3 Facts You Might Not Know About “Echoes” by Pink Floyd

When Pink Floyd released More in 1969, it opened a new chapter without co-founder and band leader, Syd Barrett. However, what became Pink Floyd’s defining sound didn’t fully materialize until Meddle, released in 1971. A single track fills the entire second side of the LP, the 23-minute epic, “Echoes”, which became something like the Big Bang for Pink Floyd’s future masterpieces.

Resting on the dividing line between Pink Floyd’s cult following and blockbuster classic rock, here are three facts that highlight the importance of “Echoes”.

Pocket Symphony

“Echoes” features multiple movements taken from various musical experiments and jams. Like both The Beatles and The Beach Boys before them, Pink Floyd had grand ambitions far beyond the blues-based rock of their peers. The band worked to arrange the disparate ideas into something cohesive. Richard Wright opens the track with a single, pinging piano note, which was routed through various effects. It resembles a distant transmission. Slowly, the rest of the band enters, and as the multi-part suite progresses, we hear in real time the signature sound of Pink Floyd’s coming into focus.

Speak to Me

As Pink Floyd learned to carry on without their leader, Roger Waters not only assumed the role, but he also became one of rock’s great poets. “Echoes” explores themes of human connection and communication. All of which Waters would later perfect on The Dark Side Of The Moon. He writes of a motionless albatross, high in the air yet tucked inside ancient time. Strangers meet and see themselves in the other, as humans learn to navigate the world without an operating manual.

David Gilmour

Though David Gilmour wasn’t an original member, he became indispensable to the band, even outlasting Waters’s tenure. Many of Pink Floyd’s greatest songs are known as much for Gilmour’s soaring guitar playing as they are for Waters’s conceptual high art. On “Echoes”, Gilmour plays like he’s broadcasting the blues from outer space or some other deep abyss where the audio is only perceptible by detecting vibrations and translating them into signals. It foreshadows his timeless work on “Comfortably Numb”, “Money”, and “Time”.

“Echoes” forever changed Pink Floyd and, with it, forever changed rock music.