This album could also of
been called “Muddle” or “The Best And
The Worst Of Pink Floyd”.
This becomes apparent after one listen,
the first and sixth tracks on “Meddle”
are superb; the other four aren’t.
The album opens with “One Of These Days”
with whistling wind and then both, Gilmour
and Waters, break in on. Lovely vibrant
bass lines. The double bass carries on
through out the song giving it a very
heavy feel. The only words spoken are
“One of these days, I’m going to cut you
into little pieces”.
The song was dedicated to Jimmy Young,
the British Radio D.J., who the band had
been having a running battle of words
with for several years. The song reaches
a dramatic climax with Gilmour laying
down some of the greatest slide guitar
work he was ever to put down in the studio,
skipping straight onto the sixth song
on the album, “Echoes”. Originally it
had taken up the whole of side two of
the vinyl “Meddle” released in 1971, clocking
in at twenty three minutes and thirty
seconds. From the opening submarine type
radar echoes you know that the Floyd have
combined to give us a real classic. Each
musician excels in his own department,
Nick Mason changes the role that percussions
would be seen in from here on out in rock
music. The drums are not just used as
a way of keeping time with the song, but
actually as a lead instrument. To this
end Mason comes out of this song with
great Kudos (if you get the chance to
see the movie “Pink Floyd Live At Pompey”
you can see what a devastating effort
Mason had both sonically and visually
on this song). “One Of These Days” is
the oldest song to remain in the Pink
Floyd live set list right up to their
last tour.
Roger Waters laid down a solid bottom
end to the song, never letting the weirdness
get totally out of control. Rick Wright’s
keyboards caught him at a creative peak
and his psychedelic solo in the middle
has often been copied but never bettered.
The vocals were handled by duets between
Gilmour and Wright which suit the song
wonderfully, although lyrically it’s just
gobbledygook. However, it’s the guitar
playing of a young David Gilmour that
really catches your attention as he rings
every ounce of emotion from his six strings,
reaching higher and higher as each passing
section of the song progresses, at the
same time both violent and controlled.
“Echoes” was to remain in Pink Floyd live
set for many a year before “The Wall”
took over the whole show. It was even
dusted down and brought out for the commencement
of “The Momentary Lapse Of Reason” tour
(the first Pink Floyd Tour without Roger
Waters) before it had to make way for
newer material.
Compared to these two wonderful pieces
of music the other four songs on the album
are horrible. Of the two worst offenders
is “Fearless”, which, after meandering
listlessly for seven minutes, finishes
with “The Kop”. At Anfield, the headquarters
of Liverpool football club, singing “You’ll
never walk alone” and then chanting “Liverpool”
is all very well if you’re a scouser of
the red persuasion, but a bit of a bore
to the rest of the world. Worse is to
follow with “Seamus”. Nearly three minutes
of nonsense with David Gilmour stumbling
along on acoustic guitar, mumbling some
lyrics, whilst Steve Marriot’s dog howls
and yelps over the top of it. Truly embarrassing
to listen to. It’s what you might imagine
Manuel from Fawlty Towers to come up with
if you left him in a recording studio.
So my advice would be to get hold of a
copy of “Meddle”, cue your C.D player
to program tracks 1 and 6, and forget
the rest.
Pawed by Mott The Dog
Remastered by Ella Crew
E-mail: review@mott-the-dog.com
