TW; mentions of suicide, self harm, mental illness struggles, and general talk of death. coming back with a dark one
A lot has happened in the last few months.
I finally broke up with my lowkey shitty boyfriend, my design "career" has slowly expanded to freelance work for local bands and potentially work for my cousin's short films, and in June I got absolutely obsessed with The Beatles (and still am) thanks to a Rock Music History summer course, Elliot Roberts' youtube channel (specifically the amazing long videos ranking/analyzing the Beatles' solo careers) and a youtube series by Abigail Devoe called Vinyl Monday. (This isn't about the Beatles though, they'll get their post later.)
Vinyl Monday has been my biggest obsession since I found it. Abigail gives the in depth history of albums she has in her vinyl collection along with analysis and review of the music, mostly focusing on the 60s and 70s but also occasionally expanding to albums from the 80s, 90s, 2000s, and even 2010s (shoutout the video on AM by Arctic Monkeys). They're incredibly well written and researched, you can feel the passion and respect she has for all kinds of music in every single video. While not a Vinyl Monday episode, her video on her history and love for The Mountain Goats, one of my favourite bands in high school, inspired me so much I got the motivation to actually lock into my creative work and even try to pick this blog up again.
I've been listening to more albums in full than ever before, and watching her videos alongside them for extra context and history. I'll watch videos on albums I know better than some of my childhood friends (The Velvet Underground Self Titled, Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys, Live Through This by Hole), or sometimes I'll watch her videos on albums I know nothing about just to learn more about strangers from different pockets of time (Goodbye and Hello by Tim Buckley, Tommy by The Who, Head by The Monkees). It started with the Beatles and grew into a fascination with these questionable strange people and their music that has somehow survived for generations to pick apart
Which brings us to Pink Floyd.
For context, I am the child of Pakistani immigrants who were born in the 60s. My dad was born in 1961, my mother in 1969. They got married in the year 2000, my dad already had lived in both Paris and LA but that was my mother's first time leaving Pakistan and she had no interest (and still doesn't) with Western music and media (except the Lion King, she loves that movie.) My dad was a different story. He left home as soon as he could, he hung around record stores in the late 60s and the 70s seeing all the music that was shipped over as soon as he could. When he reached his 20s, he dropped listening to music entirely for religious and cultural reasons, but deep down he still had a love for songs like "Hotel California" by Eagles or "Buffalo Soldier" by Bob Marley. He didn't express that love with me until very recently. My family was very against how much music I loved and listened to and that just fueled my passion for everything even more.
For nearly 20 years, I only discovered music from older generations by chance or by my own curiosity. I listen to everything I can but unlike basically all of my music loving friends now, I didn't have anything passed down to me from my parents. The first time I listened to Pink Floyd was when I was 15 because I loved the song "Uncomfortably Numb" by American Football and learned the name was a reference, and the second time was when I was 17 because I was getting high with friends and someone recommended I listen to "Breathe (In The Air)" while stoned. That was the extent of my Pink Floyd knowledge and the limit for my curiosity on this band I heard so much buzz around while knowing absolutely nothing about.
Yesterday, I decided to put on Abigail Devoe's videos on Pink Floyd, specifically the second video she did on The Piper At The Gates of Dawn, the video on Dark Side Of The Moon, and the video on Wish You Were Here in that order. I expected some interesting behind the scenes facts, learning a bit more on Roger Waters and the enigmatic Syd Barret I heard whispers about, and finally understanding the band a bit more to appreciate the music. I got all of that through these reviews and historical recollections, but I also found I resonated with what I was seeing from Syd Barret to a terrifying degree.
I did more reading into the timeline later, into what exactly went down, and into the music beyond what the videos had taught me, and the more I read the more familiar his story became. I knew and still know so many people I nearly physically or figuratively lost to their own mental health struggles. Suicide attempts in high school I only learned about later, fresh scars on hands I had to ignore, disassociation linked with familial pressure to conform, sharing repressed memories of abuse that had come back to the surface. It was terrifying but I was the same, and thankfully we made it through those dark years and are crawling our way through undergraduate degrees together, but you're never the same. I cry hearing stories of how friendly and playful I used to be, feel ashamed at the unabashed hope I had for the future before my mind adjusted so much to being broken. Something about Syd Barret brought me back to those stories. He was 22 when he left Pink Floyd, 24 when he released his solo music, and 29 during that haunting meeting with the band during the production of Wish You Were Here.
I'm almost 20 and I have to wonder how many friends I'll be grieving in the next few years despite being fully alive. Would I become that? Every year I lose more of that spark I desperately cling to in my childhood, when will I lose it completely? When will I become an unrecognizable stranger both in body and mind to people who once loved me like their brother? Its so easy to pretend that life will just work out and I'll get the life I dreamed of without trying, but it rarely is like that. I could die in the closet tomorrow or in 10 years from my own steadily deteriorating mental state as much as I could live another 50 full of colourful memories and open queerness. Both feel equally likely these days. I am only as well and as stable as I can be through sheer willpower, suppression, and a large fear of death.
I'm not trying to compare my life or anyone I know 1:1 with Syd Barrett's life or trying to paint him as a tragic figure instead of just a person, but just dipping my toes into the pool of this history inspired all these thoughts. It was a cold reminder that I've already got so many struggles and so do many of my loved ones, and just because everyone is as fine as they can be today does not mean they'll be fully present like they are now forever. A reminder that I am still so young and grief is waiting in the wings for me. A reminder of how much can change in a few years and how much impact one can have in that time.
Syd lived his life, he died at 60 in the same year I was born, he had the cards he was dealt and worked with it. I don't know him, barely know his story and music even now, and he's far more than the legacy he left behind. But even still I feel like whenever I look at a photo of him, either in the days of whimsical 60s rock bliss or as an older bald man avoiding the spotlight, I can't help but see my reflection looking back.
Does this set of rambles even make sense? I'm not sure. What I can say for sure is that I may not have ever expected Pink Floyd of all bands to strike such a chord with me but this is not a band I will be ignoring ever again.
Time to go re-listen to Wish You Were Here 1000 times or until my ears start bleeding.
-XO CD
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