How Pink Floyd’s 'Atom Heart Mother' Ended Up with an Orchestra and Choir

The short answer: they needed a third track to fill Side One, so they asked a film composer friend to write orchestral arrangements—sight unseen. The band had been toying with a 20-minute instrumental called “The Amazing Pudding” (working title), but had no idea how to turn it into something that justified a full LP side.

They called in Ron Geesin, a Scottish composer they’d met through David Gilmour and worked with on Music from the Body. Geesin was given a rough tape of the band jamming and told to “orchestrate it.” He later said he wrote the brass and choir parts in a feverish week, often without seeing the musicians until the session. The choir sang instructions like “breathe” and “silence” because Geesin hadn’t written proper lyrics—just vowel sounds.

The Abbey Road session was chaotic. The orchestra was baffled, the choir was bored, and the band stayed in the control room. Geesin fell out with Roger Waters during the mix, but the finished track—split into six movements—became the centerpiece of Atom Heart Mother, a record that the band later called “rubbish” but that accidentally gave them their first UK number one.