Meddle is the sixth studio album by Pink Floyd, formed in 1964.
Meddle, like its predecessor Atom Heart Mother, is a very uneven album. The opening track ”One Of These Days” and especially the 20 minute epic ”Echoes” are mostly excellent, but the rest of the songs are clearly of a lower standard.
”One of these days I’m going to cut you into little pieces”
The album kicks off nicely with the full band instrumental ”One Of These Days”, which thunders along with its simple but powerful bass riff, sounding quite primitive and a bit like krautrock. The song features two bass guitar tracks, one on top of the other. One played by David Gilmour and the other by Roger Waters. The simple bass ostinato is occasionally punctuated by Rick Wright’s light organ stabs and Gilmour’s menacing electric guitar.
At the climax of an otherwise instrumental track (after which the tempo picks up and the song becomes a more conventional rock), drummer Nick Mason says in a growling voice ’One of these days I’m going to cut you into little pieces’. The strange effect of the sound was achieved by recording the part Mason sang as a falsetto at double speed and then playing it back at normal speed.
After a great start, Floyd drops the ball in the middle of the album with a few songs that feel more like shaky versions of the American West Coast country rock scene.
The first of these floyd-goes-counry songs is ”A Pillow Of Winds” by Gilmour and Waters, a light, largely acoustic song. It’s a pleasant enough song, but still rather unremarkable, floating through its duration to the accompaniment of Gilmour’s slide guitar and acoustic strumming, without leaving much of an impression.
Read also: Pink Floyd: A Momentary Lapse Of Reason (1987)
”Fearless” continues in the acoustic vein, but is a slightly more powerful folk rock song thanks to Mason’s snappy drumming, and there is also something downright magical about Gilmour’s dreamy vocal performance. There are also a few moments of the famous Rodgers and Hammerstein tune ”You Never Walk Alone”, sung by football fans in the background and appropriated by Liverpool F.C. for their anthem. Personally, I’ve never understood the connection between the football mix and the ”Fearless” song and, as an anti-soccer fan, they don’t really do much to raise the song’s score in my ears.
Roger Waters’ lounge-jazz track ”San Tropez” is not that great and reminds me of some of Kevin Ayers’ more frivolous songs. Nick Mason’s clunky drumming doesn’t help matters, but at least Wright gets to play a nice little piano solo at the end.
The album’s low point is the boring blues song ”Seamus”, a song named after the whole band, featuring Humble Pie’s lead singer Steve Marriot’s dog howling and howling. One has to wonder why this miserable two-minute piece is usually shrugged off as the much more musical short ”humour tracks” by Emerson Lake & Palmer get a terrible rap. ”Seamus”, if anything, is a prime example of a filler track.
The mysterious and majestic ”Echoes” closes (and saves) the album in a grand way. Kicked off by Rick Wright’s piano ping, fed through a Leslie speaker and a Binson Echorec reel-to-reel, the 23+ minute mostly instrumental epic is one of Floyd’s best songs.
At times impressionistically meandering, at times dancing rhythmically forward, the song achieves a magical atmosphere at its best. Wright and Gilmour in particular, who were apparently largely responsible for the music on the song, which is credited to the band as a whole, shine at several points. Wright mainly through his elegant textural playing and Gilmour through several fine melodic and understated guitar solos.
The short vocal part of the song also works well. Roger Waters’ enigmatic lyrics are also sung by the duo of Wright and Gilmour. Echoes” is not a flawless performance, however, as it also contains a boring ambient section of several minutes, starting at around 11 minutes, with wind blasts and ”bird sounds”. Fortunately, the track recovers from this and grows through a slow build-up to a very satisfying climax.
Read also: Pink Floyd: The Dark Side Of The Moon (1973)
Like its predecessor, Atom Heart Mother (1970), Meddle is a hopelessly incoherent album whose lack of coherence is downright baffling when you consider that later in their career Pink Floyd came to be known as a band of seamless albums. After Syd Barrett’s departure, the band, adrift on the Meddle, was still groping its way forward without a clear vision but occasionally hitting some real diamonds. However, with ”Echoes” alone, the album rises, somewhat barely, to the ranks of the great Pink Floyd albums.
Best tracks: ”One Of These Days”, ”Echoes”
Author: JANNE YLIRUUSI
Tracks
- ”One of These Days” 5:57
- ”A Pillow of Winds” 5:13
- ”Fearless” (including ”You’ll Never Walk Alone”) 6:08
- ”San Tropez” 3:44
- ”Seamus” 2:15
- ”Echoes” 23:31
Pink Floyd:
Richard Wright: Hammond organ (1, 2, 6), piano (3-6), Farfisa organ (6), vocals (6) David Gilmour: electric guitars (1-4, 6), acoustic guitars (2-3, 5), bass guitar (1), harmonica (5), vocals (2, 3, 5, 6) Roger Waters: bass guitar, acoustic guitar, vocals (4) Nick Mason: drums (1, 3, 4, 6), percussions (2-4, 6), vocals (1)
Guests:
Seamus the dog: ”vocals”
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