Author: Peter Podbrežnik
Artist: Pink Floyd
Label: EMI Records
Release: 1970
Rating: 4.5/5
Lulubelle III, the cow on the cover of “Atom Heart Mother”, the fifth studio album from legendary prog rock heavyweights Pink Floyd, is surely the most famous cow in the world, right up there with the purple one on the Milka chocolate wrapper. The infamous dairy queen ended up on the cover of “Atom Heart Mother” purely by chance and has nothing to do with the album’s musical or lyrical makeup, even though plenty of fans of this legendary band are still convinced otherwise to this day. Cult artist Storm Thorgerson, the band’s longtime cover designer, was told to come up with something totally rural and unconventional for this album, which also happened to line up with the band’s psychedelic space rock leanings at the time, since they never recognized any limits when it came to exploring and mixing different musical styles. “Atom Heart Mother” was originally supposed to be called “The Amazing Pudding”, but the band changed the name after bassist/vocalist Roger Waters came across a strange newspaper article about a woman with an atomic pacemaker.
When “Atom Heart Mother” was being made, the band was still driven by constant musical experimentation, which at times pushed right up against the outer limits of psychedelic avant-garde weirdness and obscurity. At the same time, they were still chasing a very specific sound, one that would lodge them forever in the hearts of the wider music community and let them make a clean break from the past and the long shadow of their fallen comrade, the “crazy diamond” Syd Barrett. “Atom Heart Mother” was another important step forward in that mission. For the most part, it settled scores with the early psychedelic space rock elements that had usually been tied to their sound up to then, and moved noticeably closer to more refined forms of progressive rock, as numerous orchestral elements from classical music and jazz suddenly turned up in their music (the latter mostly applies to the title track). “Atom Heart Mother” could hardly be more different from its predecessor “Ummagumma” (1969), which was the peak of their psychedelic-avant-garde experimenting (I’m talking about its studio half, of course). Then again, with this band every next album was almost without exception a completely different story. “Atom Heart Mother” is also known as the album where young sound engineer Alan Parsons first showed off his production talents. He later built a worldwide reputation as the creative head of his own group, The Alan Parsons Project.
Despite Waters’ and Gilmour’s not exactly flattering opinions of it these days, “Atom Heart Mother” was yet another important step toward maturity in their musical development. That applies above all to the creation of epic symphonic arrangements (atypical for the band), which reached their peak here through the collaboration with an orchestra led by composer Ron Geesin. That step forward shows on the brilliant epic title suite, the key piece of this excellent and still rather overlooked album. In keeping with their tradition up to then, each of the three key songwriters (besides Waters, that was lead vocalist/guitarist David Gilmour and keyboardist/occasional vocalist Richard Wright) contributed a composition typical of their writing and playing style at the time. The one major psychedelic-avant-garde experiment sits at the end of the album, where you can listen to their roadie at the time having his breakfast (!). That experiment is also one of the few burlesque moments in their history, and it could easily make a run for the title of their weirdest, funniest creation. With all of these pieces, “Atom Heart Mother” is without a doubt one of the most stylistically varied records in their story, and it deserves more respect than it usually gets.
The title track, “Atom Heart Mother”, a six-part orchestral suite of epic proportions, is both the centerpiece and the best work on the album. Despite its considerable length, this mighty creation, easily the band’s most ambitious up to that point, can hold the listener in a trance from start to finish with its incredible atmosphere and the remarkably interesting nature of its individual arrangements. Besides being one of the most complex pieces in their story, it’s also the longest composition in their history (a few seconds longer than the amazing “Echoes”, which is otherwise their greatest triumph when it comes to 20-plus-minute epics). That’s if I subtract the combined length of both parts of “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”, another one of the greatest triumphs of their career. It was also one of the few pieces in their story where someone outside the band took part, in this case composer Ron Geesin, who wrote all the string and wind arrangements for the orchestra. Working with an orchestra on grand multi-part epics was fairly popular among some prog rock bands at the time (as King Crimson with “Lizard” and Uriah Heep with “Salisbury” proved, with more or less success).
Within this suite it’s often pretty hard to tell where one section starts, since they’re usually separated by sudden transitions, tempo changes, and the arrival of odd effects and moods. Still, a listener can tie them together into a sensible whole, or concept, that tells through music the story of the perfectly ordinary daily life of the most ordinary cow grazing in the English countryside. The mood within the individual sections shifts from epically pompous to almost obscurely psychedelic.
The opening section “Father’s Shout” starts out relatively innocently, with a quiet keyboard intro, until the mighty brass section crashes in majestically alongside Mason’s drum fills. That also happens to be the album’s central motif. In the background you can clearly make out various special effects, like a tractor sputtering and a horse neighing, which add even more to the rural, Anglo-Saxon atmosphere. The mood turns much more melancholy the moment Wright’s organ passages, the lively rhythm section, and a cello solo come in. When Gilmour’s soaring slide guitar solo joins in too, the melancholy-ethereal mood is perfect, and combined with the rich orchestral arrangements it sends shivers down your spine. Sonically, this atmosphere is already very close to the one that later made them world famous.
“Breast Milky” opens right after Gilmour’s slide guitar solo ends. An extremely mystical, I’d even say almost druidic mood dominates here, created by majestic choral singing combined with Wright’s organ, Waters’ bass, and Mason’s drums. For a brief moment, legends from ancient Celtic times come back to life, when druids held rituals around stone circles, before a farmer built his farm on the spot and fenced off a pasture for his favorite cow.
The next section, “Mother Fore”, introduced by dramatic Wright keyboards, is another of the suite’s atmospheric peaks and also an exceptionally interesting jam section where each instrumentalist gets to shine. Gilmour brings in another superb solo, this time leaning a bit more toward the blues. He’s joined by passages from Wright’s keyboards (with the emphasis on the Minimoog) and Waters’ bass line. At one point the choir comes in, singing a strange, hard-to-make-out but still very interesting chant. It builds up until the mighty brass section crashes in again, repeating the suite’s central motif.
Next comes “Funky Dung”, the most psychedelic-avant-garde and therefore the strangest section of the whole suite. A string of out-of-tune effects follows one after another, especially high-pitched voices that can sound pretty annoying at times, though they never really derail the incredible atmosphere. Among all those dissonant effects you can also hear the announcement “there’s now an important announcement”.
“Mind Your Throats, Please” is another avant-garde-psychedelic section full of odd effects, opening with a ringing telephone. Numerous instruments gradually slip in through the effects, building a melody and piling on atmosphere until the brass section crashes in and someone firmly announces “silence in the studio”.
The closing section “Remergence”, where the opening motif from “Father’s Shout” returns, is the final triumph. The magical Celtic mood from the opening sections takes over again. The mighty brass section and cello solo are once again followed by a “weeping” slide guitar solo. It all ends with a repeat of the central motif from “Father’s Shout”. At that moment the whole orchestra, the band, and the choir come in together and wrap up one of Pink Floyd’s finest creations in majestic fashion. Even though Waters and Gilmour have few kind words for it, one fact says plenty about its real quality: legendary film director Stanley Kubrick, best known for the classic “2001: A Space Odyssey”, liked it so much that he wanted to use it in the cult film “A Clockwork Orange”. But the band turned down his offer (a typical move, especially for Waters).
The next three tracks on the album were much shorter and noticeably simpler, mostly pastoral and melodic in nature. On them, all three of the band’s key creative forces showed off their songwriting talents in a lovely, distinctive way. The first of them was “If”, a simple and extremely pleasant folk ballad by Waters. A dreamy pastoral mood dominates, fitting the album’s overall feel perfectly and calming down a bit the electrifying effect the grand title epic has on the listener. Waters presented himself here not only as one of the most innovative bassists of the time, but also as a good, very distinctive singer and a solid acoustic guitarist. The other three members keep him company, but they’re pushed completely into the background here, apart from Gilmour’s closing guitar solo and Wright’s piano passages in between. Waters’ lyrics (philosophical, as usual) revolve around self-analysis and are quite far from his later, much darker and socially critical messages. Over the years, this pleasant folk ballad has become one of the most beloved moments of Waters’ solo shows.
With the next piece, the excellent “Summer ’68”, which is also a critique of the already fading hippie movement and the lifestyle of most musicians at the time, keyboardist Rick Wright positively surprised again in the role of lead songwriter and vocalist. He usually stayed in Waters’ and Gilmour’s shadow, even though he was no less important in shaping their recognizable sound and was one of the most talented and versatile keyboardists in prog rock. The main appeal of this superb composition lies in how interestingly it unfolds and turns after the opening melodic build-up on piano. Wright’s dreamy vocal and piano build a pleasant melody until a sudden, mighty transition, when the rest of the instrumentalists suddenly crash in along with a pompous brass section played by the accompanying orchestra (which returns in the orchestral ending of the track too). Gilmour’s backing vocals and his acoustic guitar certainly add their own bit to the magic. Wright’s lyrics also express a longing for rest after a grueling concert tour and tell of one of his more memorable encounters with so-called groupies, though it’s hard to believe such a deep composition is about one of the typical rock star clichés.
Almost even more impressive was Gilmour’s gorgeous folk ballad “Fat Old Sun”. Today it’s recognized as a Pink Floyd classic and is something of a staple of Dave’s solo shows. It’s wrapped in an extremely romantic and pastoral mood from start to finish, radiating from both the central acoustic melody and the lyrics, which are a kind of ode to rural idylls. Gilmour once again took on the role of multi-instrumentalist, with only Wright on keyboards keeping him company. What’s most admirable here is how his heartfelt singing and the seemingly simple guitar melody create an incredible romantic magic. After the last chorus Dave moves into a superb blues solo on electric guitar, one of a good number he produced over his career, each completely distinctive and wonderful in its own way. “Fat Old Sun” is a nice proof of why Gilmour was always, for me, the central and finest vocalist in Pink Floyd, since his velvet voice always carried a special, heartfelt and utterly distinctive warmth that Waters and Wright, despite their proven singing talents, never managed to create.
The fun closing instrumental “Alan’s Psychadelic Breakfast” was a truly one-of-a-kind surprise, the kind a first-time listener would never have seen coming. With its psychedelic-avant-garde nature it was something totally different from the rest of the album, and I’d go as far as to say it was almost a provocation, but it’s still interesting and fun today, grotesque banality and all. It’s precisely this sort of totally unconventional, free-form avant-garde idea, usually with no connection to deliberately structured musical forms, that was always one of this legendary band’s main charms. “Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast” is basically a three-part instrumental and by far the most psychedelic-avant-garde moment on the album. Its star is the unsuspecting roadie Alan Stiles, whom the band recorded during his breakfast. While the band plays mostly symphonic instrumental sections in the background, a audibly starving Alan makes breakfast and talks about his eating habits. Even though the laughter wears off after a few listens, even for listeners most receptive to this kind of avant-garde experiment, this quirky, playful creation still remains a completely unique and interesting experiment of late psychedelic rock.
The opening section “Rise And Shine” opens with a tap dripping over a sink. Suddenly you can hear Alan muttering to himself the dishes he’s going to treat himself to for breakfast (he’s especially fond of marmalade), and then he lights the burner on the stove with matches. Suddenly an instrumental section comes in, with steel guitar, cymbals, organ, and piano forming a playful melody. It could just as well be in some kids’ commercial for Frutek or Ciciban shoes.
Suddenly “Sunny Side Up” follows, where Alan muses about a macrobiotic breakfast in Los Angeles, stirs his coffee, pours cornflakes from a bag into milk, and then starts frying eggs on the stove. What follows is an extremely grotesque but undoubtedly fun section, played entirely by Gilmour on steel guitar and acoustic guitar. All the while you can hear Alan’s passionate smacking and gulping, which, going by the sheer appetite you hear, recalls the gorging of some decadent Roman senators. In the end he serves himself the fried eggs and starts contentedly mumbling his impressions of the meal to himself.
In the closing section “Morning Glory”, where you can hear sizzling, the best instrumental section of the whole piece comes in, with an excellent melody on piano, Hammond organ, electric guitar, and rhythm section. Right at the end you can hear Alan toss his dishes in the sink, pick up his keys from the table, walk out the door, and drive off in his car. It all ends the way it began, with a tap dripping over a sink. To this day there are some folks who deny the album masterpiece status precisely because of this highly experimental closing piece, trying by every means to find some logic where there never was any.
“Atom Heart Mother” still remains a rather overlooked album, both by the band members and by most of their fans, even though it fully deserves the status of a Pink Floyd masterpiece. Although both Waters and Gilmour have given the album quite a bit of bad press over the years with scornful remarks like “it’s one of those albums you stick in a dusty corner and never listen to again”, “Atom Heart Mother” was a notable step toward maturity and an important moment in their career, one where they also showed some previously undiscovered sides of their songwriting. The collaboration with an orchestra was the moment when Pink Floyd came closest to symphonic forms of progressive rock and made an important break from their early, often extremely obscure, psychedelic experiments. Whatever you might hold against this album, you can’t say it doesn’t have the right balance of longer, instrumentally complex pieces and melodic, more accessible ones, or that it doesn’t contain some of the most interesting and varied pieces in their history. After “Atom Heart Mother”, Pink Floyd were still “just” a cult band (even though it was their first album to hit the top of the UK charts), one that had earned its wider reputation mainly through early singles and spectacular stage shows, but it wasn’t long from there to the invention of a completely distinctive sound and, with it, worldwide success.
Lineup
David Gilmour – vocals, guitar, bass guitar (4), drums (4)
Roger Waters – vocals, bass guitar, acoustic guitar (2), effects
Richard Wright – vocals, keyboards, orchestration
Nick Mason – drums, percussion
GUEST MUSICIANS:
Ron Geesin – orchestration
Abbey Road Session Pops Orchestra – wind and orchestral sections
Philip Jones Brass Ensemble – brass sections
John Aldiss Choir – choir vocals
Alan Stiles – voice (5)
Production
Norman Smith
Track list
1. Atom Heart Mother (23:51)
a) Father’s shout
b) Breast milky
c) Mother fore
d) Funky dung
e) Mind your throats please
f) Remergence
2. If (4:24)
3. Summer ’68 (5:26)
4. Fat old sun (5:17)
5. Alan’s psychedelic breakfast (12:56)
a) rise and shine
b) sunny side up
c) morning glory
Album length: 51:54
