At the sources of Pink Floyd: David Gilmour works on a book of songs written by Syd Barrett

Since the start of containment, Pink Floyd fans have been closest to David Gilmour. Each week, the former guitarist of the British group gives them the opportunity to find him in videos posted by his partner Polly Samson on social networks. In the last, published Thursday, May 7, he confides that he has plunged back into a songbook project for his friend Syd Barrett, founder of the quartet who died in 2006.

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"I worked on what you can call replay ," says the legendary guitarist. It is a book of songs written by Syd Barrett, "he adds, adding that the lyrics to the book in question have " never been printed " . An arduous task, according to the main interested party who explains that he isolated Barrett's voice on songs from The Madcap Laughs , his solo album, to better understand his pronunciation.

Gilmour takes the opportunity to share his memories of the founding member of Pink Floyd. "He was a childhood friend, we went on vacation together, hitchhiked across Europe," he recalls. Then he founded Pink Floyd with Roger, Rick and Nick. He was a writer and a marginal leader. He was a few years younger than the others, but he was extremely intelligent. He was a brilliant poet. ”

A founding member of the group, Barrett wrote the majority of the songs on Pink Floyd's first album, The Piper at The Gates of Dawn , before leaving the group due to drug problems. David Gilmour, hired in January 1968 at the request of the other members of the group to support him during the concert, ended up replacing him definitively a few months later.