If

I have little doubt this song is about Syd. PF was struggling, in the years after Syd was forced to quit the band, to come up with a distinctive sound and to move beyond Syd's creative and eccentric psychedelia during the early period when he dominated the band, culminating in their first album, "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn." By 1969-70, while they were working on this, they were looking to move beyond the psychedelia of the early period (1965-early 1968), but they (and especially Waters, who took over as chief songwriter in Syd's absence) were Syd-haunted. There were...

I have little doubt this song is about Syd. PF was struggling, in the years after Syd was forced to quit the band, to come up with a distinctive sound and to move beyond Syd's creative and eccentric psychedelia during the early period when he dominated the band, culminating in their first album, "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn." By 1969-70, while they were working on this, they were looking to move beyond the psychedelia of the early period (1965-early 1968), but they (and especially Waters, who took over as chief songwriter in Syd's absence) were Syd-haunted. There were the experimentation of "Saucerful of Secrets" (with limited involvement of Syd) and the mixed results of the soundtrack to the experimental movie "More." Meantime, the world and the music scene were moving past the brief flower-power moment of psychedelia, but, as I say, the band was (and remained, in my opinion, until the band's demise) Syd-haunted. "Atom Heart Mother," with songwriting contributions from all members of the band (except the drummer, Nick Mason), represented another move or attempt to get beyond '67 and Syd, with mixed results. In this song ("If"), Waters addresses the Syd conundrum, among other things, more or less directly. He fears going insane, he fears being "treated" ("please don't put your wires in my brain") for insanity, he fears being excluded and forgotten ("will you still let me join in with the game"). This last fear was one Syd himself voiced on his last significant PF contribution, the song "Jugband Blues," on "Saucerful."

The band attempted to resolve this issue in 1972-73, when they made "Dark Side of the Moon," a concept album all about insanity, being different, and worries about being "labelled" and "treated" (and mistreated) for being psychotic. The album, of course, made them superstars and commercially successful beyond their most optimistic dreams- it still holds the record for length of time on Billboard Magazine's list of top 200 selling pop albums. But it did not resolve the band's existential, personal, and interpersonal dilemmas. They followed it up with an album also about insanity, but also about the fakery and greed in the music industry, and also specifically about missing Syd and the relative innocence of their early days in the mid-1960s (1975's "Wish You Were Here"). Finally, at the end of the decade, came their magnum opus, the flawed, often self-pitying, but largely brilliant "The Wall." After that, acrimony, dissension, Waters's departure, the David Gilmour-led band of the 1980s (Gilmour is a fine guitarist but not a particularly compelling songwriter to put it mildly- the prog rock Eric Clapton, who was best when in bands with others- Jack Bruce, John Mayall, Steve Winwood- were the chief songwriters; PF's music in the Gilmour era is bombastic without being compelling; Waters could be bombastic, self-pitying, etc., but also compelling), and the partial and temporary reunions, largely ended by Rick Wright's death in 2008. Syd of course died in 2006.

"If" is an early attempt by Waters to deal with all of this, the in-between era that falls after "Piper" and before "Dark Side" and all that came after.