It is titled “Pink Floyd: The Story Of Wish You Were Here”, the documentary which will be broadcast on Wednesday 23 October at 10.40pm on Rai 5 (then streaming on RaiPlay). Through the reconstruction of the birth of one of Pink Floyd's most legendary albums, the film turns out to be a sort of homage to its inspirer, Syd Barrett. The “Crazy diamond”, as he is defined on the album, was the first leader of Pink Floyd, the lost companion that the English band would then continue to evoke in subsequent albums.
Everything talks about him, but he isn't there. Not even when he appears unannounced in the Abbey Road studios on 5 June 1975, shocking his former bandmates who are working on “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”, the song dedicated to him. He is unrecognizable: corpulent, eyebrows and hair shaved, but above all a dull look. Syd Barrett, in the album “Wish You Were Here”, which will be released in September of the same year, is present with his absence. The founding member and first leader of the band is remembered by David Gilmour, Nick Mason and Roger Waters in the doc “Pink Floyd: The Story of Wish You Were Here”.
Mental disorders linked to drug abuse forced Barrett to leave the group in 1968. But it was his psychedelic visions that made Pink Floyd a cult phenomenon: “As soon as I entered the studio I realized that Syd was the creative engine”, recalls the band's first producer Joe Boyd.
In 1973, five years after Barrett's passing, “The Dark Side Of The Moon” became the top album of all time. The global success disorientates the four artists, suffocated by the music industry: “We had to understand why we were in the sector – whether we were actually artists or businessmen”, says guitarist David Gilmour and continues: “We would never separate again because we were afraid of the aftermath of Pink Floyd, of losing that strong and protective brand.”
When they went into the studio for a new album in January 1975, creative inertia froze them. Syd's shadow weighs on the group: they will build an album based on the absence that starts from the lack of their first frontman. They recover “Shine On You” from the previous year. “It's my tribute to Syd. The sincere experience of my sadness, the admiration of his talent and the pain of losing a friend,” says Waters, who sees “Wish You Were Here”, born from the collaboration with Gilmour, as a broader idea: “ I can tell you what it means to me, but any interpretation is legitimate.”
Disappointment with the music industry is the other big theme, expressed in “Have A Cigar”, recorded by singer Roy Harper, who happens to be there because none of the band can sing it.
“Wish You Were Here” is a concept album on purity and innocence now lost, with not too veiled references to Syd Barrett. It will sell 19 million copies worldwide, going down in history together with the cover by artist Storm Thorgerson, with the two businessmen shaking hands while one of them catches fire, not a photomontage but a shot of Thorgerson, Aubrey “Po” Powell. “It's an album of pain, anger and love. But above all love,” said Waters, who left the band in 1985. Gilmour, Waters, Wright and Mason will play together again only 25 years later, in 2005. The following year, at age 60, Syd Barrett will die.
Antonio Santini for SANREMO.FM
