‘Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast’: Pink Floyd’s stupidest song
After the departure of Syd Barrett, it was anyone’s guess where Pink Floyd would go next. Since Barrett served as the resident songwriter for most of the band’s early years, it was up to the rest of them to pick up the pieces once he began to lose his battle with his mental health. Although the group would find themselves on decent footing later in their career, Pink Floyd’s creative detours led to the strangest songs ever to appear on a rock album.
For the band’s sophomore release, A Saucerful of Secrets, many of the songs were reflective of the loss of Barrett, with Waters desperately trying to steer the ship back on course on tracks like ‘Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun’. As the band began toying with different sounds, one of the first bold reinventions happened with the album Ummagumma, featuring songs that sound closer to white noise than anything thought out.
When working on the follow-up, the band knew that they could expand upon the idea of the traditional rock and roll album. Arriving at the start of the 1970s, Atom Heart Mother marked one of the first times the band made an entirely collaborative concept for the first side of a record, taking the listener on a journey across 20 minutes as they assembled a song with various horns.
Although the song would become a fan favourite, none of the band members thought that it stood the test of time, with David Gilmour saying that he couldn’t be paid to play the song in a concert setting. Even though the track has its twists and turns, it’s far from the strangest song on the record.
Going into the back half, songs like ‘If’ and ‘Fat Old Sun’ are pleasant pieces of traditional rock songs, with Gilmour leaving his mark as a voice strong enough to match Waters at the best of times. As the album grinds to a close, ‘Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast’ remains one of the oddest inclusions in the Pink Floyd canon.
Still working out the bugs from their time working on Ummagumma, the song comprises various instrumental flourishes like finger-picked guitars and piano. Although this seems like the start of a decent song, there aren’t so many lyrics in the song as there is a laundry list being articulated by one of the group’s roadies.
Not thinking of anything to use as a proper verse/chorus structure, most of the “lyrics” involve the titular Alan walking around while fixing his breakfast, listing off the different foods he likes. Even though the song may have been a fine musique concrete piece, it has no place on a Pink Floyd release.
Considering where the band would go on on lofty concepts like Dark Side of the Moon, ‘Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast’ is one of the more airheaded songs they have ever pressed to vinyl, especially considering how long it is. Stretching out to 13 minutes, most of the audience would have left the album spinning on the turntable and tuned out the rest of the song.
The band didn’t have to wait long to establish their initial vision, creating the model for where their sound would go on the song ‘Echoes’ taken from Meddle. While Pink Floyd was still finding their voice, ‘Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast’ sounds more like a stoned-out fever dream that somehow found its way onto the finished record.
