The Australian comedian, who is embarking on his second New Zealand tour, a visit that includes a performance at Dunedin's Regent Theatre tonight, has forged a successful career on the back of his wry observations.
Barron documents and dissects the small things in life, be they bodily functions, clichéd phrases or nervous interaction.
"A friend of mine said the other day that I was like a voyeur on my life. I don't really do anything; I just sit around and watch. I didn't set out that way.
"I've just always talked about that sort of stuff," Barron explains from a hotel room in Sydney.
"If someone rolls their eyes when they are talking to me, I'll stop the conversation and ask why are they rolling their eyes. I should have been a psychotherapist . . .
"Socially, at parties, I'd be the guy in the corner who might have drunk too much, who people thought was weird and perhaps should be taken home."
As it transpires, plenty of people have taken Barron home.
His debut DVD, Carl Barron Live, is the best-selling stand-up comedy DVD in Australian retail history, having sold more than 200,000 copies since its release in 2003, with 2005 follow-up Whatever Comes Next eclipsing 150,000 sales and this year's Walking Down the Street 60,000.
The son of a sheep farmer, Barron grew up in Longreach, central Queensland.
He moved to the Gold Coast where he became a roof-tiler, then to Sydney where he decided to walk on stage at the Harold Park Hotel one night in 1993 and told everyone how he'd been struck by bird poo earlier that day.
Since then, Barron has toured throughout Australia, visited New York, Los Angeles, London, New Zealand, Ireland, Singapore and Edinburgh.
He has twice been invited to the prestigious Montreal International Comedy Festival, and has appeared on Rove Live more than any other comedian.
He likes words, always has done.
He zeroes in on how they are used and, possibly more importantly, misused.
"My brain just dissects it a bit," he says.
"Sometimes when you look at a common expression ... When somebody says something like "oh, relationships are about compromise", I'll ask, `why? Really? What makes you think that?'."
"I'm naturally analytical. A lot of people think you're being judgemental, like you've got some motive to prove them wrong, but if someone says something, I just ask, `how can you think that?'."
Though he didn't think about his upbringing too deeply until he began honing his stage routines, Barron says his childhood has provided plenty of material.
"I'd think about when I was a kid and about my old man. I've got a good memory for some things.
"People who I've been in relationships with call it a selective memory."
Now in his 40s, Barron is able to draw on wider experiences.
"You have got a different story to tell when you're a 25-year-old comic as opposed to a 40-year-old, or when you're 50 or 60.
"You have a different take on yourself. Your core perspective is there, the disposition you are born with.
"After a few years of being on stage, I've worked more on making things flow. I get as much out of that as I do someone coming up to me and saying they thought the show was funny.
"When I first started out they were just bits. I still work on that now - to walk out and tell a nice, long story."
Catch him
Carl Barron performs at the Regent Theatre, Dunedin, tonight.
