Pink Floyd: tomorrow “Atom Heart Mother” turns 55
More than half a century ago, a group called Pink Floyd in exactly three years – since October ’69 in the same month of ’71 – he sent three records in the shops, “Ummagumma”, “Atom Heart Mother” and “Meddle”. Of course, not all donuts succeed with the hole: the middle album was defined by David Gilmour himself an attempt to “scrape the bottom of the barrel” with “psychedelic shit”.
Yet what Roger Waters’s former inmal substantially defined waste material was the key that allowed Pink Floyd for the first time to open the door of the highest plan in the British ranking, demonstrating that – when a group is valid and has something to say – even the bottom of the barrel has a certain sense. Because, over the years, those songs in the first instance have proved to be an integral part of a path that would have led a group to indelibly write their name in the history of rock, showing that the abandonment of the traditional album format (understood as a collection of songs) does not necessarily mean turning the backs of the general public and commercial success.
On the occasion of the fifty -fifth anniversary of the publication of “Atom Heart Mother”, which occurs tomorrow, here are seven anecdotes that perhaps you did not know about one of the minor children of the band of “Wish You Were here” which perhaps, then, so less is not.
1 – On the cover and on the back of the original edition of the disc appeared neither the title nor the name of the group, nor the list of songs: the choice had been Pink Floyd themselves, who wanted, for their fifth studio album, an artwork as sober as possible. The choice surprised LG Wood, the EMI boss who used to examine all the covers of the discs that he produced before placing them on the market. When the record company took “Atom Heart Mother” the first thing he saw was the cow, which Storm Thorgerson had put on the cover inspired by the work of Andy Warhol “Cow Wallpaper” of 1966. Amazement, Wood turned the LP on the other side, hoping to find the essential information, and found us other cows. “Ah: Frisone”, it was the reaction – impassively and impeccably British – of Wood.
2 – Yeah, a Frisona. To be precise, Lulubelle III (in the photo), a perfect specimen of the original cow’s breed of the Netherlands, complete with pedigree. The Pink Floyd, for the cover of “Atom Heart Mother”, wanted something extremely ordinary, who punched with the psychedelic imagination, now tried trivial by the band of Waters and Gilmour. According to reports from Hugh Fielder in “Behind the wall”, he was a friend of Storm Thorgerson who advised the graphic designer to photograph a cow, why – after all – “What’s more ordinary than a cow”? So Thorgerson came out of the city and as soon as he arrived in the countryside he photographed the first cow that happened to him. And so it was that Lulubelle III – who disappeared many years ago – entered the history of rock.
3 – Always regarding the cover: the Hipgnosis studio, which thanks to the artwork of “A Saucerful of Secrets” and “Ummagumma” had linked its activity to that of Pink Floyd, won the commission for the cover of “Atom Heart Mother” thanks to a “second choice”. The first proposal made by Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey Powell at the group was in fact the graphics with a diving intent on immersing yourself in an empty swimming pool: the band does not like, so the second proposal was welcomed, or the image of the cow that over the years would become one of the many icons related to the career of the Waters and Gilmour band. Hipgnosis recycled the diving idea with the Def Leppard, who used what should have been the cover of “Atom Heart Mother” for their 1981 album “High ‘n’ Dry”.
4 – Although it was the first Pink Floyd album capable of reaching the peaks of the sales charts in Great Britain, David Gilmour has never loved too “Atom Heart Mother”, so much so as to define it “our experimental shit”: “It is the most raffazzonata thing that we ever happened to do”, was the merciless judgment of the guitarist, “It was really a garbage. We had exaggerated to scrape the bottom of the barrel. ” Even Waters, in the following years, did not show himself particularly fond of the album, so much so that he answered – in 1984 – to an interview with the BBC: “If someone here, now, told me ‘here is a million pounds, now go and play’ Atom Heart Mother ” I would answer him ‘fuck, are you joking right?'”.
5 – Before becoming the title of the fifth album of Pink Floyd, “Atom Heart Mother” was the title of an article of the standard Ancient that spoke of a pregnant woman who had been implanted an experimental pacemaker: the story was found by the producer Ron Geesin and Roger Waters, who were fascinated by it. The album was already finished, the BBC was ready to convey it but the title was missing: so the band thought of “relying” in the Cesarini area of the title of the British newspaper.
6 – Part of the sounds present in “Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast” are nothing more than environmental recordings of one of the roadie at the time employed by Pink Floyd, Alans Stiles: the group’s collaborator was recorded while preparing breakfast in the kitchen of the drummer Nick Mason. Hence the title of the song.
7 – Stanley Kubrick would have liked to use the title track of “Atom Heart Mother” for one of his masterpieces, “mechanical orange”: the band refused to grant the song, because the filmmaker, presenting his proposal, had said that the right to “chop” the song to use it at different times of the film would be reserved. Despite the ban, the New York genius still managed to insert the disc in the film, making it appear the cover in the scene set in a record shop.
