“Paagol chaara duniya chole na (The world does not work without madmen)”.

– Lalon Fakir

Roger Keith Barrett, better known as Syd Barrett, is the man credited for bringing psychedelic rock music from cult status to world fame. As the frontman of the extremely eccentric and experimental Pink Floyd, she gave birth to psychedelic delights like ‘Interstellar Overdrive’, ‘See Emily Play’ and ‘Bike’ among many others. As is known, his extreme use of drugs, especially the hallucinogenic LSD, affected his already fragile mental health, causing mental breakdowns and he became “crazy”, although in reality he was on the verge of schizophrenia. But there are always two sides of a coin; madness seemed to have fueled his creativity exponentially.

Before his departure from Floyd, many stories have been heard about his insanity. He often stayed on stage without acting; in a concert, he played a single note at all times; once she got on stage after pouring a full tube of Brylcreem gel into her hair, and due to the heat from the lights on stage, the gel started to melt and run down her face, making it look like her face was melting! All these incidents make one sure that he was a mad hatter, but what one does not realize is that his mind worked in a different way and he lived in his own world. In other words, the reality was slightly different for Syd. Although such antics were a hit with audiences, he did not give high marks to his resentful bandmates. Until finally, one fine day in January 1968, when Roger Waters was driving to a concert at the University of Southampton, the band decided not to pick up Barrett. A person in the car said, “Shall we pick up Syd?” and another said, “Let’s not bother.” This is how Syd Barrett stopped appearing on the pages of history (as a member of Pink Floyd).

Before getting into the mind of this strange character, it is worth reflecting on the signs that showed his mental imbalance. Unreleased songs like ‘Scream Thy Last Scream’ (which was supposedly a last ditch effort for sanity) and ‘Vegatable Man’ are spooky tracks. Most disturbing is the track ‘Jugband Blues’ from Floyd’s second album ‘A Saucerful of Secrets’, Barrett’s only contribution on that album. The fact that he was floating to the darkest side of the moon was evident to him, clear from the song, as well as the increasingly antagonistic behavior of his bandmates. The last couple of lines “And what exactly is a dream / And what exactly is a joke?” it is a reflection of your state of mind. He couldn’t tell if he was dreaming or if his mind was playing tricks on him, and there was nothing he could do about it. Imagine the horror and despair! And understand the depth of those words.

However, the final straw was a practice session that turned out to be Syd’s last session with the band. He had come in with a new song called “Got it already?” The band learned composition quite easily and started to play. However, Barrett slightly changed the arrangement and melody. Again they had to learn it again. But Barrett kept changing it with each new practice. This resulted in the band members trying to catch up with Syd, and the music was all riotous! If this wasn’t enough, in the song, Syd would ask “Do you already have it?” and all the other members had to yell “No! No! No!” as an answer to the question. The astonishing revelation here is that Syd Barrett hadn’t come up with a song at all. He came up with a concept! The song was the concept itself! The song would have an ever-changing structure, and the other members would not understand the song correctly, or “Do you already have it?” it would not be valid! This is what produced the schizophrenic mind. Now you can call it ‘pure insanity’ or ‘absolute genius’, but it will make you think and wonder. You may marvel or dismiss it, but you will appreciate the concept and respect the fact that you tried to implement it. However, you can never tell if he did it out of spite, or if it was another honest creation, but this display of his idiosyncratic sense of humor did not bode well for the other members. They finally had enough of him! Roger Waters put down the bass, left the room, and never tried to play with Barrett again. He called it “a true act of mad genius.”

Now it’s up to you to decide if you consider Syd Barrett a madman or a genius, but who are we to judge? Also, there is a fine line between insanity and genius. As for me, I leave you with a little thought: Can you wonder what really happened in that beautiful mind?