On the turntable this Sunday...Breakfast In America

Breakfast in America is the sixth album by progressive rock band Supertramp, released on 29 March 1979 by A&M Records.

Breakfast in America was recorded in 1978 at The Village Recorder in Los Angeles. It featured four U.S. Billboard hit singles: "The Logical Song" (No. 6), "Goodbye Stranger" (No. 15), "Take the Long Way Home" (No. 10), and "Breakfast in America" (No. 62). In the UK, "The Logical Song" and the title track were both top 10 hits, the only two the group had in their native country.^[4] Breakfast in America won two Grammy Awards in 1980, and holds an RIAA certification of quadruple platinum.
In France, the album is the biggest-selling English-language album of all time, and the third biggest seller overall.

Breakfast In America became Supertramp's biggest-selling album with more than 6 million copies sold in the US alone and was No. 1 on Billboard's Pop Albums Chart for six weeks in the spring and summer of 1979. The album also hit No. 1 in Norway, Austria, Canada and Australia. It was also their biggest album in the UK, reaching No. 3 (for five consecutive weeks) and remaining on the charts for exactly a year.

As with Even in the Quietest Moments..., Rick Davies and Roger Hodgson wrote most of their songs separately but conceived the theme for the album jointly. Their original concept was for an album of songs about the relationship and conflicting ideals between Davies and Hodgson themselves, to be titled Hello Stranger. Hodgson explained: "We realized that a few of the songs really lent themselves to two people talking to each other and at each other. I could be putting down his way of thinking and he could be challenging my way of seeing life [...] Our ways of life are so different, but I love him. That contrast is what makes the world go 'round and what makes Supertramp go 'round. His beliefs are a challenge to mine and my beliefs are a challenge to his."

This idea was eventually scrapped in favour of an album of "fun" songs, and though Davies initially wanted to keep the title Hello Stranger, he was convinced by Hodgson to change it to Breakfast in America. Hodgson commented later: "We chose the title because it was a fun title. It suited the fun feeling of the album." Due to the title and the explicit satirising of American culture in the cover and three of the songs ("Gone Hollywood", "Breakfast in America", and "Child of Vision"), many listeners interpreted the album as a satire of the US. Supertramp's members have all insisted that the repeated references to US culture are purely coincidental and that no such thematic satire was intended. Hodgson has described the misconception as a parallel to how Crime of the Century is often misinterpreted as being a concept album.

"Gone Hollywood" is the opening track of Breakfast in America. Written by Rick Davies, the song tells about a person who moves to Los Angeles in hopes of becoming a movie star, but finds it far more difficult than he imagined—struggling and frustrated, until he ultimately gets his break and becomes "the talk of the Boulevard." The lyrics were originally more bleak, but under pressure from the other band members, Davies rewrote them to be more optimistic and commercial.

"Child of Vision" is the closing track. Much like "The Logical Song", it uses a Wurlitzer electric piano as the main instrument. After the lyrical part, the song goes into a long grand piano solo alongside the original Wurlitzer electric piano melody. The track fades out with a short saxophone solo by John Helliwell. Roger Hodgson has said that the song was written to be an equivalent to "Gone Hollywood", looking at how Americans live, though he confessed that he had only a limited familiarity with US culture at the time of writing. He also said there is a slight possibility that he subconsciously had Rick Davies in mind while writing the lyrics.

Since all of Supertramp's songs are contractually credited to both Davies and Hodgson, it is difficult to determine who wrote what. Roger Hodgson's management has described "The Logical Song", "Breakfast in America", "Take the Long Way Home", "Lord Is It Mine" and "Child of Vision" as "Roger's songs";^[10] however, this apparently does not mean he necessarily wrote them by himself, as Hodgson has credited Davies with writing the vocal harmony on "The Logical Song". Davies has referred to "The five songs that I did on Breakfast", but does not specify which ones.