His roommate described him as occupying a “creative vacuum” – a state of “void and avoid” in which “he’d avoid doing something because that limited him.” The thing about “not working,” Syd said, “is that you do get to think theoretically.” But while our minds offer us comfort, security and freedom, they can also cut us off from everything else – trapped within this mental prison, Syd’s songs are neurotic essays on his inability to find love, meaningful relationships or cope with himself. Without the need to work, Syd wiled away his days sitting, day-dreaming and doping. After leaving the Floyd, he made a full-scale retreat into his own mind. The album is everywhere haunted by Syd’s conflict with the outside world. With Syd, you take the good with the bad. No holds-barred, this album is an inseparable mixture of highs and lows, genius and madness, playfulness and depression. But herein lies the brilliance of The Madcap. Likewise, some songs show Syd at his harmonic and melodic best others are so basic they could be learned in a beginner’s guitar lesson. On some songs, his guitar playing is considered, melodic and entrancing in others, choppy, painful and bordering on embarrassing. Absent of the psychedelic adornments of Piper, like keyboard layering, generous echo and phasing and avant-garde sound effects, the songs are simply Syd: his voice, words and guitar, with the occasional backing of a group. The familiar cushion between art and artist is gone. A classic of the psych-folk genre, The Madcap has lasted beyond its years as a tellingly honest and open-sored self-portrait of a man in crisis. The Madcap Laughs, Syd’s first and penultimate solo album, is in many ways the embodiment of this split character. Like most things, the truth about Syd probably lies in between. Described before as fun, sunny and charismatic, by 1968 he had become moody, tense and prone to violent rages, especially against his girlfriends. Tales abound of Syd’s bizarre behaviour, including hailing aeroplanes at the airport like taxis, playing one note endlessly at shows and (most famously) rubbing Brylcreem and crushed Mandrax in his hair before a gig.Īlthough many of these stories have turned out to be little more than exaggerations, even the most ardent Syd defender must concede that something happened to him in the late 60s. More of a cautionary tale than an admired songsmith, Barrett and his antics have provided grist to the mill for anti-drug scare stories for decades.

To most, though, he is the the “Crazy Diamond,” a psychedelic Boo Radley who loved to write strange songs about Siamese cats, scarecrows and eiderdowns before blowing his brains out with LSD. To his most devoted fans, he is quite simply a genius - a literary savant and a master of the English language along the lines of John Donne, Gerard Manley Hopkins and John Clare. One of the most enigmatic, fascinating and tragic figures in the entire rock canon, Syd Barrett is a man shrouded in mystery.

Syd barret madcap laughs