The story behind Breakfast In America is more upsetting than you thought

May 1
7 min read

Supertramp took the slow road to success. Their blend of proggy pop rock, clever lyrics and complex arrangements didn’t exactly burst onto the scene. But breakfast in America changed everything for them.

So let's start at the beginning. Supertramp formed in 1969. Rick Davies, originally from Wales, had been living in Munich and moved to London.

Now here we meet an important character in the story - a Dutch millionaire, Stanley “Sam” August Miesegaes. He wanted to fund a band, and offered to help get them started with rehearsal spaces, living expenses, even instruments.

But the thing is, there’s multiple accounts of how they met.

Some say Rick Davies was playing in a struggling band called the Joint, and approached Sam for help, who agreed.

Other accounts say Sam approached Rick, and offered to fund a band if he left The Joint.

Both Rick Davies and Roger Hodgson have told different stories over the years.

Anyway, the point is, Rick now had a wealthy investor who was willing to fund a serious rock band. Davies probably couldn’t believe his luck.

Back in London, he placed an ad in Melody Maker looking for bandmates.

He put together a line-up, and named the band after The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp, a book by William Henry Davies about a wandering Poet.

The first line-up featured Rick Davies on keyboards and vocals, Roger Hodgson on bass and backing vocals, Richard Palmer on guitar, and Keith Baker playing drums.

That line-up would soon change, but they did record their first album together, 1970’s Supertramp.

This early album was a sort of psychedelic prog rock thing, and it failed to sell. But this doesn’t mean it wasn’t any good. It was ambitious, definitely, but also quite moody.

The themes are intense and often introspective, talking about searches for meaning and feelings of alienation.

I think the cover art kind of tells you what you need to know.

When the album failed to make an impact, the band went through a series of lineup changes. Richard Palmer left and later reappeared as the vocalist for King Crimson. Keith Baker also left, meaning they brought in Frank Farrell on bass Kevin Currie on drums - existing bassist Roger Hogson covered most of the vacant guitar duties.

With him on guitar, the band went in a bit more of a rock direction on the next album. 1971’s Indelibly Stamped was much more bluesy and rocky, quite a departure from their first album.

The lyrical themes were a bit more accessible as well - they were obviously trying to make their music more digestible.

Sadly, this album didn’t make any impact either, and their sponsor, Stanley Miesegaes, lost patience.

He withdrew his funding and cut ties with the band.

But they didn’t give up, a sure sign of any great band. Hodgson and Davies had developed an interesting dynamic as songwriters: Davies had a darker, blues-rooted sound which at times could turn a little cynical. Hodgson's style was a counterpoint - he was more melodic and his lyrics were emotionally vulnerable. And finally, people listened on their third album, Crime of the Century, released in 1974.

They still tackled heavy lyrical themes, leading some people to nickname their music ‘intelli-rock’. But they’d managed to package up into something more listenable, and people did.

This was also when they brought in something that would become a trademark: Heavy use of a wurlitzer piano. They also upped their studio game and brought in other things like saxophone.

Simply put, their music was just more interesting than before. And the timing was good: This was when prog and psychedelic bands were big. Pink Floyd had released DSOTM the year before and Genesis pretty much owned the UK prog scene.

It was the era of sitting down in a dark room with a complex album and a set of good headphones. Crime of the Century sold well, actually hit No.4 in the UK albums chart, and broke the US too.

Supertramp had arrived and were firmly on the map. And finally, making money from their music - this is going to be important later on.

Their next couple albums were all about refining and perfecting their sound - they knew who they were by now, but they were perfectionists.

And I think that pretty much brings us up to Breakfast in America. This is the album that would ultimately make and break them. Why is that so often the case? They went into the studio in 1978, and the Hodgson-Davies dynamic was in full strength. The themes and styles of Breakfast in America go a lot deeper than most people realize.

They co-wrote most of the songs and mostly shared vocal duties, but each of them did take the lead on a few tracks.

Roger Hodgson’s signature high pitched vocals carry most of the songs. And while some of the songs sound melodic and bright, if you pay attention to the lyrics, there’s a lot going on. They were still using those heavy themes - songs about feeling lost and trying to find your place in the world.

Lord Is It Mine is a great example:

And then Rick Davies sings lead vocals on a couple songs as well. His songs on the album bring a slightly different energy. His vocals are a bit rougher, and where Hodgson has this sort of dreamy thing going on, Davies is a bit more direct, singing about the frustrations of the daily grind, and trivial social interactions.

But underneath it all you’ve got both their input: They manage to make these heavy themes still sound catchy, using poppy melodies to sort of gloss over the top. It’s a hard line to walk, but they do it really well.

This is why Breakfast in America works. It was basically the final form of Supertramp.

Roger Hodgson has also said that he feels that album reflects the sunny feelings of California where they were living, whereas earlier albums reflected more on the rainy grey of England.

Of course we can’t leave out the title track. Amazingly, Hodgson claims that song was written way before. Hodgson told Arizona Republic in 2016:

“What’s the hit on this album?” The song “Breakfast in America,” I wrote that 12 years before I chose it. But it felt like “OK, this is the collection of songs that this song might belong on.” So we included it. And obviously it was a great album title so we chose that.”

It actually tells the story of a young man, unsatisfied with his lot in life, who imagines visiting America in search of fulfilment.

Yeah, you wouldn’t think it when you sing along in the car would you. It’s so fun you kind of just breeze past it.

I think the bizarre line ‘could we have kippers for breakfast mummy dear’ is his way of highlighting the difference between his dreary reality in the UK and the fantasy in the US - they’re not having kippers down in Texas are they.

In any case, it helped spearhead the album to unexpected heights. It topped charts across the world and had at least 4 different hits on it, with The Long Way Home, The Logical Song and Goodbye Stranger all over the radio as well.

It even won best British album in 1980 - no mean feat considering the music that was coming out at that time.

But this overnight superstardom would soon become a black cloud for Supertramp. It was the beginning of the end for Hodgson in the band.

After the success of Breakfast, Hodgson wanted to keep it going: Write songs that would sell commercially. Davies however, wanted to go back to the prog days, and write big suites. As so often happens between songwriters, they couldn’t meet in the middle: Hodgson left after aptly named Famous Last Words, in 1983.

In fairness, he also had a young family with two children to think about, and wanted to take care of them.

But the fallout really started when Rick Davies broke a simple agreement: When Hodgson left, they decided that Davies could keep going as Supertramp, but would not use the songs Hodgson had written.

Apparently, the whole thing was carried on a simple verbal agreement, witnessed by the band, and actually was respected for a good few years. Hodgson told Loudersound in 2024:

“Supertramp would become a vehicle for him and his music and I would start a career with my songs and my voice. That’s the only reason I agreed to give him the name. The difficult part came when he broke that agreement and started playing my songs five years later. That hurt very deeply. I felt betrayed.”

Despite being angry about it, there wasn’t much Hodgson could do - it was a verbal agreement, he didn’t have any basis to take it to court. But what followed was a bitter feud.

Efforts to settle the argument always broke down.

Hodgson would eventually try and reconcile with Davies, even offering to do some special shows together. But Davies declined. According to Hodgsons, he claimed the shows would only benefit him (Hodgson), and not Davies.

What’s strange is it’s very hard to find any comment from Davies about the whole thing.

Hodgson has said if it wasn’t for this betrayal over the songs, he may well have reunited with the band.

Davies' Supertramp would keep going into the 2000s, but it wasn't really Supertramp: After Hodgson's departure, the other 3 members of the classic line-up would remain involved, particularly in the studio, but it was basically a revolving line-up of touring and session musicians. So much so that it’s genuinely hard to keep track of.

Effectively, the classic Supertramp was over after ‘83.

Their last album was in 2002, and they’ve been more or less retired since.

But there’s a final twist in this story: They tried to stop paying royalties to half the band.

Remember I said that after Crime of the Century, Supertramp were finally making money? I won't bore you with all the numbers, but legal agreements were drawn up to decide who got what portion of the royalties.

Davies and Hodgson owned a company that paid the royalties to the other three members of the agreement… that is until 2018, when they abruptly stopped. In 2021, a lawsuit was opened. Davies quickly settled in 2023, but incredibly the courts fell in favour of Hodgson in 2024, allowing him to break the contract. This would quickly be reversed the next year.

This is a sad ending to the legacy of Supertramp, but it just goes to show, sometimes success can be your own undoing.

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