PINK FLOYD: MEDDLE (1971)
1) One
Of These Days; 2) A Pillow Of Winds; 3) Fearless; 4) San Tropez; 5)
Seamus; 6) Echoes.
General verdict: ...in which Pink
Floyd finally unveil their master plan to take over the galaxy.
Meddle both closes a whole era in Pink Floyd history,
and opens a new one — but if we were forced to make a clear-cut classification
that does not allow for transitional states, I'd say that Meddle still belongs in the 1968-70 pool, and, together with the
famous Pompeii concert, closes the door on psychedelia, avantgarde, and
surrealism as the leading notions in the band's art. After this album, the band
would begin to make music that made sense,
from a philosophical and / or social standpoint — and it wasn't entirely
because of Roger Waters assuming the reins, because everybody else joined in of
their own free volition.
Meddle carries little by way of a profound (or not so
profound) spiritual / intellectual message. Like the records preceding it, it
is full of moments that are just bizarre, or enigmatic, or comical, or
mind-blowing, but there is no ʽTimeʼ or ʽMoneyʼ here to guide people through
crises of faith, no ʽShine On You Crazy Diamondʼ to bring on manly tears, no
ʽPigsʼ or ʽDogsʼ to nourish our political beliefs and build up our social
determination. Well, come to think of it, there is a pig — or, at least, part of a pig, in the form of a pig's ear
on the Hipgnosis album cover. And, come to think some more, there is a dog — wailing and howling the blues
on ʽSeamusʼ, in an innocent era when a popular act could still get away with
this without bringing on the ire of animal rights activists. The difference is,
nobody can claim to understand why
there is a pig and dog on Meddle.
They simply are. By 1973, Pink Floyd would be far more rational in their
approach.
However, despite the fact that the themes of Meddle remain pretty much the same (you
could say that ʽEchoesʼ simply continues the line of ʽA Saucerful Of Secretsʼ,
and that ʽOne Of These Daysʼ builds up on the legacy of ʽCareful With That Axe,
Eugeneʼ, etc.), the musical means of Floyd have by now evolved immensely — and
the array of instrumental tones, production techniques, and melodic moves that
is displayed here is much closer to Dark
Side Of The Moon than to Atom Heart
Mother. Roger's double-tracked bass that opens the album is as good a
herald of a new era as anything: it has a sinister, merciless aura to it that
had not been previously heard, but would
be heard many more times on everything from ʽSheepʼ to ʽRun Like Hellʼ. More
than anything, perhaps, Meddle has discipline — as the textures become
denser and deeper, so does the level of rigid control behind them increase
progressively as well. That funky mid-section in ʽEchoesʼ? Never before had the
band gelled so tightly as a team — on this particular track, they might even
have made proud such formerly untouchable competitors as Can.
Which means that I can very easily see where
for some people Meddle might be the perfect Floyd experience — they have
achieved top rank here as musicians, yet still remain completely free of the
preaching / proselityzing / mentorial overtones, commonly associated with
Waters and causing nasty rashes for those who like their music a bit more
ambiguous and inscrutable. Heck, it might have been the perfect Floyd
experience for myself — if not for the nasty realization that the album still
sags in the middle, in a rather unpardonable fashion.
In between ʽOne Of These Daysʼ and ʽEchoesʼ,
the two high points to which we will return later, Meddle squeezes four songs that range from «just good» to «somewhat
silly», and I believe that most Floyd fans would agree that ʽSan Tropezʼ, a
fluffy bit of jazzy vaudeville with Waters singing like Chet Baker, and
ʽSeamusʼ, two minutes of generic 12-bar acoustic blues accompanied by Steve
Marriott's collie dog (poor, poor thing!), tend to incline towards «somewhat
silly», and not even particularly humorous, because, unlike The Beatles in
their silliest moments, Pink Floyd always struggled with their sense of humor.
ʽA Pillow Of Windsʼ and ʽFearlessʼ are
significantly more serious, but still, both of these pieces belong in that part
of Floyd's pleasant past that is (a) more about atmosphere than truly memorable
melody and (b) very much not
exclusively Floydian in nature. ʽPillowʼ has a really nice bedrock of ʽDear
Prudenceʼ-like acoustic picking, electric slide howls, and minimalistic bass
zoops, but everything is a bit too soft and smooth to elicit any strong emotions
— the song continues the string of «lazing on a sunny afternoon»-style ballads
that Waters was so oddly fond of in those years of transition. ʽFearlessʼ is
more often acknowledged as a forgotten classic, but its biggest hook (the little
upscaling, stuttery riff played against the acoustic rhythm) appears out of
nowhere and is a bit too repetitive to make a proper impression; and the sudden
transition of the song into a field recording of a Liverpool stadium chanting
ʽYou'll Never Walk Aloneʼ makes preciously little sense, if you ask me.
Certainly all four of these are a tad
anti-climactic after the opening stun of ʽOne Of These Daysʼ, easily the most aggressive Floyd track created
up to that point — reflecting Eugene's maturation from a dangerous sleepwalker
who is sometimes not very careful with his axe into a terrifying psychopath,
now well awake and hellbent on cutting you into little pieces. The entire six
minutes of this song is a relentless chase through the forest, as you keep
running away from Death Incarnate, its personality largely shaped by Waters'
pulsating iron bass and Gilmour's heavily distorted blues soloing — although
there is no discounting Rick's doom-spelling Hammond organ, either. They may
not have started out this song with the intention of posing as the Four
Horsemen, but that is the way it plays out, and I can see how it could still be
possible to be creeped out by parts of this tune even in the 21st century. It
even has one of the earliest examples of growling death metal vocals ever, and
by Nick Mason, of all people! (Granted, when you get down to the bottom of it, it's
all just a matter of slowed down tape — but who can tell the difference between
slowed down tape and a death growl, anyway?).
As for ʽEchoesʼ, Floyd's second and last stab
at a side-long progressive suite... well, the worst thing I can say about
ʽEchoesʼ is that the composition truly came to life on stage. The studio
version sounds positively docile when compared to the way they played it in
Pompeii — or, for that matter, to the way Gilmour and Wright played it on their
last tour together. With the live versions in hand, I am ashamed to say that I
rarely come back to the mother — which, of course, does not make it any less
monumental in terms of structure and emotional impact. Unlike ʽAtom Heart
Motherʼ, ʽEchoesʼ is perfectly thought out, and could be interpreted as either
a musical interpretation of The Creation (something vaguely alluded to in the Pompeii movie, where the music is
cleverly intertwined with footage of volcanic eruptions, among other things),
or a musical portrait of a passionately romantic human being — actually, the
first verse of the song is about the former, and the second is about the
latter, so it works all possible ways.
This is where everything, all the long years of
toil and experiment, finally pay off — the build-up is fantastic, the
thunderous wave-crashes following the verses take one's breath away (particularly in the late live versions,
where they are accompanied by killer laser shows) — so much so that when the
song seamlessly slides into its harsh, clenched-teeth, funky groove part at
7:00 into the show, it's like a breath of relief
from all the tension. Many prog epics start and end great, but lag and sag in
the middle — ʽEchoesʼ completely avoids that trap by sewing together several
completely different components, going from gorgeous atmospheric ballad to epic
Olympic rock to gritty funky jamming to ambient seascape painting (with Gilmour's
guitar posing as the Alpha Seagull) and then completing the circle, with
everything at top power level required.
It is surprising to me that after such a
tremendous success, Floyd would never again properly revisit this territory —
by the time they'd return to epic-length songs with Animals, their vision was already far more grounded and focused on
the little people rather than the cosmic forces dominating the universe. But
then again, I also doubt they would be capable of making another masterpiece of
the same caliber: ʽEchoesʼ is their equivalent of Mahler's 8th (well, not
literally, of course, just in relative terms of ambitiousness), and not wanting
to spoil the effect with a pale shadow of the same thing is a respectable
decision.
Even if everything else on Meddle sucked, the album would still deserve a high rating just for
its second side — and I understand that, with all their forces probably
concentrated on making this Gargantuan thing work, they may have earned the
right to include a few passable pieces on the first side. Whatever be, as far
as «Cosmic Pink Floyd» is concerned, Meddle
represents the final triumph of Ambitious Reason over Barely Controlled Chaos —
it succeeds totally, where every
single one of their post-Piper
records only succeeded in a humbly compromising manner. And, of course, it is
the direct antipode of ʽPiperʼ: play ʽInterstellar Overdriveʼ and ʽEchoesʼ back
to back to see how random Brownian motion differs from mighty Intelligent
Design. Which one do you prefer? It should probably depend on one's degree of
intoxication.
For many, this IS the first Pink Floyd album. Screw all that earlier noodling around and bizarre English pop stuff.
ReplyDeleteI don't know about that pig, if you open up the gatefold sleeve and turn it sideways it looks more like a human ear to me: http://i.imgur.com/9FNJwe7.png
ReplyDeleteThat image is doctored. This is the actual album cover, which clearly does not show a human ear: http://i.imgur.com/FdMft9T.jpg
DeleteHere, I've rotated it to better show the contrast: http://i.imgur.com/eD7Vw7I.png
DeleteOn closer inspection, never mind. It is a human ear. The ripples made the surface look flatter than it actually is, especially compared to the doctored version.
Delete"Pillow of Winds" is "Sunny Side Up" Mark II. I dig 'em both. Thanks as always for the great commentary, George!
ReplyDelete"It is surprising to me that after such a tremendous success, Floyd would never again properly revisit this territory..." I think they went there with 'Shine On...', unfortunately the instrumental sections of the second half of that piece aren't nearly as inspired and recycle some of the ideas from this album, mainly the aggressive slide guitar section (Part VI) echoing 'One of These Days' and the funky jam of Part VIII echoing (ha) the jam section of 'Echoes' (and 'Atom Heart Mother' before it).
ReplyDeleteI enjoy all peaces between ...these days and Echoes; 1st perfect and proper Floyd ....
ReplyDelete