#76-T - Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast from Atom Heart Mother (1970)
Appeared On: 1 ballot (out of 32 . . . 3.1%)
Total Points: 10 points (out of 800) possible points . . . 1.25%)
Top Rankers: @New Binky the Doormat
Highest Ranking: 16
Live Performances:
PF: 5 (
Sheffield - 1970-12-22)
DG's PF: None
DG: None
RW: None
NM: None
Covers:
Interstellar Factory,
MobyDick00001
Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast was an experiment in incorporating actual sounds into music, which even the band didn't think worked out so well. The song was named after roadie Alan Stiles, who often cooked breakfast when the band was on the road. He also is the voice that introduces the various parts. In Rise and Shine, Alan gets up and begins cooking breakfast . . . bacon, eggs and toast . . . all rendered in sumptuous quadraphonic sound. Stiles provides a running commentary that leads into a jaunty, piano-based number that really goes nowhere. Sunny Side Up starts off with the pleasant sounds of Alan eating breakfast and joking about macrobiotic food, which rapidly gives way to an acoustic number in which Dave duets with himself.
Alan Parsons was brought on as a Sound Engineer, fresh off his work for The Beatles Abbey Road. He recalled, “One take went, ‘Egg Frying Take One,’ followed by, ‘Whoops!’ as the egg dropped.” Near the end, the sounds of Alan (Stiles) cooking breakfast fade in again, introducing Morning Glory, a more upbeat and listenable piece using all the instruments (incidentally, morning-glory seeds are a powerful psychedelic). The song ends with Alan washing the dishes, after which he leaves the tap dripping, which on the original LP ran into the run out groove, so that people without automatic changers would have an annoying impetus to change the record.
In addition to the talking, the sounds of Alan making breakfast—such as lighting the stove, cooking bacon, pouring milk and cereal (which makes a popping sound associated with Kellogg's Rice Krispies), loudly gulping and drinking, and vigorously eating cereal—are clearly audible in the background, which adds a conceptual feel to the track. Alan can be heard entering the kitchen and gathering supplies at the start of the track, and washing up and exiting the kitchen at the end; a dripping tap can be heard during both of these instances. On the CD and digital release, the dripping continues for approximately 17 seconds after all other sounds have ceased.
Rick Wright: "...Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast we tried on our English tour and it didn't work at all, so we had to give it up. None of us liked doing it anyway and we didn't like it on the album — it's rather pretentious, it doesn't do anything. Quite honestly, it's a bad number. A similar idea in that idiom we did at Roundhouse another time I thought was much better. Practically on the spot we decided to improvise a number where we fried eggs on stage and Roger threw potatoes about and it was spontaneous and it was really good. Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast was a weak number."
Nick Mason: "Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast is quite interesting, insofar as we've agreed that the piece didn't work, but in some ways the sound effects are the strongest parts."
Roger Waters: "We did that in a fantastic rush, didn't we?"
Nick Mason: "Right, it was a fantastic idea, but because of the rush it didn't work properly."
Dave Gilmour: "Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast never achieved what it was meant to. It was meant to be how it should've been. It was a bit of a throw together. In fact the most throw together thing we've ever done."
However, the band continued to experiment with 'musique concrete,' eventually succeeding brilliantly on such albums as Dark Side of the Moon, until sound effects and spoken words became an inherent part of the Pink Floyd sound.
The title of the album Atom Heart Mother was another spur of the moment decision. One day, musician and composer Ron Geesin, who had worked with Waters on the title track (and received a rare co-writing credit) pointed Roger to the 1970-07-16 edition of the Evening Standard newspaper and told him that he would find the song title in the newspaper. Waters combed the paper and saw an article about a pregnant woman who had been fitted with a plutonium-based heart pacemaker. The headline was "Atom Heart Mother Named".
The AHM album was commercially successful on release. It was the first Floyd album to top the UK albums charts (and rose to #55 in America). The band, particularly
Roger and
David, have expressed negative opinions of the album. Waters called it, "A really awful and embarrassing record."
The idea for the Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast piece came about by Waters experimenting with the rhythm of a dripping tap, which combined sound effects and dialogue recorded by Mason in his kitchen with musical pieces recorded in the studio. A slightly re-worked version was performed on stage on 1970-12- 22 at
Sheffield City Hall, Sheffield, England with the band members pausing between pieces to eat and drink their breakfast.
Vulture Ranking (out of 165 songs): 147
Ultimate Classic Rock Ranking (out of 167 songs): 160
Louder Ranking (out of 50 songs): NR
WMGK Ranking (out of 40 songs): NR
Ranker Ranking (out of 132 songs): 104
Billboard Ranking (out of 50 songs): NR
Vulture Ranking (147 out of 165 songs): Another suite from the band’s dreariest period, on an album that had already given us 20-plus minutes of the title song, in no less than six parts. This one comprises a comparatively restrained three parts, and includes the sounds of an actual breakfast being made, complete with dripping faucet, which turns out to be kinda irritating. Gilmour noodles guitars in the middle, with a poorly recorded bass interfering. The third part is mostly keyboard, mixed horribly. The band actually used to play this nonsense live. The titular Alan, incidentally, was a roadie; the title is another example of the band’s jolly jocularity. The argument for this junk, I suppose, is that the band, despite its space-rock leanings, was much more down to earth and organic, as opposed to the flights of high electronic fantasy offered by your King Crimsons and the other, more energetic progressive-rock outfits of the time. Part of the reason it doesn’t work for me is the anonymity of the players. If this is supposed to be organic, there’s no personality to the music.
UCR Ranking (160 out of 167 songs): This 13-minute slab of
musique concrete fulfills a request that (probably) no Floyd fan ever made: “What does roadie Alan Styles like for breakfast, can we hear him making it and could the guys in the band noodle around (in a very non-psychedelic manner) as he fries bacon, muses about marmalade and pours a bowl of Rice Krispies?” Now, who’s hungry?
After three songs with not a lot of music in them, settle in your seats and dim the lights for our next entry from The Division Bell.
Here's one, give the intro a minute or two then it appears.
