Ah, those were the days! Almost no one does
it anymore, but there was a time (and this was it) when Rock 'n Roll bands
simply had to see what they would sound like backed by a symphony
orchestra. (Usually, they sounded like Rock 'n Roll bands crashing
a symphony concert.) Some were quite successful with it, and it certainly
brought rock music into a new age, because the experimentation {CPFS}
caused many bands to think about the great improvement they could make
in the quality of their music by adding orchestral instruments to it.
(Maybe the reason few people do it these days is because synthesizers have
made it possible for one techno-geek to sound like an entire orchestra,
and today's listeners are seldom sufficiently sophisticated enough to tell
the difference.) The "Rock Opera" was all the rage, and some bands
turned it into a career (same time period that Emerson, Lake, and Palmer
made PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION)
On the surface, this seemed like a great trend for
the Floyd to follow, since so much of their music had classical
and orchestral constructs. Unfortunately, it did not turn out as
well as we might hope, for a variety of reasons. Primary among these
reasons, I think, was that the orchestra just did not grasp the overall
Pink Floyd "concept". They keep trying to play everything "straight",
and so end up missing the boat. It became a very aggravating experience
for both the orchestra and the band, and the result is pretty muddled.
In fact, at one point, the album and title song were going to be called
"The Amazing Pudding", because the whole just sounded so darned "puddinglike".
(Think how a concert would sound if you were submerged in pudding - maybe.)
Redemptorially, all the best Pink Floyd parts are present, they just all
need work. The poetry needs to be improved {CPFS}
, the effects need to be more a part of the music {CPFS}
, and the concept will have to come from the songs rather than the other
way around, but you can tell that they are on the right track. Plus,
there is the amazing Lulubelle the cow on the cover - inspired imagery!
Atom Heart Mother was
named after a headline the boys saw in the newspaper, about a woman who
had had a nuclear pacemaker installed. Like many Floyd song titles,
it is completely coincidental, and unrelated to the music. Actually,
almost no title would fit this composition well, though I might have used
"Motorcycles in Moldavia". The parts are also named, but these titles
seem to be for laughs, because there's no logical connection to the music
(though there is to the cow):
Father's Shout, Breast Milky, Mother Fore,
Funky Dung, Mind Your Throats Please, and Remergence. Ron Geesin
did all the orchestration and choral arranging, but ended up with no credit
because of differences with the band. To some extent, he may not
have really wanted this on his resume. By the time it was over, both
Waters
and Gilmour felt that it was pretty
much worthless except for the experience of learning to "think big".
The band edged closer to the total concept
album, which really is a hard thing to create.
By comparison, the other songs
don't really seem to fit on this album. If is a pleasant,
though namby-pamby, acousticballad,
in which Roger describes some of his failings, which seem to include his
inability to have saved Syd from losing
his way. Roger says this is the "real" him at work here, but I think
the real Roger has more edge. It does cause one to pause for thought.
Summer '68 gives Rick
Wright another chance to demonstrate his songwriting skills, and he
crashes again. This one seems like he wrote a song (with a Country
style, some interesting ideas, got to use the orchestra while it was paid
for) and he wrote a poem (not much rhyme, no rhythm, probably about a groupie
who got too clingy) and then just slapped the two together. If you're
a whiz with recording equipment, try editing out all the vocals, and I
think this one would be his best composition ever (not that that's saying
so much).
Fat Old Sun is a
favorite of my friend Dan Ondrusek, but I think it lacks some punch.
Dave Gilmour wrote this one, and seemed to lack some confidence in his
singing, perhaps since it's so high. It's not a bad song, and it
builds well (though painfully slowly), with some nice guitar riffs at the
end, but it needs to have its tempo raised a notch or two, and a little
harder edge honed onto it. Other than that, it's almost perfect.
(Dan let me borrow a recording of this song that was done live on the BBC
in 1970, which is much more psychedelic, and somewhat better.)
Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast
closes out the album, and is almost entirely sound-effects. If you
close your eyes, you can smell the bacon cooking. (In fact, when
they did it in concert, the band included smell-effects along with the
sound effects!) With your headphones on, you can probably name everything
Alan has for breakfast, but you end up wishing he'd get it all cooked and
eaten in far less than 13 minutes. (If it was a display at Disney
World the lines would be huge!) The band said it was the "most thrown-together
thing we've ever done", but they were probably too harsh with themselves.
Still, it's not easy-listening.
