On their first LP with 16-track recording, Pink
Floyd took full advantage of the new technology to advance their music
another step. At a time when most bands didn't have a clue what to
do with 4 tracks, the Floyd was actually limited by the technology.
Quadrupling the number of tracks allowed for an unprecedented depth to
the Floyd's recordings. Ironically, the general listening public
probably never really knew what they were missing until the advent of CD's
and digital headphones, which finally provided the technology that would
enable us to hear all that was actually recorded.
MEDDLE continues the development
of the true Floyd sound that Atom Heart
Mother had begun. It is home to Echoes, probably the
first true Pink Floyd piece. It is still a rather experimental
album {CPFS},
and some of the experiments really don't work very well. As always,
some of what the Floyd tries to do ends up misunderstood, but I guess that's
par for their sort of course.
One Of These Days is in
the tradition of Careful With That Axe,
Eugene, and other Floyd tunes that leave us wondering whether the
boys are slightly warped. (Yes, and there's nothing wrong with that.)
Roger got to playing around with the
electronic equipment to see what he could do with repetitive bass patterns,
and the result is this driving bass rocker that I always thought would
make a great musical intro to a TV show. Hidden in the background
are a few nice licks by Dave on guitar
(though the piece would have been greatly improved if they'd have turned
him loose on a tech solo in the middle), and some pounding drum work by
Nick.
The only words are the full title ("One of these days, I'm going to
cut you into little pieces") spoken by Nick into a modulator.
Weird, to be sure, but very satisfying.
A Pillow of Winds is,
I think, a nice ballad with moderately
poetic lyrics {CPFS}
and an enjoyable flow. Floyd is not known for writing love songs,
so it's unusual in that respect. It lacks a little edge, and so is
not a great piece, but I'm still not sure why no one else seems to value
it at all.
Fearless is a sort
of personal anthem for all those who feel pushed by others to do things
before the time is ripe. It has a distinct Led Zeppelin flavor (
listen to this one and *** back to back), but Led Zep would have
NEVER thought of using a wild Irish crowd for background singers {CPFS}.
Like most pieces on this album, it is low-key and lacks the hard edge of
their later work. I keep wondering if it's an electric banjo that
sets the tone here, but whatever it is, it's simply perfect. The
band reminds us to make our life happen in its own time at our own pace,
be true to ourselves, and ignore the fools who think they know better than
we do. Then the crowd reminds us that we'll "never walk alone" (an
absolutely inspired choice of music!).
Then comes San Tropez,
and you ask yourself, "Why?" The closest I can come to a reasonable
explanation is that Pink Floyd wanted to write a pop song that sounded
like they thought San Tropez would look. I'll admit that it's
very San Tropezish, but it's not much of a song.
Seamus, on the other
hand, really does have a slight redeeming value. The guys heard this
howling dog, which made them almost split a gut laughing. Like thousands
(millions?) of other ambient sounds,
they recorded it, then wrote a song to go around it, hoping that you'd
laugh too. Unfortunately, most people upon hearing it just rejected
it out of hand. You have to remember that almost everything Pink
Floyd has ever done, they have done for a reason. (Except, perhaps,
for San Tropez)
Though most of the music up
to now has been enjoyable (did you need some Pepto-Bismol after San
Tropez?), it is Echoes that provides the raison d'être
for this album. David Gilmour says this was the next logical step
in the sequence that ended with DARK
SIDE OF THE MOON, and you can definitely see the deliberate
workings of the Pink Floyd mind forming, reshaping, and preparing.
This is quintessential Floyd, and it's
a shame that the piece isn't more well known. It's length, of course,
kept it from getting any radio air-time, but the concept is carried throughout,
resulting in a piece that is especially open to interpretation. [I
have found, from experiments with my students, that many modern listeners
are conditioned to turn off their brains after about 3 minutes (OK, some
far
sooner), so this song, as most Pink Floyd music, requires an
active
listener.] The song begins with a Rick
Wright sound experiment, hitting just one high note for a penetrating
PING!
(PINK?) that evolves into a very interesting
piece. It is something of a sonata,
having a free-form opening, a rock ballad section, a funk portion, a spacey
dreamscape{CPFS},
and a coda that returns to the ballad,
then fades out {CPFS}
with complex additions. Few people would imagine that any group could
make such good use of running scales, but Dave makes it interesting, and
really shines on the background solos. The lyrics are very artistic,
and leave many possible interpretations available to the listener.
I hesitate here to tell you mine, but if you really want to see
it (AFTER listening to the piece) you can scroll down below the links.
Suffice it to say, this one piece is worth waiting for, and worth thinking
about.
Well, if you've bothered to go this far, I guess
you deserve to get the story. Like most Pink Floyd songs, Echoes
needs to be seen on many different levels. I'll just mention my thoughts
on two of those levels. Musically, I always have the same concept
in mind when I listen to this song. In the beginning, I am on the
beach (I'll admit to being influenced by the lyrics at this point), with
soft waves rolling in and seagulls hanging in the air, the sun shining
brightly, but soft. In the second section, I step into a submarine,
and begin to move away from the shore, and, eventually, submerge.
(That PING always makes me think of "Voyage to the
Bottom of the Sea" [an ancient, submarine TV show]) As the funky
section (my submerging) melts into the dreamscape {CPFS},
I am 'way down in the very depths of the ocean, with deep-diving whales
and coelacanths and those little fish with lights hanging off their heads.
Then, we come back to the surface in time to get the final verse, and eventually
rise into the air. [I am feeling all of this without the aid of any
drugs whatsoever!] (I'm an active listener!)
Lyrically, I hear something different almost every
time I listen to this song. There are a couple of items worth mentioning
(if you've come this far). I really see the lyrics as 3 sections.
The first section relates to echoes of past ages that one might feel when
visiting the seashore, where life often seems timeless and disconnected.
The chorus tells us that we cannot achieve full connection to whatever
happened back then, but it does inspire a process within us that moves
us toward understanding. The second section relates to the echoes
that resound when we meet someone, and realize that they have common experiences,
interests, and ideas. The chorus reminds us that, though we are not
compelled to separate from them, we end up doing so anyway. The third
section, after the dreamscape, is something of an enigma. Taking
the simplest approach, he is talking to the sun, who breaks through his
window each day, calling him to begin anew. At this point, I get
a really eerie feeling. By now, Roger has used the term "no-one"
so often, that I've come to feel that it is actually a person or force,
rather than the absence of one. {CPFS}
I really believe that this is the first time that he has let out his feelings
about the loss of his father. In the last chorus, he seems to miss
the person who should sing him to sleep and tell him it's time to go to
bed, and you can almost imagine him flinging open the shutters and crying
out his father's name, praying for some response. If I'm right on
this, it's quite a unique occurrence, because when Roger later shares his
agony about his father's death (THE
WALL, THE FINAL CUT), it's in a very
strong, angry way.
