Fearless is one of the best joint smoking songs in the world. In fact, Meddle is possibly the stoniest Floyd album to date at that time. Rick and David were the musical geniuses of the group and they were definitley rockin' the ganja, especially around the time of Pompeii. i know its not right to attach drugs to PF, but come on!!
My first ever PF purchase so will always have a place in my heart, head and record collection!
The band originally wanted Echoes as the first side, but apparently were persuaded out of it by EMI. Everything has been said about the "fillers" and to a large extent I tend to agree. Seamus has been consitently voted the worst PF song ever. San Tropez is fine as a song, but it always feels out of place to me.
So, remove those two and you'd be able to fill the gap with the most underrated track that never made it to an official PF album - I refer of course to EMBRYO. The song can only be found on rare copies of the Harvest sampler album "Picnic - a breath of fresh air" and it was still in an unfinished state. When the band played it live it was often as long as Echoes and I have one version that I'm sure lasts 26 minutes. It's a powerful piece, with a great feel live and dropped from the live set in Nov 1971. OK, it was apparently written circa 1968 and supposed to be on Ummagumma, but it was efectively dropped from the live set by the time Meddle came out, but given that it's way better than Seamus etc, it would in my view have made Meddle a killer album. I couldn't see an issue with putting in a live piece, in fact as that was so rare at the time, it might have given the album a further bit of interest value.
Echoes, still voted as probably the single best PF song ever, also went through a number of lyric changes whilst on the road, as well as titles. At various stages it was called Nothing, Parts 1-24, Return of the son of nothing... and Roger once introduced it as Looking Through the Knotholes in Grannys wooden Leg - even though at that concert the album was already released! Maybe he was just having an in-joke?
...I am inclined to skip Seamus though - so only a 4 from me.
Too bad they didn't stay in this mode. My old band covered "Fearless" & I love Shamus the dog!. But Echoes is the Golden Egg here, especially w/ Wright & Gilmour's harmonies......Celestial!!! Great Lyrics & a rocking ending!!
Fearless was the first track that drew me into pre - DSOTM Floyd.
I run into a lot of people that quit listening to the Floyd except on the radio after they supposedly grew out of their "blacklit" joint smoking phase.
This and Obscured are the first albums that I share with them, followed by Ummagumma (Live).
They seem to turn a lot of heads. Also Zabriskie Point.
I definitely don't doubt Dave.... there's a picture in "Complete Guide To The Music Of..." with Dave (Meddle era, it looks like) rockin' some kind of shirt with a cartoon doobie on it.
Its a cool album, Echoes certainly shows where DSOTM came from.
However once again it seems that Pink Floyd were stuck on ideas for the album. Echoes was made out of 24 different sections, including tepid whiteboy funk and a long ambient section?
I get the impression Pink Floyd were stumbling around in the dark for the bulk of this era, and were lucky when they came up with the goods. One of these Days is a good track, born out of echo machine experimentation. Fearless is still a strong track, somewhat reminiscent of the Eagles' Journey of the Sorcerer. However A Pillow Of Winds is pretty inconsequencial stuff, San Tropez is a clumsy jazz piece and Seamus is the worst kind of filler available.
Only One of These Days and Echoes even made it to the live show, which even in 1971 consisted mainly of 1968 and 1969 material.
my breakfast. wrote:A Pillow Of Winds is pretty inconsequencial stuff
It's a nice little song, IMHO, but they had absolutely no idea what they wanted to do with it. It flows really nice, from nowhere to the other side of nowhere...
One of These Days, Fearless, San Tropez get it to a clean 3. Echoes to a 4. Pillow of Winds and Seamus... not digging it.
To be honest, it would rank 5 even with the 2 weak tracks, but Echoes... Echoes costs it that last little bit. Now, I LOVE Echoes, but for years before I heard the studio version, I had a passionate love affair with the Pompeii version (have the soundtrack). For me (and I know this is personal), the Pompeii Echoes beats the studio Echoes' ass every day of the week and twice on Sunday.
If Meddle had the Pompeii version of Echoes (or a version that was closer to it)... a definite 5. But it doesn't.
I first got exposed to Meddle in the early 90's by my friend getting the tape from his Mum's new boyfriend.
It didn't have a cover, had clearly been played a lot and was original '71 make.
Echoes was described as "All noise" according to said boyfriend, and my friend mocked his "stepdad" for thinking this.
So I listened to Echoes and... it WAS all noise! It wasn't until I saw Live at Pompeii did I see what they were doing with it? And got a copy shortly after.
Lovely story... but it's still a 4 for Seamus and not letting Bruce Forsyth sing on San Tropez.
Echoes has a few minutes of usually dull synth soundscapes which I am supposed to believe that they recorded unstoned. So they don't even have that excuse? The rest of the song is a 5, floyd at their best, but the space noodling goes on too long and it's only about a 3 on my scale for space noodling effectiveness.
Seamus is a 3 as a novelty song and it's better than San Tropez which is a blatant attempt by Waters to write a song that sounds like Syd Barrett. It's completely obvious that this song is influenced by stuff from The Madcap Laughs. Pillow of Winds is just ok. Fearless (minus "you'll never walk alone") and One of These Days are great and Echoes is certainly some kind of peak. Goes great with ocean waves.
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