Syd Barrett’s time in the spotlight was remarkably brief but extraordinarily influential. Though Pink Floyd only formed in 1965, by 1967 they had already reshaped the sound of rock music. Just a year later, Barrett’s mental health struggles rendered him unable to continue with the band. He released two solo albums before stepping away from the music scene entirely, but in those five fleeting years, Barrett left behind a legacy that still looms large over psychedelic music.
The two albums that feature Barrett leading Pink Floyd—The Piper at the Gates of Dawn and A Saucerful of Secrets—are still considered cornerstones of the band’s catalogue. Barrett’s vision and unique sense of creativity helped shape Pink Floyd’s early sound into something truly otherworldly. His imagination gave the group a distinct identity, grounded in surrealism and childlike wonder.
Author Jenny Fabian, who knew Barrett during both his creative highs and personal lows, described his outlook poetically in her novel Groupie: “He was able to access a time we all wanted to go back to, the magic garden and innocence. You felt there was somebody there who understood innocence but couldn’t be innocent in the world, because you can’t,” she wrote. “He told us that’s where we wanted to be.”
That idea—a longing for lost innocence—resonated in what would become Barrett’s favorite Pink Floyd song, ‘See Emily Play’. After stepping away from music entirely, Barrett rarely engaged with his old work. By the early 2000s, he had little interest in the band that had once revolved around him. When his sister gave him a new stereo in 2002, he chose to listen to The Rolling Stones, Booker T., and classical music—leaving Pink Floyd behind.
Still, Barrett encountered his former band’s music one more time—by accident. While visiting his sister, a BBC documentary on Pink Floyd came on, part of the promotion surrounding the Echoes greatest hits release. Barrett didn’t seem particularly interested in it, describing the music as “a bit noisy.” But he did appreciate seeing his former landlord and mentor, Mike Leonard, and smiled at hearing ‘See Emily Play’—the one track he still seemed to connect with.
The story behind ‘See Emily Play’ is as strange and dreamlike as the song itself. Barrett claimed the song was inspired by a girl who visited him in a vision while he slept in the woods during an acid trip. That “Emily” may have been loosely based on Emily Young, daughter of Wayland Young, 2nd Baron Kennet—better known in London’s underground scene as the “psychedelic schoolgirl.”
Speaking to Mojo, Young reflected on those hazy nights in London clubs: “On Friday night at the Saints Hall, the regular band was the Pink Floyd Sound. I was more into R&B, so their dreamy hippie thing wasn’t exactly my cup of tea, but it was interesting. And the light show was wonderful, and I liked to get stoned and dance.”
She recalled hanging out with the band after shows, noting: “I was quite pretty, and word got out that I was a lord’s daughter, and apparently the guys in the band called me the ‘psychedelic schoolgirl’.” When she learned the song might have been written about her, she was surprised: “I thought, gosh, that’s nice, a song with my name, but I didn’t think it was about me. And I don’t think it was now, because Syd and me didn’t have a love affair and he didn’t really know me. It could have been someone else—or maybe it was just a name that sounded right.”
In Barrett’s world, imagination always took precedence over reality. Whether ‘Emily’ was based on Young, another fleeting acquaintance, or a complete hallucination, the song became a defining moment in Pink Floyd’s rise. It was whimsical, strange, and slightly haunting—an accurate reflection of Barrett’s genius and the times that shaped him.
And even though the pressures of fame and experimentation pushed him into obscurity, ‘See Emily Play’ remained a rare glimpse of the joy he once found in music—a fleeting echo of the dreamlike world he helped build.
