Before 1971, Pink Floyd hadn’t hit it big yet. The band had released 4 albums (not including the soundtrack “More”), those being “The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn,” “A Saucerful Of Secrets,” “Ummagumma,” and “Atom Heart Mother,” with the most successful of those four being “Piper.” As for the other 3, well, they weren’t as successful. Let’s face it, Pink Floyd was a struggling band. Luckily, 1971 was the year that Pink Floyd put out their first “real” album, “Meddle. “Meddle” has it all, from the bluesy Seamus to One Of These Days, a powerful song with a great bass part. And of course, who can forget the awesome Echoes, the song that makes “Meddle” a truly and remarkable album? Now, to the review…
Pink Floyd is-
Roger Waters-Bass, vocals
David Gilmour- Guitar, vocals
Nick Mason-Drums
Rick Wright-Keyboards, vocals
One Of These Days
The first track on this album is One Of These Days. At the very beginning of the song, you can here wing howling. At :35 seconds into the song, the bass comes in. After the bass plays for a little, the keyboard comes in with a mysterious sound that plays every once in awhile. This pattern happens for a bit, until the drums and guitar comes in. David has a little solo while everything keeps the same pattern. Suddenly, everything fades, and roger has a little solo. Towards the end, the drums come in, and Nick says through some sort of voice distortion machine, “One of these days, I’m going to cut you into little pieces.” As soon as that is said, everybody comes back in and David has another guitar solo, this time, it is longer. It lasts until the end of the song where suddenly everything stops. At the end, you can here the wind blowing again.
A Pillow of Winds
A pillow of winds is a nice, mellow, acoustic song, with some good vocals by David Gilmour. It starts off with a quiet acoustic guitar riff. He soon comes in on lyrics. “A cloud of eiderdown draws around me softening the sound. Sleepy time with my love by my side and she’s breathing low, and the candle dies.” The vocals continue, with the occasional riff coming in. The drums eventually come in, while the same pattern continues until the end of the song. This is probably the slowest song on the album, but it’s enjoyable.
Fearless
David starts off fearless with a simple acoustic guitar part with Roger and Nick playing softly in the background. David comes in on vocals singing softly and smoothly, eventually getting to the chorus. David plays the same guitar part that he did at the beginning of the song after the chorus, which eventually leads into a small interlude. The vocals come in again, getting to the chorus and the guitar part after awhile. After, the song keeps going until it eventually fades into a choir cheering. The choir is the Liverpool Kop’s, the choir for the Liverpool soccer team. (If you don’t believe me, it says so in Nick Mason’s "Inside Out" book.) They’re chanting Roger and Hammerstein’s “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” The choir chants for awhile, eventually fading out.
San Tropez
The fourth song on “Meddle” is San Tropez. This song was inspired by a vacation that the band had taken the previous year to none other than San Tropez. A guitar part starts the song off. For the first and only time on “Meddle”, Roger comes in with the vocals. Rick follows on keyboards immediately after Roger starts to sing. Roger sings for awhile, which is then followed by a soothing guitar solo by David. The solo soon ends as Roger comes back in on vocals, finishing fairly quickly. The singing ends, and Rick comes in and plays a nice keyboard solo that eventually ends the song.
Seamus
Now, most people think that Seamus is a crappy song, and people think that its filler, but Seamus is one of my favorite songs on the album. It starts off with an acoustic guitar coming in, soon followed by a dog barking. David comes in on vocals, which is backed by a slide guitar part and a keyboard part. The vocals quickly end, and then David and Rick each have a few short solos while the dog is still barking in the background. The song ends with the dog howling, and so ends Seamus.
Echoes
“Meddle” has some great tunes on it, but none of the songs on this album match up to the master piece of the album, the 23 minute thriller Echoes. The song starts off with a simple sonar sounding beep. After a few beeps, the keyboard comes in with a soft, almost sad part. Gilmour soon follows with a quiet guitar solo that lasts for awhile. The bass comes in during the solo, and the drums follow at the peak of the solo. David keeps going as everybody follows, until David and Rick come in with the lyrics. “Overhead the albatross hangs motionless upon the air, and deep beneath the rolling waves in labyrinths of coral caves, the echo of a distant time comes willowing across the sand, and everything is green, a submarine.” After this part, the chorus starts, which is followed by a short but sweet guitar solo. David and Rick come back in on vocals, singing the lyrics. The chorus then follows, with a short interlude part coming after it. After the interlude, David starts his wicked guitar solo, which gets more awesome and loud as it progresses. After the solo, there is a short bass/keyboard part. David joins back in on guitar for a little bit, but the song soon fades into a howling wind. For about four minutes, the wind is howling while David and Rick make miscellaneous noises with their instruments. At about fifteen minutes, the sonar beep and keyboards come back in, soon followed by the drums, guitar, and bass. After the building up of the guitar, there is a short solo by David. The song then breaks open with a great guitar part, capping all the building up. David and Rick break the silence with more lyrics, leading into the chorus. After the chorus finishes, the guitar, bass and keyboard plays the same riff that they played at the beginning of the song. That soon ends, as the song slowly fades out, which ends “Meddle.”
Even though there are six songs on “Meddle”, there is a lot of great music on this album. As I said earlier, this is Pink Floyd’s first “real” album. Its got the masterpiece Echoes, the awesome One Of These Days, and the middle four, A Pillow of Winds, Fearless, San Tropez, and Seamus. “Meddle” is an album you will definitely want to get if you are a Pink Floyd fan, or if your just a rock fan in general. This being my second favorite Floyd album gets a 4.5/5. This album not only was the first great and successful album by Pink Floyd, but set the example for what was to come in the following years by this epic rock band.
