![]() ![]() The song is about the musician's life, being always on the road doing gigs and hooking up with a crowd of groupies along the way.the lyrics are fine and Wright's voice is funny too. ![]() ![]() It's one of the few songs Wright has ever done for Pink Floyd and it's actually pretty fine. "Summer 68" is a catchy, fast and happy pop tune written and sung by Richard Wright, the band's keyboard player. The words are quite good, but Roger Waters would have to wait until Dark Side of the Moon before he would write an accomplished set of lyrics. "If" is a quiet poem sung to a mellow guitar melody. The rest of the album is totally different especially the tracks "If" and "Summer 68," which contrast greatly with the first composition by being rather wimpy pop tunes. It's nice, that the band tried to put orchestra together with their own music, but I think this wasn't the ideal outcome. I like some of the bluesy parts of AHM, but the song is way too long and the title melody is pretty boring. The song ends with reappearance of the title melody that goes on until the end. ![]() These sounds are really superb and one wonders where they got such samples in the year 1970! This part of the song nods to all those who criticized the band for concentrating on spaced out music rather than their bluesy roots, but at least this noodling is interesting. When the song reaches its second half, a cacophony of some really weird sounds comes rolling in and suddenly the listener is thrown into another world. The orchestra is soon replaced by the band themselves, playing stripped down mellow blues with a cool ensemble of vocalists joining into the mix. The song starts with a loud orchestral melody that sounds as if it were ripped off from some kind of spaghetti western or a cold war drama. This lack of focus means Atom Heart Mother will largely be for cultists, but its unevenness means there’s also a lot to cherish here” (Erlewine).The first track just happens to be the 23-minute epic title track, which literally takes up the entire first half of the whole album! The name of the track, which was randomly picked by Roger Waters, is taken from a newspaper article about a woman who got a pacemaker to stimulate her heartbeat. That it lasts an entire side illustrates that Pink Floyd was getting better with the larger picture instead of the details, since the second side just winds up falling off the tracks, no matter how many good moments there are. “So, there are interesting moments scattered throughout the record, and the work that initially seems so impenetrable winds up being Atom Heart Mother’s strongest moment. Group composition Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast, “the 12-minute opus that ends the album, does the same thing, floating for several minutes before ending on a drawn-out jam that finally gets the piece moving” (Erlewine). “Then, on the second side, Roger Waters, David Gilmour, and Rick Wright have a song apiece…Of these, Waters begins developing the voice that made him the group’s lead songwriter during their classic era with If, while Wright has an appealingly mannered, very English psychedelic fantasia on Summer ‘68, and Gilmour’s Fat Old Sun meanders quietly before ending with a guitar workout that leaves no impression” (Erlewine). Still, it may be an acquired taste even for fans, especially since it kicks off with a side-long, 23-minute extended orchestral piece that may not seem to head anywhere, but is often intriguing, more in what it suggests than what it achieves” (Erlewine). If anything, this is the most impenetrable album Pink Floyd released while on Harvest, which also makes it one of the most interesting of the era. “Appearing after the sprawling, unfocused double-album set Ummagumma, Atom Heart Mother may boast more focus, even a concept, yet that doesn't mean it's more accessible. ![]()
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