1971 - Meddle

Meddle
Pink Floyd, 1971



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Release date: October 30, 1971 (US); November 13th, 1971 (UK).

Recorded at: AIR Studios, EMI Studios, Abbey Road and at Morgan Sound, London (January–August 1971).

Meddle was the album which streamlined and established the hallmark of the Floyd's mature style: a dense and colourful weave of actuality sounds (notably the football chant on Fearless) original electronic textures, and more conventional rock instrumentation. "Meddle" contains two extremely important songs in the Pink Floyd story. One, the powerful, spacey "One Of These Days", marked a welcome return to simplicity; while the other, the side-long "Echoes", is a progressive rock classic.

On this track they managed to dispense with additional musicians and became, in effect a four-piece orchestra. The song marked the first real appearance of the lush, symphonic sound that was such an obvious feature of their music from then on. "Echoes" featured Dave Gilmour's first significant contributions to the group's sound.

David Gilmour: "We did loads of bits of demos which we then pieced together, and for the first time, it worked. This album was a clear forerunner for Dark Side Of The Moon, the point when we first got our focus."

Nick Mason: "We spent a long time starting the record. We'd worked through the Sounds Of Household Objects project, which we never finished. The idea was always to create a continuous piece of music that went through various moods and this was the album that established that. Rick was the guy who got it off the ground with that one note at the beginning."

Rick Wright: "I was playing around on the piano in the studio but it was actually Roger who said, Would it be possible to put that note through a microphone and then through the Leslie? That's what started it. That's how all the best Floyd tracks start, I believe."

The title "Meddle" was meant to be a pun - "a play between 'medal' and 'interfere'".

Tracks:

• One of These Days (Waters, Wright, Gilmour, Mason)
  
  [05:57] Vocals by Nick Mason.
• A Pillow of Winds (Waters, GIlmour)
  
  [05:07] Vocals by Gilmour.
• Fearless (Waters, Gilmour)
  
  [06:05] Vocals by Gilmour.
• San Tropez (Waters)
  
  [03:40] Vocals by Waters.
• Seamus (Waters, Wright, Mason, Gilmour)
  
  [02:13] Vocals by Gilmour.
• Echoes (Waters, Wright, Gilmour, Mason)
  
  [23:31] Vocals by Gimour and Wright.

Total Playing Time: 46'33

Musicians Featured:

• David Gilmour: Guitars, Vocals
• Nick Mason: Drums
• Roger Waters: Bass Guitar, Vocals
• Rick Wright: Keyboard, Vocals

Meddle catalog numbers:

• LP: Harvest SHVL 795
• LP: Harvest SHSP 4020
• LP: EMI 8 29749 2
• CD: EMI CDP 7 46034 2

Other information:

• Produced by Pink Floyd
• Engineers: Peter Bown, John Leckie (AIR/EMI), Rob Black, Roger Quested (Morgan)
• Album Cover designed by Pink Floyd
• Outer sleeve photos by Bob Dowling
• Inner sleeve photo by Hipgnosis

• Discuss Meddle (forums)
• Meddle Lyrics
• Contact Echoes (Pink Floyd Synchronicity)
• Jupiter And Beyond Echoes (Pink Floyd Synchronicity with Stanley Kubrick's 2001)
• Reviews & Ordering Information (from Amazon.com)