Any other rock and roll band should be considered musical geniuses for being able to move on from Syd Barrett the way Pink Floyd did.
They had lost their de facto leader, and even if Roger Waters had experience writing a half-decent tune, there was bound to be some growing pains as they tried to struggle through their transition to a different sound. And while Nick Mason was usually along for the ride providing that great backbeat, he felt that a few pieces were bound to stand out better than others.
For instance, let’s look at A Saucerful of Secrets for a second. The Barrett songs on the record were clearly leftovers from the moments where he was able to string together a half-decent tune, but in between the songs that show potential like ‘Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun’, the title track is one of the most underwhelming epics in their entire catalogue. It does end up going places, but that doesn’t mean either of their musical episodes or any good to listen to.
And even when the band started branching out when making the soundtrack to More, it was clear they were struggling on what they wanted to be. There was the heavier side of the sound on ‘The Nile Song’, but tunes like ‘Cymbaline’ did at least sound a little bit closer to the version of the group that everyone would get to know later. Before they finally hit that sweet spot on Meddle, Atom Heart Mother was a great example of them working on their epics in real time.
Although the title track has been mocked by both Waters and David Gilmour as one of the most embarrassing tunes they ever recorded, that’s hardly fair. The use of brass is actually a welcome change of pace from their usual sound, and when they do get to stretch out on the second side of the record, Waters’s lyrics on ‘If’ are interesting and ‘Fat Old Sun’ is a great example of what Gilmour can do when left to his own devices.
But chances are Mason’s memories of the record are a lot more harrowing than the rest of them. The tracks that they were using couldn’t handle everyone punching in their own parts, so Mason and Waters had to play the entire 23-minute piece in one pass, which probably explains the moments of confusion when the band are a bit off trying to figure out where the hell they are in the piece.
That might be the stuff of most musicians’ nightmares, but a tune like ‘Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast’ was a far lesser showing from Floyd as far as Mason could tell, saying, “It was great fun and interesting, but I don’t think we were being great artists. Some of it was absolute nonsense. But I think we were still looking for a direction.” And while this end of the record would be a fun idea, it does also feel like a concept that everyone would come up with after one too many tokes.
Any of the band’s avant-garde pieces had potential, but this is the one tune where it feels a little strange listening to them bang away on their instruments for half the runtime. All the “lyrics” are basically one of their roadies talking about the things that he likes to eat for breakfast, and while this could make for a decent soundtrack to someone’s early morning when the musical sections creep in, it wasn’t like this was the kind of direction they would be going down for the rest of their career.
Even when they played their avant-garde tunes in Pompeii, there’s a reason why they chose to perform tunes like ‘Careful With That Axe Eugene’ instead of this tune. It’s nice to know that the band was having fun making the track, but just because they are enjoying themselves doesn’t mean the rest of the audience is.
