Syd Barrett and The Madcap Laughs: Madness, Solitude and Striped Floors

Syd Barrett’s debut album as a solo artist, “The Madcap Laughs” was released on the 3rd January 1970. The music has a bittersweet feel to it; the melodies are childlike and innocent while others take on darker sounds. The album is in many ways a musical portrayal of Syd’s state of mind at the time.

“We are all mad here.”

(Lewis Caroll, Alice in Wonderland)

It was love at first sound with me and Pink Floyd’s early hits such as Arnold Layne, See Emily Play and Scarecrow; I intuitively felt that something very imaginative and strange was hiding underneath the exterior of your average great pop-song. Those were more than just pop songs that will be forgotten in a few years. They had the magic, the wittiness, the dreaminess that made them linger on in my mind. “Who writes stuff like this?”, I thought to myself. The genius behind the lyrics was Syd Barrett; at the time a drop-out art student from Cambridge who overnight found himself in the centre of the psychedelic underground culture. Music and art were fun for Syd, and coming up with witty lyrics and simple catchy tunes was easy for him because he seemed to have approached things in a childlike way, full of curiosity and wonder at the world around him, but the stress of the band’s success, the interviews, the popularity proved to be too much for him. The increasing consummation of the drug of the moment, LSD, did not help matters. His creative period with the Pink Floyd was short but strong, like an explosion, or a shooting star. Let me provide you with a few dates to show you just how fast it all happened; their first single “Arnold Layne” was released on 10th March 1967. And already, on 15th January 1968 Syd played his last gig with Pink Floyd.

Gustave Caillebotte, Wood Floor Planers, 1875

A new chapter in Syd’s life and musical career began. Alone in the loneliness of his Victorian pad in Wetherby Mansion in Earl’s Court Square, the Psychedelic Mad Hatter was slowly descending into a haunting state of introspection, melancholy and illusions. Into his new bohemian abode, he brought the stuff that remained after many moves around London; a small table, a mattress and a striped blanket, some scratched LPs, Penguin edition books by Shakespeare and Chaucer, barely touched canvases stacked against the wall. His room was his little imaginary world. The outside world did not matter anymore. The cheerful, fun-loving, chatty and friendly Syd was gone. The handsome young Englishman with messy black hair and velvet trousers was slowly going mad…. One morning, after having spent some time meditatively staring at his blanket, a painting by Gustave Caillebotte called “The Wood Floor Planners” suddenly came to his mind and he decided to paint the bare wooden floors of his room in stripes of orange and blue. The album cover shows Syd crouching in his room, a vase of daffodils next to him. He is sad and alone, yet his darkness intimidates me. Angry outbursts and fragmented conversation. Loneliness is seeping through the cracks on the striped floor.

Syd Barrett first entered the studio as a solo artist on 30th January 1968; just ten days after his last show with Pink Floyd, for what would be an unfruitful session. Sessions resumed in June and July produced songs Late Night, Octopus and Golden Hair; all featured on The Madcap Laughs. Peter Jenner, who had worked on these sessions claimed that they had not gone smoothly although he got on well with the singer. Shortly after July sessions Syd suddenly stopped recording, breaking up with his then girlfriend Lindsey Corner and then going off a drive around Britain in his Mini only to end up in psychiatric care in Cambridge. By the start of 1969 Barrett, somewhat recovered, resumed his music career and started working with another engineer Malcolm Jones, after both Jenner and Norman Smith (Pink Floyd’s producer at the time) had declined his request to work on the album. Over four sessions beginning on April 10th 1969. Syd had recorded songs Opel (a beautiful misty ballad that would not see the light of day until 1988), No good trying, No man’s land, Here I go and Love you. The sessions all together were not very productive because in those days recording four or five songs on just guitar in four or five hours wasn’t considered very productive. It was something the engineers tried to avoid.

“You feel me
Away far too empty, oh so alone
I want to go home
Oh find me inside of a nocturne, the blonde
How I love you to be by my side”

(Syd Barrett – Feel)

During the recording of the album Syd was also on Mandrax and he’d sit on a stool and then fall off it. Barrett and his friends were taking the infamous LSD-25, a powerful psychiatric drug still legal in UK those days. It was almost a religious-like experience for Syd, and many others who indulged. Syd really did believe the psychedelic revolution was flowing through him. The world was changing and he thought we should all be perfect beings, cool and groovy. Syd began taking acid regularly with enthusiasm many found alarming. It was in May 1967. that his eyes crazed.  At the time of The Madcap Laughs Syd had already completely surrendered.

The Madcap Laughs is an album filled with long forgotten symbolism. The songs are a mirror of Syd’s mental state of the time and in them he expressed, perhaps deliberately perhaps not, his loneliness and growing alienation. Though some of them have a cheerful rhythm like Love you, one can feel a spark of melancholy. In song Terrapin for example Syd shows his love of the blues while some of the songs sound more like a concept rather than a finished and polished song. This album features some almost child-like songs with optimistic melodies and ostensibly cute themes (Love you and Here I go) through darker and deeper subjects (Dark globe, Golden Hair and No man’s land) to melancholic cries for rescue from his loneliness and ever increasing alienation. Song Golden Hair is actually based on a poem by James Joyce.

This album and the following Barrett reflect not just his state of mind but also the atmosphere at the time, sorrowful end of the sixties whose optimism, innocence and mind-expanding ideas had faded away. By that time the hedonistic atmosphere of the Swinging London was long lost. Perhaps albums The Madcap Laughs and Barrett are a remembrance of the sixties for they were created at the dusk of this beautiful era; era which Syd belonged to and sadly died with.

The striped floors are aesthetically such a fun and exciting things. Syd chose to paint his floors in vibrant contrasting colours which gives the entire room a psychedelic touch, but I noticed the motif of wooden floor in many canvases painted by nineteenth century artists. Seeing the striped wooden floor stretching vertically or horizontally on the canvas is so exciting to me. Here are a few examples by Vincent van Gogh and Degas:

Vincent van Gogh, Bedroom in Arles, 1888

Edgar Degas, Deux Danseuses, 1879

Edgar Degas, The Dance Lesson, 1879

Edgar Degas, Dancers Practicing at the Barre, 1877

William Ratcliffe, Attic Room, 1918

The photo session for the album cover took place in the spring 1969. Most likely in March when daffodils were blooming and Syd had just finished painting his floor in orange and purple stripes. Proud of what he had done, Syd invited his friend Mick Rock to come over and take some photos. At that time Syd was living with Iggy The Eskimo who was a friend of Syd’s ex-girlfriend Jenny Spires. Iggy and Syd weren’t lovers but she was a good company. She answered the doors that day and welcomed Mick completely naked (not an unusual thing for hippies and free-spirited creatures of the time). When Mick arrived he found Syd in bed, still in his underpants; a moment he captured with his new camera Pentax he had just recently bought. After he’d got up, Syd donned a pair of trousers with colour stains on them; from the floor paint. Iggy, the groovy companion to this Mad Hatter of Psychedelia, added some kohl to his eyes to achieve that elegantly wasted look of a Poete Maudite.

The photos were created naturally, with no staging and posing. Mick worked with elements he had: a painted floor, a vase of daffodils, nude Iggy in the background and a huge Canadian car parked just in front of Wetherby Mansion for some outside shots. None of it was planned. Later that day, Storm Thorgerson arrived and his solo focus was the wonderful striped floor. He shoot photos in fading light placing a wide angled lens millimeters of the ground to achieve an Alice in Wonderland effect, giving the floor elastic quality. Syd just crouched by the fireplace and he looked natural; he spontaneously adapted to the background. His pose suggests defiant exhaustion and a dark edge of ‘knowing’. There was only one corner of the room that Syd hadn’t painted and that was the only clean angle if you didn’t want to expose this ‘set’ for what it was; a drab living room with a nasty electric fireplace. As long as he occupied his island-mattress surrounded by striped painted floor, reality and a world of possibilities remained outside his door. The photo that would eventually be the cover photo was also taken by Thorgerson.

I cannot put it in words how much I adore this album and the album cover and the striped floor. All of it has inspired me beyond words. I listen to “The Madcap Laughs” every time I paint my watercolours; it is such a pleasant, soothing, melancholy and dreamy music to provide background for dipping my brush in water, then in the paint… Syd’s fragile voice, his strange and witty lyrics, his yearnings for help and cries of loneliness that come out in some songs, all of it draws me into this strange ethereal world which I always occupy with one part of my mind. When I listen to this album, and also his follow-up “Barrett”, I truly feel like Alice when she found herself in the Wonderland; Syd is the psychedelic Mad Hatter and I follow him blindly, over the striped floor, crossing the yellow glow of the waning sun, to the spaces where only music remains, and I am free, free, free…

Also, grainy quality of the photo brings nostalgia and serves as a barrier between psychedelic vivid colours of the ’60s to more drab and sad reality that came with the seventies. Long gone is the multicoloured glamour of the ’60s Swinging London psychedelia and instead the cover of The Madcap Laughs suggests the ’60s decadence exposed and photos have that sad “party’s over” feel.

I have to take a moment in the end to give praise where praise is due and recommend you all the wonderful, amazing, fun and detailed book about Syd Barret called “Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd: Dark Globe” by Julius Palacios.

Iggy the Eskimo – The Girl Who Captured the Spirit of the ’60s

Iggy the Eskimo; a friend, a model and a possible love interest of Syd Barrett graced the Swinging London’s Scene in the 1960s. Yet, she vanished from the scene as abruptly as she arrived on it, and her figure remained engulfed in mystery…

Iggy the Eskimo was a mysterious figure in the 1960s London Scene for she looked like nobody else at the time. With her long dark hair, lovely Asian features, button nose and baby face, this South-Londoner, whose real name is Evelyn, sprung from the mod scene at the Orchid Ballroom in Purley. Her unusual looks are due to her mother descent; she hailed from the Himalayas. Whiles her looks attracted attention, it was her personality that charmed the London Scene. Iggy was free-spirited, lively, adventurous, not a care in the world; incredible creature, no other word for her.

Iggy gained notoriety by appearing in a newsreel shot at Granny Takes a Trip and in Melody Maker, demonstrating a new dance. Iggy embodied the free spirit of the decade, a true flower power, she lived in the moment, for the moment. Dancing at the Cromwellian Club, shopping at groovy boutiques or walking around wearing an elegant gold lamè 1940s dress, but with no underwear and completely exposed, remembers Duggie Fields.

Soon after meeting Antony Stern, Syd Barrett’s Cambridge friend and a film maker, at Henrix gig at The Speakeasy. Iggy enchanted Anthony and soon became his muse. Stern made a short film of Iggy pirouetting in a London Park. ‘Iggy was terrific fun to be with and to photograph‘, recalled Stern, ‘I remember walking through Battersea Park in the early mornings together. I made a short film of her dancing in Russell Square, the ultimate flower child.‘

Stern also said, ‘Iggy was my muse. I met her at Hendrix gig at the Speakeasy. She was a lovely inspiration andfree spirit. I never knew her real name. We used to hang out together, occasionally dropping acid, staying up all night, going for walks at dawn in Battersea Park. She entirely captures the spirit of the Sixties, living for the moment, completely careless.’

Iggy met Jenny Spires, one of Syd Barrett’s girlfriends, in spring 1967. in fashion store Biba. Iggy admired the dress Jenny was wearing and invited her to a party that night. They went clubbing together. ‘A lovely, sweet, funny girl, always on the scene at gigs and events.‘, recalls Jenny.

Jenny was the one who introduced Iggy to Syd in January 1969, right before she traveled to America. Iggy was homeless at the time and Jenny also wanted Syd to have a companion, so Iggy moved in. Though Syd is now considered to be some kind of dark, mysterious, brooding and secretive poète maudit, this perception of Syd is exaggerated and does not do him justice. Syd was a cheerful character, always ready for a good laugh, not just at a shared joke but sometimes just for the hell of it. Mick Rock, the photographer who shoot the back cover photo for Syd’s debut album The Madcap Laughs, captured this lively and charming Syd while skylarking in Holland Park with Iggy and an unknown brunette. Syd can be seen scampering around in his psychedelic finery, laughing, climbing trees, living the hippie ideal while Iggy is seen playfully running around, wide-smiled as well.

Iggy is perhaps the best memorable for posing on the back cover of The Madcap Laughs. Iggy is seen gracefully and artistically posing completely nude in the background, while Syd crouches in the foreground; an artist in isolation, living in a dark and illusive world of his own, in a world made of dreams and memories, turning his back on reality that is becoming more and more disappointing as days go by. While the cover photo was taken by Storm Thorgerson, the back cover photo was taken by Mick Rock, a friend of Syd who, having started taking pictures only months earlier, still wasn’t sure whether he wanted to be a lyricist or a musician. When Rock arrived that day, Iggy answered the door completely naked; not unusual thing for hippies and students at the time.

Now famous floor, painted in orange and mauve stripes, was painted by Syd and Iggy that morning; Iggy only helping him to finish it more quickly. Iggy was also the one who put kohl around his eyes for that elegantly wasted look. Iggy in the background, painted floorboards and the car outside were just elements that happened to be around; strange coincidences give this album cover a special allure, filled with sadness, nostalgia and a certain magic. But the most striking, most intriguing element of the photos is Iggy. Who was she, many have probably asked themselves, but the mysterious face was anonymous, well, it was until Iggy, or Evelyn, told her story once and for all, pleasing her fans and admirers.

Iggy wasn’t even aware that Syd was a famous psychedelic rock star at the time. Nor did she know that her beautiful bottom graced the back cover art of Syd’s album. She was impressed by his guitar playing but never made a connection between Syd from Earls Court and the face she must have seen at UFO years before. Syd played a tape of the song ‘Terrapin‘ for her once and she considered it to be quite catchy. Iggy didn’t know who he was, Syd, nor anybody else, knew her real name, the wonderful ’60s; good time to be had, tripping on acid, exploring the depths of your mind, that’s what matters, not names, dates or reputation.

Nevertheless, Iggy had vanished from Syd’s life as quickly as she drifted in. There were stories of her marrying a rich banker from Chelsea or joining a religious cult. Nothing of the sort happened. Iggy has been married since 1978. The life she led in Swinging London when the culture, music and fashion were at their peak, is now behind her, but she was reached by The Croydon Guardian reporter after an ex-Cambridge mod Pete Brown sent the magazine a letter saying that he had spent some wild nights with Iggy in the 1970s.

Turns out that Iggy is a daughter of a British army officer and a woman from the Himalayas. Her father had travelled to a remote village in the Himalayas where he met the woman that would become Iggy’s mother. Iggy was born in Pakistan and attended army schools in India and Aden, before the family moved to England. There, Iggy lived at the seaside and attended art school. She was a mod in Brighton and met many ’60s rockers; Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, Brian Jones, Keith Moon, she saw Hendrix make his UK debut at the Bag O’ Nails in November ’66, joined the counter-culture throng in April ’67 in Alexandra Palace for the 14-Hour Tehnicolor Dream, before living with Syd Barrett in Wetherby Mansions and becoming a part of the myth about The Laughing Madcap.

P.S. This page focuses purely on Iggy the Eskimo and her life, so you might want to check it out!

http://iggy.atagong.com/