Peter Green's instrumental masterpiece · UK No. 1, 1968
Fleetwood Mac's “Albatross” / “Jigsaw Puzzle Blues” single (CBS)
“Albatross” is a 1968 instrumental written by Peter Green — Fleetwood Mac's only UK No. 1 single. Green drew on Coleridge's “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and Santo & Johnny's “Sleep Walk”; the Beatles later used it as the template for “Sun King.”
“Albatross” has no words, but it has a story. Peter Green took the title from Coleridge's poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” which he'd read as a child — the albatross being the seabird a sailor kills and must then wear around his neck.
Musically, Green built the dreamy, heavily-reverbed piece from “a group of notes from an Eric Clapton solo, played slower” (per biographer Martin Celmins), with Santo & Johnny's 1959 instrumental “Sleep Walk” as a clear inspiration. Mick Fleetwood's timpani-mallet drumming completes the sea-calm atmosphere.
It topped the UK chart in 1968 — one of the best-selling instrumentals in British chart history — and its sound rippled outward. George Harrison later admitted the Beatles used it as a starting point: “At the time, ‘Albatross’ was out, with all the reverb on guitar. So we said, ‘Let's be Fleetwood Mac doing Albatross’” — the seed of “Sun King” on Abbey Road.
Does “Albatross” have lyrics?
No — it's an instrumental. Its mood comes from Green's reverbed guitar and Mick Fleetwood's mallet drumming.
Did “Albatross” inspire the Beatles?
Yes. George Harrison said the Beatles used it as the template for “Sun King” on Abbey Road.
Sources: Songfacts · American Songwriter · Albatross (instrumental), Wikipedia