examples of Syd Barrett’s songwriting brilliance:

Open your eyes and don’t be blind/ Can’t you see we’re two of a kind/ I’ve got to say it, I hope you don’t mind/ I love you, we’re two of a kind.

- From a song titled, incidentally, “Two of a Kind”

He wore a scarlet tunic, A blue green hood/ It looked quite good/ He had a big adventure/ Amidst the grass/ Fresh air at last/ Wining, dining, biding his time/ And then one day - hooray!/ Another way for gnomes to say Ooh my!

I strolled around to her pad/ her light was off and that’s bad/ her sister said that my girl was gone/ “But come inside, boy, and play, play, play me a song!”/ I said “Yeah! Here I go” /She’s kinda cute; don’t you know/ That after a while of seeing her smile/ I knew we could make it, make it in style!?

This is the kind of music you’d play for your kids if you wanted them to grow up retarded. Jesus, even the early, maybe slightly less jaw-droppingly dumb singles “Arnold Layne” and “See Emily Play” make Marc Bolan, at his flightiest and most fey, look like the rightful heir to the link between Ray Davies and Lou Reed.

Oh sure, Barrett’s barbiturate slur-and-strum–over a backing accompaniment that sounds like a bunch of musicians that had never set foot in a studio together and were just kinda hastily overdubbed–gives the proceedings their certain “outsider” charm, I guess. Still, I hope the people who decry the occasional genuine appreciation of Wesley Willis or Daniel Johnston or the Kids from Widney High as voyeuristic and exploitative aren’t the ones sitting there calling Syd Barrett a “genius.” For that matter, if Syd Barrett’s a genius, then Kenny Loggins’ musings over the goings-on at Pooh Corner are nothing short of a masterstroke.

Truth be told, Barrett was maybe self-aware of his emotional instability and milking it for all it was worth. He was probably one of those guys, in everybody’s circle of friends, who isn’t nearly as crazy as he wants them to believe but acts crazy so people will either want to take care of him or think he’s this disturbed genius who takes a brilliant shit every time he forgets to flush. He was clever enough to have manipulated a market out of his “insanity.” I mean, come on, you think he didn’t collect royalties from the curiosity of the gullible? The guy “went nutter” before he had to put in much road work and, at the end of the day, probably never paid a cent in rent his whole pampered limey life.

Oh well, must beat working for a living, so shine the fuck on, you lazy diamond.

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