Pink Floyd and AS...?

Post Reply New Topic

I've heard around a few places that Syd Barrett, the original frontman of PF, has been hypothesized to have had AS (even before he did himself in with acid and stress, that is), and I'm thinking it's plausible...

But a few things I've come across about two other members of the band caught my attention and got me thinking... Couldn't track down many to quote directly, unfortunately, but here's the case for them:

Roger Waters
-MBTI is INTJ - I know this is a common Aspie one, along with INTP
-clearly doesn't like authority
-described as having no self-confidence and few friends when he was younger
-was friends with Syd since primary school - maybe relevant?
-this thing he seems to have about war does suggest 'special interest' to me!

Rick Wright
-apparently found it difficult to express his feelings in words
-consistently described as being the quiet one - quote from
Nick Mason: "He was by far the quietest of the band, right from day one. And, I think, probably harder to get to know than the rest of us... "
-undoubtedly musically creative and talented

And the band always did have this thing about not being seen by the audience - "hiding behind the pyrotechnics", one documentary I saw recently commented.

So, what do other people think? Just as speculative, 'maybe' kind of pondering...

I've never thought any of its members were on the spectrum. Never read anything about them having significant social difficulties. Syd was a regular Don Juan, though I think he may have had latent schizophrenia that was aggravated by drugs. Heard Roger Waters is bipolar and a megalomaniac, but being the number one recording artist of all time might do that to you.

From interviews I have seen, I would say MAYBE Rick Wright. In the interviews that I've seen, he often had trouble making eye contact and struggled putting his thoughts into words (of course, this isn't sufficient for a Dx). I highly doubt that Roger is, though.

Hmm...interesting...

Out of curiosity, Nostromos, where did you hear the thing about Roger Waters being bipolar? I thought I'd unearthed just about every scrap of rumour and speculation about PF, but I've never heard of that. Nothing came up on Google either.

Rog is an NT's NT.

I'm reading an interview with Alan Parker who directed "The Wall" and he says that when he went to see the live show, Rog was 'demonic' in his control over every detail.

Aietra,

I don't know. I only know that I heard that Roger Waters left the Floyd on such bad terms that in a reunion some time later, him and guitarist David Gilmour played as far away from each other onstage as possible. I've talked to some guys who've seen Waters in concert or are big Floyd fans, and they seem to share a loathing for his arrogance. I've also seen in a documentary how Waters had Gilmour's name removed from some part of the cover for "the Wall."

Also, compare your average post-Syd Floyd song to a Beatles song. Floyd's music is amazingly simple for all its dark power. For example, I'm an okay guitar player. It took me ten minutes to learn the basic chords to "Comfortably Numb." I never finished learning "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band" because I'd never heard of most of the chords in there! Waters wasn't JS Bach, but I think his powerful emotions and arrogant, unshakable confidence of success were what enabled him to write the way he did. And this constellation of traits reminds me of bipolar people I've known.

I found myself here looking for a discussion about the possibility of Syd Barrett being Autistic.

I don't want to name the 2 Beatles I think had Aspergers, but both of them have passed.

That's true, and they didn't play together until the Make Poverty History concert in 2005, and have done only a few times since. I'm a massive Pink Floyd fan, and i find that some of the lyrics really reflect AS thoughts/feelings, especially Learning to Fly, Lost for Words and Brain Damage. Learning to Fly especially .

Syd is quite possibly one of the most fascinating chaps to ever pick up a guitar. What troubled him was never established. Roger has said they once got Syd to the door of a therapist to have him DX'd when he bolted and that was as close as he ever got to being professionally analyzed. The term schizophrenia is thrown around a lot, but how many schizophrenics settle down to gardening and living a hermit type lifestyle? Perhaps I'm wrong, but I've always thought it meant an inability to function. Many of Syd's actions could be interpreted as autistic. He seemed to resent the demands placed upon him to be a "performing monkey". The other members of the band wanted fame and fortune, but it's unclear what Syd was after.