A Holstein cow named Lulubelle III stares out from a field near Potter's Bar, and that is the entire cover of Pink Floyd's fifth studio album, Atom Heart Mother. No band name, no band photos, no spacescapes — just a cow. The sleeve, created by the Hipgnosis design studio, was the first Pink Floyd cover to drop the group's name and image entirely, a deliberate rejection of the space-rock identity that had followed them through the late sixties. Pink Floyd released Atom Heart Mother on October 10, 1970.
A 23-minute suite and a number one
The record arrived in the UK on 2 October 1970, and the cover was only the first surprise. The whole first side was taken up by a 23-minute-44-second title suite, arranged for the band plus the John Alldis Choir, the Philip Jones Brass Ensemble and the Abbey Road session orchestra. Pink Floyd had never attempted anything on this scale before, and the gamble paid off commercially: the album became their first to reach number one on the British chart.
The suite grew out of a piece the band had been playing live as 'The Amazing Pudding'. Ron Geesin, who arranged the orchestral parts, had his own working title: 'Untitled Epic'. The final name came from an Evening Standard headline about a woman fitted with an atomic pacemaker, which gave the whole project its strange, clinical poetry. Geesin also named the six sections, including 'Father's Shout', a nod to jazz pianist Earl Hines, and 'Funky Dung'.
One continuous take in the studio
Recording the title track was an endurance test. The sessions at London's EMI studios used a new eight-track tape machine and a transistor mixing desk, the EMI TG12345, but the tape itself could not be spliced. That meant Roger Waters and Nick Mason had to lay down the bass and drum parts for the entire 23-minute piece in one continuous take, with everything else layered on top afterwards. It was the kind of constraint that could sink a less stubborn band.
The second side offered something more human after the orchestral sprawl. Richard Wright's 'Summer '68' brought brass into the mix, David Gilmour's 'Fat Old Sun' became one of the songs he still names among his favourites, and the closing 'Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast' captured roadie Alan Styles making and chewing his breakfast, complete with dripping tap. The original vinyl ended with that tap sound locked into a run-out groove, so it would drip forever unless you lifted the needle.
In the United States the album was a slower burn, reaching only number 55 but eventually going gold. The record also marked the band's first experiment with quadraphonic sound, and it made enough of an impression that Stanley Kubrick would later ask to use the title suite in A Clockwork Orange — a request Pink Floyd turned down. The cow, meanwhile, became an unlikely icon: the KLF's Chill Out sleeve was directly inspired by it.
Yet the band themselves were never sentimental about Atom Heart Mother. Roger Waters dismissed it sharply in a 1984 interview, David Gilmour called it 'rubbish' and said the group was 'scraping the barrel', and Richard Wright considered it their weakest album. Nick Mason, the most forgiving, called the title suite 'a good idea that should have been worked harder'. The album that put Pink Floyd on top of the British chart is the one they spent decades trying to live down.
The album that put Pink Floyd on top of the British chart is the one they spent decades trying to live down.