November Record Club - Pink Floyd, "Meddle"

This is the only one of Floyd's '70s output that I return to any more. My father is a huge Floydhead (but only from Meddle on) to often absurd ends. He literally once said to me "Pink Floyd are a cult band that only I and a few other guys know about" at a time when I was too old to believe him. I think I broke him a bit when I proved that The Wall is one of the top-selling albums of all time and Dark Side isn't far behind. Speaking of The Wall, I think he (a psychologist) still believes it's actually about a mentally ill person named Pink and not just Roger Waters whining about his dad and his rock star life. Whatever, we all project our own experiences onto art we love.

Here's a good article about the creation of Meddle if anyone's interested. 

Thoughts to come...

Definitely a great course correction for Floyd, though I think the post-Syd Barrett “wilderness” years (More, Ummagumma, Atom Heart Mother) are slightly underrated.

I recently learned of an interesting story involving Barrett and Waters. In the late ‘80s, Waters attended an R.E.M. show somewhere in England and went backstage to meet the band. While the rest of the band was cordial, Stipe refused to speak with him and then went back onstage for an encore to sing a Syd Barrett song. It and the incident where Peter Buck got wasted and belligerent on a plane are the only times I’ve ever heard of a member of R.E.M. being less than a gentleman.

Anyway, to listening…

“One of These Days”
As the often-wrong but usually entertaining critic Bill Wyman (no, not the former Stones bassist who now owns a dumb restaurant in London) once memorably said, “prog was always a dumb idea but it was their dumb idea.” I can only imagine what it was like to drop a needle in 1971 and hear this leaner, meaner take on prog than anyone else, save maybe Hawkwind, was doing.

“A Pillow of Winds”
I’ve always had a fondness for Floyd’s drumless ballads (is it just me, or has their rhythm always been strangely stodgy and pedestrian for such a gigantic band?). This is a lovely song with wonderful steel pedal.

“Fearless”
As noted in the Pitchfork article linked above, it was kind of odd that Waters (a devout Arsenal fan) allowed the band to use the sample of the crowd singing “You’ll Never Walk Alone” from Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Carousel (via a beloved Gerry & The Pacemakers cover), the adopted song of Liverpool F.C. His instincts were right, though, as it pushes this tune into classic status, with one of Rick Wright's best keyboard runs.

“San Tropez”
Here’s where we find the band still grappling with Barrett’s legacy and trying to evoke his effortless whimsy. Sometimes they succeeded (this one) and sometimes there’s…

“Seamus”
The only true dud on the album. Painful. And I like some songs with dog samples (Juana Molina’s “El Perro”, Ween’s “Pink Eye (On My Leg)”).

“Echoes”
The track that saved Floyd’s career—there’s a reason why their box set is also named this. Definitely earns its status of one of the best side-length cuts of all time.

Mansplain - The Google Search Results

The album cover: It's an ear underwater. Much better than a baboon's fundament which was Hipgnosis' original suggestion.

So why "Nothing"? 

As mentioned in the accepted nomination of this album, this album began as "Nothings 1-24". That's where the depth charge single note comes from in "Echoes". 

So why "Invisible"?

My take on hewing the theme of this month's club has to do with echoes being mostly invisible. They show up in water, though - which is alluded to in the cover art.

My History with the Record - It's mostly about nothing

Anecdote 1 - Pink Floyd permeated 80s high school years. I didn't much care for them. I liked "Money". I chanted "Another Brick in the Wall". I first heard "One of These Days" on late night radio as a 13-year-old. I never saw The Wall. I heard plenty about it from young dabblers in psychedelics. I saw plenty of notebook covers drawing masterful praise of the album cover. The AOR radio stations absolutely loved Pink Floyd in North Florida. I remember seeing Live at Pompeii in clips where "Echoes" was played and enjoying it.

Anecdote 2 - Moving into the University years, I chummed it up with musicians and artists. One, named Frog, got lost in Pink Floyd one year. During that time, a group of us sat around and discussed the value of Atom Heart Mother and Saucerful of Secrets but stopped short of praising Meddle. I did spend a reasonable amount of time looking at the gatefolds for the three records during this extended chat in a rundown house in the student ghetto. I had the first record because hearing and imagining trainwrecks of the human variety was a morbid desire. That, and my burnout friend from high school who was at the same uni swore by the genius of Syd Barrett as he barreled down the same path to wrecking his 20s. Don't worry, he made it out alive and has a covey of tight friends that love him deeply.

Anecdote 3 - I picked up a scratched CD of this record at the now-gone in PDX and SEA of The Record Exchange. It cost all of $4. I dutifully burned CD and shortly sold it on eBay shortly thereafter for a tidy profit of $0.50. Winning!

Anecdote 4 - About 6 months after picking this up and getting rid of it but keeping a copy, I joined friends in Raleigh to drive up to Maine for a summer vacation between Millinocket and Bar Harbor. We played this record in full a few times during the trip; the most compelling of which was driving to and from the lookout of Cadillac Mountain at sunset. "Echoes" absolutely killed it in the minivan we had 7 people crammed into. Lobster rolls at a respected joint followed a dip in the frigid waters of Town Beach. They did not approve of my late-night driving music of Morbid Angel. It awoke those in even the deepest dozing as we made our way back to Millinocket. Later still, when the Millinocket Sheriff wanted to know why we were speeding through his burg, the music of choice was again Meddle. 

Review

"One of These Days" - Stereo studio tricks flow into Roger Waters's awesome bass line. Feels like a flight taking off. Oooh, that guitar sears.

"A Pillow of Winds" - So relaxing.

"Fearless" - Gilmour really has a way with that six-string. So lovely. The Liverpool FC chanting sing-along in the background gives this oomph.

"San Tropez" - More relaxing. Maybe with a bit more shuffling.

"Seamus" - Despite the dip in quality compared to what precedes it, I don't mind it occasionally.

"Echoes" - A perfect, long song that works its way up, down, around, and through you.

Closing remarks

Thanks for voting this in. Nice to get a win. I hope this selection spawns some decent convo. (Sees that it has and heartily approves.)

It doesn't make any sense but that's why I somehow love it. 

I'm not a big Pink Floyd fan, and I don't believe I've ever heard this album. I'm not particularly averse to prog rock. I quite like Yes, for instance.

I'm feeling kinda lousy today due to the COVID booster, but I'll try to give this a listen tomorrow.

I think I've heard 3, maybe 4, Pink Floyd songs - the big ones. The ones that are harder to avoid. I grew up in a household where prog was being played but my dad has always been more Genesis and Led Zep than Floyd - I'm not aware of him having expressed any opinion of them to me. Somewhere along the way I decided I didn't like them based on the 3, maybe 4, songs I've heard and as such never explored further despite my own interest in proggy bands. I have a distinct memory of seeing the album cover for The Division Bell in shops while I was looking for the latest pop-punk offerings in the late 90s which is a weird thing to have held on to given everything else. I suppose it's time to try them.

One Of These Days - Good! Threatening wobbly bass line is a plus. I like the slightly gruff slide guitar that pops up in the main action, that's a sound I can get on board with. Don't care for the piano and synths which I'm going to guess is likely to be a theme for me here.

A Pillow Of Winds - Guitar interplay is nice with the layering of the clean electric, acoustic and pedal steel. Not keen on the delivery in the vocals here, all a bit wet for me. Then it just ends without doing much of anything.

Fearless - So far, so wrong about the synths and piano which is a pleasant surprise. Haaaaa, the piano came in as I finished typing. I'm leaving it in anyway. This is broadly fine but it's all just drifting along the stream too much to keep my attention. Echoes feels appropriate because it's reminding me of a bunch of stuff that I liked as a teenager that was clearly influenced by this that I probably would struggle to get into if I came to it cold in my current state.

San Tropez - I immediately hate this. Too whimsical. Sounds like that an offcut from that awful band "The Beatles". I want to skip it but I'm committed to the cause so I won't. It has ended with no redeeming features.

Seamus - I was right to never listen to them. This is tedious.

Echoes - Flanger guitar tone - good. Clean guitar tone - bad. Hold on. TWENTY THREE MINUTES? This had better do some stuff. This is the first time I've noticed that there is, in fact, a drummer in the band. Long time monodrone post readers may be aware that the drums are usually my main focus when listening to anything but this guy has been so anodyne with what he's playing that I hadn't picked up on a single thing that he'd done in the first 5 tracks. Here he definitely exists, that much I can say, but even here it's all really rudimentary compared to other prog bands that are good. The guitar players get to stretch themselves and do some fun stuff even if the style of the guitar solos isn't for me I can at least respect them but this drummer is truly chopless. There's so much room to work with in that extended section where things are kicking off up until the 7 minute-mark and he's wasting it. Extremely frustrating.

We now enter what appears to be the Deep Purple Jam Section. No thanks, lads, move it along now please.

4 minutes of that. What was the point?

We've tunnelled underground so that's cool. Finally they've landed somewhere worth staying and exploring and this time I'm perfectly content with them spending 5 minutes on something.

The tappy guitar harmony at 18 minutes with the drawn out slides behind it is great and the outro is fine. A million bright ambassadors of morning in the lyrics, you say? I finally understand the context for the title of this prog rock song that I'll probably notice rips Echoes off in some way next time I put it on (which I will do now).


Yeah, I didn't like this much. A couple of decent bits here and there but it's not for me and I know I already said it but what's with the drums? I expect much more from this kind of music - is this normal for Pink Floyd?