Meddle
Best song: Echoes, what
else?
Worst song: Seamus
Overall grade: 5
(I’m gonna speed up on
the Floyd reviews a little because I’d like to have The Wall reviewed before I
go off to see Roger Waters perform it on September 14. Which is only a month
away, so it looks like I’ll be speeding up a lot. We’ll see.)
Ever heard an album
where one side is absolutely outstanding, a complete work of genius, and you
can’t get enough of it, and the other side is sorta lacklustre and a complete
letdown in comparison? Ever wonder why the good and bad music on one of these
albums isn’t more evenly spaced so as not to be so top/bottom-heavy? Well, on
the second count at least, this one is excused, because the work of genius is
one complete extended piece running over the whole of the second side. Anyone
who’s read my piece on sidelongs will know that this one, ‘Echoes’, is actually
one of my three favourite songs of all time, so the album it comes from really
should score at least a 6, but I can’t bring myself to get excited about most
of side one at all.
The sole exception is
opener ‘One Of These Days’. It’s the only Floyd song ever to feature Nick Mason
take lead vocals, and unrelated, it’s also an instrumental. (That joke never
fails to amuse me.) Incorporating hard rock and psychedelia, it uses twin
basses and drums to create a harsh, aggressive atmosphere that delightfully
torments the listener for five minutes, giving them high hopes for what’s to
come.
Hopes are crushed,
though, as ‘A Pillow of Winds’ comes in. Roger was clearly getting bored with
the whole acoustic folk thing, as this one’s dull and lifeless without any of
the lyrical imagery of earlier equivalents. ‘Fearless’ is an attempt at a power
ballad that has none of what singles Pink Floyd out from bland radio music,
except for that annoying ‘You’ll never walk alone’ chant at the end. ‘San
Tropez’ is an essentially pointless foray into the world of lounge jazz with
some of the world’s most boring keyboard parts and ‘Seamus’ is just pathetic.
The fact that they tried to get a dog to sing a song really shows that they
were at a loss for new material.
But then comes the
treat, the exquisite fudge cake after the mundane spaghetti bolognese. I’m one
of those hipsters who doesn’t think this band ever topped ‘Echoes’. Maybe on
some level they agreed with me – it’s certainly telling that they never
attempted another sidelong after this. And it shouldn’t be as truly astounding
as it is. The four of them didn’t have that much technical skill, training or
even experience to work with, yet they managed to pool the talents they did
have and come up with this, and that just makes the finished product even more
of an achievement.
Much of the middle
section of the piece is based around sound effects, something the Floyd are
skilled at incorporating into their music. Most of them are sea-related; birds,
wind, whales, a submarine, and, yes, echoes, all of which make the track feel
open, spacious and free. But there are some shrieks which give the song a
darker edge – a sea casualty, perhaps? These water references carry through
into the lyrics, which are also the first of Waters’ musings on the human
condition, and their combination of abstract and intent make them really quite
beautiful: ‘And no-one showed us to the land and no-one knows the wheres or
whys/And something stirs and something tries and starts to climb towards the
light’. But Rick Wright is the member who truly shines on his piece, from his ‘ping!’s
at the beginning of the song that always send a shiver down my spine to his
marvellous organ solo that appears just before the final vocal part. Honestly,
this song includes every style of music they have covered and would
cover(except for disco and 80s synth-pop, but they’d feel a bit out of place,
no?), it’s the perfect balance of melodic and experimental and listening to it
engages both the head and the heart. The input ingredients are simple, but the
output will make your breath catch in your throat.
Has anyone ever noticed
that all the bad songs on this album are fluffy, positive songs? Clearly,
endless negativity and cynicism was always destined to be the place where Roger
would shine. And now, with this album of extremes safely out of the way, it
wouldn’t be too long until he’d realise that too…
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