Echoes (Pink Floyd song)

"Echoes" is a song by English rock band Pink Floyd, and the sixth and final track from their 1971 album Meddle. It was written in 1970 by all four members of the group. Containing several extended instrumental passages, largely ambient sound effects, and musical improvisation, the track has a running time of 23:31 and comprises the entire second side of the vinyl and cassette recordings.[3]

"Echoes"
Song by Pink Floyd
from the album Meddle
Released30 October 1971
RecordedJanuary – August 1971
Studio
GenreProgressive rock[1][2]
Length23:31 (Meddle version)
16:30 (Echoes version)
LabelHarvest
Songwriter(s)
Producer(s)Pink Floyd

It also appears in shortened form as the fifth track on the compilation album which took its name, Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd.[4] The composition was originally assembled from separate fragments. It was later split in two parts to serve as both the opening and closing numbers in the band's film Live at Pompeii. The song was used to open the band's 1987 A Momentary Lapse of Reason Tour after not having been played for more than a decade, but was retired again after eleven shows. It was revived for Gilmour's 2006 On an Island Tour, where it was performed at every show. Live versions were released on Gilmour's albums Live in Gdańsk and Remember That Night.

Structure

The song begins with a "ping sound", created as a result of an experiment very early in the Meddle sessions, produced by amplifying a grand piano played by Richard Wright, and sending the signal through a Leslie speaker and a Binson Echorec unit. After several "pings", a slide guitar played by David Gilmour gradually joins. Gilmour used a slide guitar in other certain sound effects on the studio recording and for the introduction in live performances from 1971 to 1975.[5] The song adopts a structure that changes between C# minor and F# minor, with all instruments joining in for two swells of C# major/B♭, A major, and G#sus4 which resolves to a G# major.

After three minutes, the instruments play in C# minor in 4/4 time, and the main verses are sung in harmony by Gilmour and Wright. In place of a chorus, a guitar riff descends chromatically from C# to A, and re-ascends chromatically to C#, several times before playing E major, B major, and C major. Another verse and "chorus" follow the first, and then a guitar solo plays over a verse progression and climaxes at the end of two "chorus" progressions. In some live versions, a third "chorus" progression was added.

Following the climax is the beginning of an extended improvisatory passage, at the seven-minute mark. The bass guitar, played by Roger Waters, plays a repeating sequence of B and C#, while drummer Nick Mason plays a driving 4/4 beat and Wright plays accompaniment on a Hammond organ. Gilmour plays several short, sometimes distorted, guitar solos in C# minor as well as E major, F# major, A major, and B major.

At eleven minutes, the improvisatory section crossfades with the "noise" section of the song which begins with a "wind" crescendo, created by Waters using a guitar slide on his bass strings and sending the signal through a Binson Echorec. A high-pitched screeching noise, played by Gilmour on guitar, is prominent during this largely ambient section. After observing the song being created, Nick Mason noted: "The guitar sound in the middle section of 'Echoes' was created inadvertently by David plugging in a wah-wah pedal back to front. Sometimes great effects are the results of this kind of pure serendipity, and we were always prepared to see if something might work on a track. The grounding we'd received from Ron Geesin in going beyond the manual had left its mark."[5] Harmonic "whistles" can be heard produced by Wright pulling certain drawbars in and out on the Hammond organ. Rooks were added to the music from a tape archive recording (as had been done for some of the band's earlier songs, including "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun").[6][7]

At fifteen minutes, the "noise" section melts away and a Farfisa Compact Duo organ played by Wright fades in. Several more "ping" noises are heard, and then an extended "build-up" sequence plays over B minor, F# minor, Bm/D, and A/E. Mason's cymbals begin faintly, then crescendo as the section continues. Gilmour plays muted guitar notes to match the bassline, which Waters himself begins halfway through the section. Wright plays an organ solo, which lasts through the end of the "build-up". At the end of the "build-up" is a musical climax, where Gilmour plays high guitar notes in A major while the rest of the band plays only the bass notes. Following this is a short sequence structurally similar to the "build-up", except the entire chord progression is transposed up a whole tone to match the tonic of the song, C# minor.

The end of the instrumental climax leads into the song's third verse, followed by another "chorus". The band plays over two more "chorus" structures, and then a repeated, quiet verse progression serves as the outro of the song. In this section, a "choral"-sounding segment is heard. This was created by placing two tape recorders in opposite corners of a room; the main chord tapes of the song were then fed into one recorder and played back while at the same time recording. The other recorder was then also set to play what was being recorded; this created a delay between both recordings, heavily influencing the structure of the chords while at the same time giving it a very "wet" and "echoey" feel.[8] This effect also results in a Shepard-Risset glissando.

Composition

The piece had its genesis in a collection of separate musical experiments written by the band, some of which had been left over from previous sessions. The group then arranged the pieces in order to make a coherent 23-minute piece originally referred to as "Nothing, Parts 1–24".[9] Not all of the pieces were used for the finished track, and out-takes included saying a phrase backwards, so it would sound correct yet strange when the tape was reversed.[5] Subsequent tapes of work in progress were labelled "The Son of Nothing" and "The Return of the Son of Nothing"; the latter title was eventually used to introduce the as-yet unreleased work during its first live performances in early 1971.[10] Studio recording was split between Abbey Road Studios, Morgan Studios and AIR Studios in London; the latter two were used because they had a 16-track recorder, which made assembling the individual components of the songs easier.[11]

In an interview in 2008 with Mojo, when asked who had composed "Echoes", Wright stated he had composed the long piano intro and the main chord progression of the song. In the same interview he confirmed that Waters wrote the lyrics.[12] During this stage of its development, the song's first verse had yet to be finalised. It originally referred to the meeting of two celestial bodies. The first verse originally took words from Muhammad Iqbal's poem "Two Planets", and later this was rewritten with the incorporation of original underwater imagery instead.

The title "Echoes" was also subjected to significant revisions before and after the release of Meddle: Waters, a devoted football fan, proposed that the band call its new piece "We Won the Double" in celebration of Arsenal's 1971 victory,[13] and during a 1972 tour of Germany he jovially introduced it on two consecutive nights as "Looking Through the Knothole in Granny's Wooden Leg" (a reference to The Goon Show) and The Dam Busters, respectively.[14]

Live performances

Pink Floyd first performed "Echoes" at Norwich Lads Club on 22 April 1971.[10] It was a regular part of the band's set up to the concert at Knebworth Park on 5 July 1975.[15]

The song was performed for Live at Pompeii, where it was split in two halves to open and close the film.[16] The 1974 and 1975 performances featured backing vocals by Venetta Fields and Carlena Williams and saxophone solos by Dick Parry instead of the guitar solos in the 1971–73 performances (apart from the first show of the US 1975 tour, where Gilmour does the first middle solo then gives way to Parry's sax).

It was performed eleven times on the band's 1987 A Momentary Lapse of Reason world tour, in a slightly rearranged version trimmed down to 17 minutes.[17] It was then replaced by "Shine On You Crazy Diamond".

Gilmour resurrected the song on his 2006 On an Island Tour as the closing number of the main set.[18] He and keyboardist Rick Wright swapped vocal parts with Gilmour singing the high parts and Wright the low parts – the opposite to how it was performed previously. Wright would bring the Farfisa out of retirement just for this song for the tour.[19] These performances appear on Gilmour's Remember That Night film and Live in Gdańsk album/film.

Gilmour told Rolling Stone in 2016 upon returning to Pompeii to play a solo show that he would have loved to perform "Echoes" but felt he could not do so without Wright, who had died in 2008 – "There's something that's specifically so individual about the way that Rick and I play in that, that you can't get someone to learn it and do it just like that."[20]

Reception

In a review for the Meddle album, Jean-Charles Costa of Rolling Stone gave "Echoes" a positive review.[21] Costa described "Echoes" as "a 23-minute Pink Floyd aural extravaganza that takes up all of side two, recaptures, within a new musical framework, some of the old themes and melody lines from earlier albums."[21] Costa further went on: "All of this plus a funky organ-bass-drums segment and a stunning Gilmour solo adds up to a fine extended electronic outing."[21]

Echoes and 2001: A Space Odyssey synchronisation rumours

Similar to the Dark Side of the Rainbow effect, at-large rumours suggested that "Echoes" coincidentally synchronises with Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, when played concurrently with the final 23-minute segment titled "Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite". At the time of the film's production in 1967–1968, Pink Floyd was not working on any material suitable for the film, nor were they contacted about supplying music. It is likely that Kubrick never heard the band's music until after the film was finished.[22] Kubrick would later feature copies of both the soundtrack to 2001 and Pink Floyd’s Atom Heart Mother as props in the record store scene in A Clockwork Orange.[23]

The 1973 George Greenough film Crystal Voyager concludes with a 23-minute segment in which the full version of "Echoes" accompanies a montage of images shot by Greenough from a camera mounted on his back while surfing on his kneeboard.[24] The group reportedly allowed Greenough and director David Elfick to use the music in their film in exchange for the use of Greenough's footage as a visual background when they performed "Echoes" in concert.[25][26]

Alleged plagiarism

In interviews promoting Amused to Death, Waters claimed that Andrew Lloyd Webber had plagiarised the riff from "Echoes" for sections of the musical The Phantom of the Opera; nevertheless, he decided not to file a lawsuit regarding the matter. He said:

Yeah, the beginning of that bloody Phantom song is from Echoes. *DAAAA-da-da-da-da-da*. I couldn't believe it when I heard it. It's the same time signature—it's 12/8—and it's the same structure and it's the same notes and it's the same everything. Bastard. It probably is actionable. It really is! But I think that life's too long to bother with suing Andrew fucking Lloyd Webber.[27]

At 3:50 into "Echoes" the allegedly stolen riff is first heard. Webber utilized it as the first sounds of the "Overture" from Phantom of the Opera.

Cover versions
  • British musician Ewan Cunningham covered "Echoes" in a YouTube video which featured him playing all of the parts himself. This cover was heavily based on the Live at Pompeii version and went on to receive praise from Nick Mason.[28][29]
  • Mexican classical guitar duo Rodrigo y Gabriela included a 19-minute cover of the song on their 2019 album Mettavolution.
  • Qui covered the song on their debut Love's Miracle.[30]
  • Dean Ween covered the track live and extended it to 37 minutes.[31]
  • Dream Theater covered the track live as well.[32]
  • Alien Sex Fiend covered the track for a Pink Floyd tribute album A Saucerful of Pink.[33]

Personnel
gollark: I too enjoy segfaults.
gollark: Since Rust good.
gollark: For performance.
gollark: Maybe I should make this in glorious, optimal Rust.
gollark: Bold of you to assume only the US will be affected.

References

Citations

  1. Murphy, Sean (22 May 2011). "The 25 Best Progressive Rock Songs of All Time". PopMatters. Retrieved 31 July 2016.
  2. Reisch, George (15 April 2011). Pink Floyd and Philosophy: Careful with that Axiom, Eugene!. Open Court. p. 116. ISBN 978-0-81269-745-2.
  3. "Pink Floyd – Meddle".
  4. "Echoes: the album credits". Pink Floyd. Archived from the original on 2 June 2010. Retrieved 20 June 2013.
  5. Mason 2004, p. 148.
  6. "Pink Floyd news :: Brain Damage, 7 April". Retrieved 20 November 2009.
  7. DeRiso, Nick. "Top 10 Richard Wright Pink Floyd Songs". Ultimate Classic Rock. Retrieved 24 April 2017. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  8. Harris 2006, p. 74.
  9. Povey 2006, p. 124.
  10. Povey 2006, p. 142.
  11. Mason 2004, p. 151.
  12. Mojo 2008, p. 83.
  13. Mabbett 2010, p. 110.
  14. Povey 2006, p. 171.
  15. Povey 2006, p. 197.
  16. Povey 2006, p. 125.
  17. Povey 2006, p. 247.
  18. Povey 2006, p. 307.
  19. "Biography". The Richard Wright Archives. Retrieved 18 January 2019.
  20. Glow, Kory (7 July 2016). "David Gilmour Talks Pompeii Return: 'It's a Place of Ghosts'". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 27 September 2017.
  21. Costa, Jean-Charles (6 January 1972). "Meddle". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 25 July 2017.
  22. "The Kubrick FAQ". visual-memory. Retrieved 26 March 2014.
  23. John Coulthart. "Alex in the Chelsea Drug Store". Retrieved 25 July 2018.
  24. Wu, Su (9 October 2015). "A Meditative Surf-Film Soundtrack for Your Chill Weekend Ahead". The New York Times. Retrieved 10 June 2016.
  25. Chidester, Brian (2014). "The Archivist: You Crazy Diamonds". The Surfer's Journal. Retrieved 1 March 2020. According to Greenough, Oz filmmaker David Elfick worked out the details, which gave Greenough permission to use Pink Floyd's music on the condition that his experimental footage be projected behind them during their next tour.
  26. Waldron, Ben (4 April 2019). "Throwback: Tuberiding with George Greenough and Pink Floyd". surfer.com. Retrieved 1 March 2020. Pink Floyd used to project it behind them when performing their 22-minute prog-rock jam, 'Echoes.' In return, Greenough was given the rights to use 'Echoes' as the soundtrack for the crescendo section of the 1973 film, 'The Crystal Voyager.'
  27. "Who the hell does Roger Waters think he is?". Q Magazine. November 1992. Archived from the original on 5 December 1998. Retrieved 20 November 2009.
  28. "Ewan Cunningham Echoes". smash.com. Smash Inc. Retrieved 2017-01-23.
  29. Mason, Nick (7 January 2017). ""Looks like we are all out of a job!"". Nick Mason (official Twitter feed). Retrieved 24 April 2017.
  30. "Qui: Love's Miracle". Pitchfork.
  31. "The artist formerly known as Dean Ween spearheads epic 37-minute cover of Pink Floyd's 'Echoes'". DangerousMinds. November 19, 2014.
  32. "Cover versions of Echoes Pt.1 by Dream Theater | SecondHandSongs". secondhandsongs.com.
  33. "Saucerful of Pink: A Tribute to Pink Floyd - Various Artists | Songs, Reviews, Credits | AllMusic" – via www.allmusic.com.

Sources

  • Blake, Mark (November 2008). "The Dream Is Over" (PDF). Mojo.
  • Harris, John (2006). The Dark Side of the Moon. The Making of the Pink Floyd Masterpiece. Da Capo Press. ISBN 978-0-306-81500-3.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Mabbett, Andy (2010). Pink Floyd- The music and the mystery: The Music and the Mystery. Omnibus Press. ISBN 978-0-857-12418-0.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Manning, Toby (2006). "The Albums". The Rough Guide to Pink Floyd (1st ed.). London: Rough Guides. p. 164. ISBN 1-84353-575-0.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Mason, Nick (2004). "There Is No Dark Side". Inside Out: A Personal History of Pink Floyd (New ed.). Widenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 0-297-84387-7.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Povey, Glenn (2006). Echoes : The Complete History of Pink Floyd (New ed.). Mind Head Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9554624-0-5.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
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