SyddyGurl's Bloggy-Woggy

SYD'S IMPACT AND POSITION AS THE ALLMIGHTY MUSE

We often amplify things a bit by saying both Harry and Louis keep dedicating full albums to each other but. Roger literally, openly did. Several times. All the time. Syd too I believe but that's more up to interpretation.

1968 : Allegedly due to LSD long term side effects and overall the pressure of fame and the industry, Syd simply cannot perform anymore. The band takes him to therapy, but there's no way to get him back. They make him leave the band for everyone's sake and Roger takes over the writing. He then dedicates all of their biggest albums to Syd and... them. For example, Pink, the protagonist of The Wall, is the offspring of both his and Syd's life, struggles and traumas. Pink is their two souls combined in one.

The Dark Side of the Moon is a full tribute to Syd's, dare I say, queerness. Queerness as in Syd being an outsider, a Peter Pan who tried in vain to navigate a world not built for him and way too harsh. But also queerness in the way that we understand it now. I believe there's a reason why I keep finding queer resonance in their songs, more than with other presumably dadrock hettie rockbands lol. Like. I don't really vibe with Axl Rose, you know.

An early Pink Floyd song Syd wrote, "Arnold Layne", is to me very indicative of the struggles he went through that are not seriously spoken of a lot in the classic rock community (lol figures).

Arnold Layne had a strange hobby

Collecting clothes moonshine washing line

They suit him fine

The official explanation of the song is that it's about a mysterious man who used to steal women's lingerie in Syd and Roger's Cambridge neighborhood. However, this verse completely takes away from the anecdote and hits hard:

Oh, Arnold Layne

It's not the same, takes two to know

Two to know, two to know, two to know

Why can't you see?

"Takes two to know." You see me, I see you. Jenny Spires said at the time that the song was actually a protest against the imprisonment of queer men in England.

They are kinda similar if you squint hard enough:

Syd is a poet, a dreamer. He learnt by watching the world around him, existing pieces, he borrowed bits from left and right and put his own twist on it to produce cryptic but oh so pretty and human lyrics, intricate metaphors and his own mythology, which involves a lot of the sea and femininity. Screams Harry to me.

For the She lovers out there, listen to "She took a Long Cold Look", that's one hell of a mermaid song.

Roger describes himself as more of a "primal" writer. He has a lot to express and will do it raw, straight to the point from his heart to us. The concept, the message of the song comes first and must come across. The lyrics flow perfectly and each line feels like a punch. You just get it, from tenderness to violence, Roger knows how to convey emotions and is a bit of a perfectionist. That's more like Louis.

a-ayo

Wish You Were Here is probably the biggest 'Syd tribute' Roger did. The despair of seeing someone you love and know slowly slip away, lost so far there's no saving them, no matter how hard you try. It revolves around the absence, the void they leave behind and the good memories you won't create together anymore. That's the hopelessness of the song that inspired Two Ghosts: "We're just two ghosts swimming in a glass half empty".

And you know what...

FISHY FISHY.

'Cause we're the fishes

And all we do

The move about is all we do, Terrapin by Syd Barrett, 1970

We're just two lost souls

Swimming in a fish bowl

Year after year, Wish You Were Here, lyrics by Roger Waters, 1975

Guys... That's literally... The exact same verse. Two fishes, who feel deeply about each other but realize they aren't going anywhere together in the long run. Based on these two songs, you can absolutely interprete Adore You's MV as Roger and Syd's story: finding each other, loving each other, having to let each other go. Terrapin is indisputably a whole ass sad, romantic love song. A song where the fishes are blocked from the sunlight because they're hidden by boulders they're not fucking golden goddammit.

I was reading analyses of Syd's songs, and it really is a Sweet Creature situation. There are a lot of love songs fans can't explain, one especially named "Late Night", about a past long term relationship where Syd sings about growing up with his lover, whispering their love to the nature and experiencing everything together. And you got all these bros in the comments going "maybe... it's about a girl... we don't know who... maybe... a childhood love... some girl... mmm... who could that be... was there any significant girl at this time....I don't think so.. weird" ...but at least they didn't make it about his sister.

Syd also claimed he was gay multiple times, but it was brushed under the rug as ''Syd being mentally ill and intoxicated and saying shit''. There's that. Anything remotely queer Syd did was silenced or explained away as ''LSD side effects''. Which. Sounds extremely damaging.

^ Roger and siamese cats. Syd wrote Lucifer Sam, a song about a siamese cat who would never leave his lover's side. In the lyrics, his girlfriend of the time is described as the left brain, the side that executes cold logic and analytical thinking (Jenny Spires was close to Syd tho, and used to live with the band for some time in their residence. It's still really funny that she said she slept in Roger's room because he didn't use it. They-only-booked-4-hotel-rooms who). A ''He'' is the right hemisphere: creativity, inspiration and feelings. Syd can't explain the cat's presence, and sometimes Syd wishes this "Lucifer" would go away. Will I make it about the queer experience in relation to religious trauma ? Yes I will.

ANYWAY

I was just wildly theorizing at first like the dumb queer nerd I am, but the dynamics remind me a lot of what's happening over the Larry side, as in... If you look into it, there are things that don't really make sense unless you pull out the Queer and In Love™ card. Beneath its psyche carefree image, Pink Floyd was a band heavily exploited by their labels and they didn't evolve with the glam rock era side, where the discussion around queer expression was more "common" in the creative field. That's classic rock paradox for you.

Once again, it's kind of alarming how drugs and presumed mental illnesses are used to justify every queer subtext lyrics that don't make sense to people otherwise. Even when the song's structure is very much clear and doesn't look like a LSD trip. Fine Line anyone ? She? It really baffled me and gave me the push to write this weird hybrid gay fandom thingy.

Whether Roger and Syd were platonic or not, which we'll probably never know at this point, I still find it funny and maybe not that coincidental that their work is one of Harry's big sources of inspiration. Maybe it does resonate a lot with his own story. Forever thinking about the "leadrole in a cage" Roger Waters wrote about, aka Harry's birdcage and theater masks tattoo. Wild guess.