MEDDLE

'''Meddle''' is an album by English progressive rock band Pink Floyd. It was recorded at various studios in between the band's live touring commitments from January through August 1971.
Originally released in the U.S. on 30 October 1971 by Harvest/Capitol and in the UK on November 5 by Harvest/EMI, the album was later remastered three times: first by MFSL in 1984 on high-quality vinyl and cassette, then in 1989 for Ultradisc, and finally by Doug Sax (supervised by James Guthrie) for the 1992 ''Shine On'' box set. This latter digital master was used for a CD reissue with additional artwork by Hipgnosis, released August 1994 in Europe and April 1995 in the U.S.

Contents

Track listing

Side one

Side two

Overview

Recording and release

Album art

Singles

Quotes

Charts

Personnel

External links

Track listing

Side one

#"One of These Days" (David Gilmour, Nick Mason, Roger Waters, Rick Wright) – 5:57
#
★ Spoken line: Mason
#"A Pillow of Winds" (David Gilmour, Roger Waters) – 5:10
#
★ Lead vocals: Gilmour
#"Fearless" (David Gilmour, Roger Waters) – 6:08
#
★ Lead vocals: Gilmour
#
★ Interpolates "You'll Never Walk Alone"
#"San Tropez" (Roger Waters) – 3:43
#
★ Lead vocals: Waters
#"Seamus" (David Gilmour, Nick Mason, Roger Waters, Rick Wright) – 2:15
#
★ Lead vocals: Gilmour

Side two

#"Echoes" (David Gilmour, Nick Mason, Roger Waters, Rick Wright) – 23:29
#
★ Lead vocals: Gilmour and Wright

Overview

Though the tracks have a variety of moods, ''Meddle'' is generally considered more cohesive than its 1970 predecessor ''Atom Heart Mother'', and is thought by many fans to be Pink Floyd's first truly great album recorded without Syd Barrett. It enjoyed some commercial success in the United Kingdom (reaching #3 on the charts), but lackluster publicity on the part of Capitol Records led to weak sales in the U.S. However, ''Meddle'' would later be certified Gold by the RIAA in October of 1973 and then double platinum on 11 March 1994 following the added attention garnered by the band's later successes in America.
"One of These Days" opens the album with an ostinato bassline, played by both Gilmour and Waters, and uses a slide guitar lick. A largely instrumental piece, the only lyric, 'One of these days I'm going to cut you into little pieces', is spoken by Nick Mason.
It is followed by "A Pillow of Winds", which is distinguished by being one of the few quiet, acoustic songs in the Pink Floyd catalogue primarily concerned with love. These two songs segue into each other via wind effects, anticipating the same technique that would later be used on ''Wish You Were Here''. The song "Fearless" employs field recordings of the Liverpool F.C. Kop choir singing "You'll Never Walk Alone", their anthem, which brings the song to a haunting end in a heavily reverberated fade-out.
"San Tropez", by extreme contrast, is a jazz-inflected pop song with a shuffle tempo, composed by Waters in his increasingly-deployed style of breezy, off-the-cuff songwriting. Pink Floyd give a rare glimpse into their sense of humour with "Seamus", a pseudo-blues number featuring 'vocals' by a friend's dog who could bark in tune with music. "Seamus" was remade as "Mademoiselle Nobs", featuring a different dog, in the film ''.
The final song on the album, the 23-minute underwater epic "Echoes", is reputed to synchronize musically and thematically with the climactic section of Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film '' (entitled "Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite"). It is rumoured that Pink Floyd purposely synchronized "Echoes" with ''2001'' because they regretted denying Kubrick the rights to use the "Atom Heart Mother Suite" in his film ''A Clockwork Orange''. However, the song is more notable for being the lyrical centrepiece of the record and the band's most accomplished recorded work yet. "Echoes" also gave its name to the compilation album '', on which a much-edited version of the title track was included. In the compilation, multiple edits throughout the entire song cut the running length of the piece down by some 7 minutes.

Recording and release

Pink Floyd began production on the album at EMI's famous Abbey Road Studios, where most of their other projects had been recorded and mixed. Lacking a central theme for the project, the band decided to work on new material individually without listening to the other band members' contributions. They had already tried such an approach with limited success for ''Ummagumma''. However, this time the band resolved to work on one collaborative piece rather than separate solo efforts. The result of one such experiment, which centered around the sound of a grand piano sent through a Leslie speaker, provided inspiration for what would later become "Echoes".
Unfortunately, Abbey Road was still only outfitted with 8-channel multitrack recording facilities, which Pink Floyd found insufficient for the increasing technical demands of their project. They transferred their best efforts, including the opening of "Echoes", to 16-track tape at smaller studios in London (namely AIR and Morgan) and resumed work with the advantage of more flexible recording equipment. Engineers John Leckie and Peter Bown recorded the main Abbey Road and AIR sessions, while for minor work at Morgan studios in West Hampstead Rob Black and Roger Quested handled the engineering duties. The band also spent several days in late September 1971 preparing a quadrophonic mix of the album at Command Studios. Reportedly, this was played at the album's press premiere. However, it has never been released to the public. [1]
Outtakes from the album sessions are rumoured to include an unreleased song entitled "The Dark Side of the Moon", which later became "Brain Damage", and two demo versions of "One of These Days", both of which have been made available on bootlegs and include cut-up speech samples of Radio DJ Sir Jimmy Young.

Album art

The band's associate Storm Thorgerson originally suggested a close-up shot of a baboon's anus for the album cover photograph. The band informed him via an inter-continental telephone call while on tour in Japan that they would rather have "an ear underwater", which was used as the basis for the final design (with slight colour differences on the original U.S. and Canadian issues of the album).
This image formed the outside of the original gatefold cover, while four superimposed black-and-white photographs of the individual band members were used for the interior. This is the last time that the four band members appeared on an album sleeve.

Singles

★ "One of These Days"/"Fearless" (1971, US and Italy release)

★ "One of These Days"/"Seamus" (1971, Japan only release)

Quotes

"''Meddle'' is amongst my favourites. I mean that, to me, is the start of the path forward for Pink Floyd, really."
:—David Gilmour, February 1988, on Australian Radio
"''Meddle'' was the first real Pink Floyd album. It set a tempo, a feel and a style that we liked, and it introduced the idea of the theme that can be returned to. It sounds a bit ham-fisted now, but the concept thing I like."
:—Nick Mason, 1994

Charts

Year	Chart	Position
1971	''Billboard'' Pop Albums	70

Personnel

★ Roger Waters – bass guitar, backing vocals and rhythm guitar on "Fearless", lead vocals and guitars on "San Tropez"

★ David Gilmour – lead guitar, bass guitar on "One of These Days", lead vocals on "A Pillow of Winds", "Fearless", "Seamus" and "Echoes", harmonica on "Seamus"

★ Richard Wright – piano, keyboards, synthesizer, vocals on "Echoes"

★ Nick Mason – drums, percussion, vocal phrase on "One of These Days"

★ Seamus the Dog – vocals on "Seamus"

External links

★ Lyrics

★ Album info and trivia

★ Did Pink Floyd Meddle with 2001?