The four guys from Pink Floyd were always greatly amused by the way I ate, especially at breakfast time. So much so, that one day they planted a microphone under the table and recorded me hoeing into a bowl of some particularly moorish cereal. I can’t recall which brand it was. It could’ve been any cereal, I like all cereal. This inspired the closing three–part instrumental on Atom Heart Mother.
Included in the piece were bits and pieces of conversations, most of which revolved around the sort of jobs I did for the band (things the guys couldn’t be bothered with), and how I used to get out of hard work by pretending to be mute or saying I had a terrible back, and when I work it hurts me.
As it turned out, the grunting you hear during Sunny Side Up wasn’t actually the bit that was recorded under the table. In fact it’s not me at all. The guys decided it was a bit too gross and wanted to tone it down. So they ended up recording one of them eating in a far more restrained manner.
Still I was happy to have inspired a Pink Floyd suite, and looked forward to being able to point out my name on the song title to whoever was interested.
Sadly, because of my aforementioned shenanigans, Roger saw fit to alter the title from “Albert’s” to “ALAN’S” Psychedelic Breakfast at the last minute. He made up this lame excuse that he’d always intended to name it after one of the roadies, a guy called Alan Stiles. But that was news to the rest of the band.
Suddenly the whole piece lost its meaning, and therefore, as David Gilmour said later, “it never achieved what it was meant to. It was meant to be how it should’ve been.” That is, with Albert Magoolie’s name on it!
I bought the album on cassette, and the song title wasn’t mentioned anyway. It just listed the three parts; (a) RISE AND SHINE (b) SUNNY SIDE UP (c) MORNING GLORY.
And although I was upset about not having my name mentioned, spare a thought for Rick Wright. The six parts of Atom Heart Mother were each listed on the cassette as being written by Mason-Gilmour-Waters-Geesin!