LOOKING THROUGH The Knotholes In Granny's Wooden Leg

aka echoes.
1) why was it named this, why was it changed.
2) what is the earliest this was preformed. I see it on '66 roios but im guessing its taken from '70-'72 shows.

There was a lot of speculation about this for many years. Apparently, "Echoes" went through quite a few name changes before the final title was decided upon. "Return of the Son of Nothing" and "We Won the Double" were both (perhaps only semi-serious) suggestions tabled before the song was officially released and the decidedly less verbose final title was selected. Pink Floyd first played it on or about 22 April 1971, but it was only introduced as "Echoes" some time in August of that year, just about when recording for Meddle was completed and the album artwork finalized.

But during a tour of Germany in 1972, Roger decided to be funny and introduce the song under a couple of different (new) titles. On two consecutive nights, he called it "Looking Through the Knotholes in Granny's Wooden Leg" and then "March of the Dambusters"! What on earth was he talking about?

In Nick Mason's book Inside Out, a story is told about how one of the group's early frontmen (before Syd joined) used to introduce EVERY SINGLE NUMBER THEY PLAYED under that rather weird title ("with deadly aplomb" -Bob Klose), much to the consternation of other group members. So it's an in-joke of sorts. But where did it come from originally? Well, as someone on the Internet pointed out long ago, it might be an obscure reference to an episode of the British radio series The Goon Show. Look:

Note the phonemic similarity between "Eccles" and "Echoes" (although that's probably just pure coincidence, you could even look at Jove as being a clue about Jupiter in the 2001 synch if you really wanted to get freaky). You may recall that Pink Floyd had already borrowed a Milliganism from this very same series for one of their previous song titles: "Come In Number 51, Your Time Is Up" on the Zabriskie Point soundtrack (which is itself just an alternate version of an older nonsense title, "Careful With That Axe Eugene").

"Return of the Son of Nothing" is a sci-fi B-movie pastiche derived from the studio experiments entitled "Nothing, Parts 1-24", which were recycled into instrumental ideas for the finished song. "We Won the Double" refers to Roger's favourite football team, Arsenal, winning the league title and FA Cup that year. This was probably inappropriate due to the inclusion of the Liverpool cheer at the end of "Fearless" on the other side of the LP!

"March of the Dambusters", of course, is the theme song from an old black and white World War II movie. In fact, it's the very same movie playing on Pink's hotel room TV throughout The Wall film. Roger almost certainly brought this up just to antagonize the German audience, something he was fond of doing!

reminds me of 2001 when dave says "My God, it's full of stars".


As usual Thanks for the info.

A passive-aggressive jab at the krauts for killing his daddy?

It's also a reference to "The Nonsense Song", popular at kid's summer camps. One part goes:

While looking through the knothole
In grandma's wooden leg
Why did they put the shore so near the ocean, the ocean?
We feed the baby garlic
So we'll find him in the dark.
They're moving father's grave to build a sewer, a sewer!

Versions vary, of course.

I remember hearing from someone else that that song is at least as old as 1904, because Joyce mentions it in Ulysses and he was very careful not to include any anachronisms.

Not uncommon among post-War Britons as a whole, actually.

speaking of old echoes, today i stumbled across Return of the Son of Nothing and was pleased to hear the original-non studio lyrics aswell as some minor variation in the instrumental. Its saved on my other comp, so i dont know the date or show off-hand.