Is there a more compelling tale than that of Syd Barrett, the Pink Floyd wunderkind who was ejected from his band following an apparent breakdown and retreated into self-imposed exile in Cambridge until his death? It’s a story that’s been told and retold countless times, often by bedazzled fans who never actually encountered their subject in person, projecting their particular interpretation of events onto an enigmatic figure who always, tantalisingly, held his peace.
Have You Got It Yet?, a documentary initiated by the late Hipgnosis co-founder Storm Thorgerson (who went to school with Syd and Roger Waters), unravels Barrett’s complex, unknowable enigma better than ever before. Thorgerson’s voice is at its epicentre, both artistically (the film is laced with vignettes of Hipgnosis-echoing visual imagery) and literally: he conducts interviews with people he’s known all his life, jogs memories, dismantles aloof public personas, challenges opinions. It’s an intimate personal journey for Thorgerson, who was fully aware his own time was short.
