Atom Heart Mother

You know, if we're the MTV generation, we don't know much about pre-Dark Side Pink Floyd.

And then you go to the record store, and they have, you know, all these weird names like Ummagumma, and, you know, Atom Heart Mother, and Music from the Film More, which you never, ever saw and still have never, ever seen.

[laughs]

And, and so it changes the number of albums that they have, really.

Yeah.

And that ended up, and then there's live stuff, so is that even an album? I don't know.

And then Atom Heart Mother is a real album, the one that precedes Metal.

But that really means that they made an Umma Gumma, which is them each kinda having a turn, and that's why the cover is the way it is, with one person up front and then the guys are in the background.

Booyah.

And this is Atom Heart Mother.

What

a great title.

Oh, my goodness, no. I'm here for it.

Wait, the 23-minute song, that would be?

Atom Heart Mother, the title track, Side A.

The entirety of Side A was one song.

What do you mean happy? What do you mean interesting?

In early 1972, Pink Floyd were in the middle of creating one of the most successful and iconic albums in history when they took an unexpected, but perhaps welcome break, flew to France, and there wrote and recorded an entirely separate album in just two weeks.

Also, that very same month, February of 1972, Pink Floyd's enigmatic founding member, Syd Barrett, surprisingly resurfaced, fronting a new band.

Now, the look of the week.

Twink had played in a British psychedelic band called Tomorrow with Steve Howe, later of Yes, and he was also a member of the infamous Pink Fairies.

Jack Monk was married to an ex-girlfriend of Syd's named Jenny Spire.

After Pink Floyd had stopped inviting him to rehearsals, Syd Barrett had recorded two meandering solo albums and then made several attempts at returning to the concert stage.

His first solo performance took place on June 6, 1970, at London's Olympia Exhibition Hall.

And he started playing them pop music.

And one of the records he used to introduce them to this wonderful world of pop music was Atom Heart Mother.

And that was my first experience of being

Floyd.

Wow, that's quite the first experience, actually.

I was thinking, because you're talking the 60s, I'm thinking, did you hear C. Emily Play or Arnold Lane? But I think Atom Heart Mother is a more apropos introduction to them in some way.

I was born in 1957, so in 1963 I was six years old and I had no real consciousness of popular culture at all.

But of course, when Atom Heart Mother came out, I was 13, 14, 15 and beginning to be aware of what was going on out there.

It's, it's fascinating, isn't it? That pe-- you say people still get upset about it.

So-- but, but I think that-- And it's the same with Pink Floyd's Atom Heart Mother.

Pink Floyd fans get terribly upset-

Right

...about the second record of Atom Heart Mother.

It's probably my favorite Pink Floyd record for that very reason.

And again, it's one of the things that really turned me on to that whole world of music.