Meddle
Studio album by Pink Floyd
Released 30 October 1971 (US)
Recorded January–August 1971, AIR, Abbey Road, and Morgan studios, London
Genre Progressive rock
Length 46:46
Language English
Label Harvest/EMI
Producer Pink Floyd
Professional reviews
* Allmusic 4.5/5 stars
* BBC (favourable)
* Billboard (favourable)
* Blender 4/5 stars
* Robert Christgau (B-)
* Q 3/5 stars
* Record Collector 3/5 stars
Meddle is the sixth studio album by English progressive rock group Pink Floyd. It was released in October 1971.
The album was recorded at a series of locations around London, including Abbey Road Studios. With no material to work with and no clear idea of the album's direction, the band devised a series of novel experiments which eventually inspired the album's signature track, "Echoes". Although many of the group's later albums would be unified by a central theme with lyrics written mainly by Roger Waters, Meddle was a group effort with lyrical contributions from each member.
Meddle was produced between the band's touring commitments, from January to August 1971. Reviews were mixed, and although it was commercially successful in the United Kingdom, lack lustre publicity on the part of their US label led to poor sales there.
Recording
Returning from a series of tours of Atom Heart Mother across America and England, at the start of 1971 the band started work on new material at Abbey Road. The album was the first the band had worked on in the studio since 1968's A Saucerful of Secrets, but Abbey Road was equipped only with eight-track 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 in West Hampstead) 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.
Lacking a central theme for the project, the band used several experiments in a divergent attempt to spur the creative process. One exercise involved each member playing on a separate track, with no reference to what the other members were doing. The tempo was entirely random while the band played around an agreed chord structure, and moods such as 'first two minutes romantic, next two up tempo'. Each recorded section was named, but the process was largely unproductive; after several weeks no complete songs had been created.
John Leckie had worked on albums such as All Things Must Pass and Ringo Starr's Sentimental Journey, and was employed as a tape-operator on Meddle, partly due to his proclivity for working into the early hours of the morning. Pink Floyd's sessions would often begin in the afternoon, and end early the next morning, "...during which time nothing would get done. There was no record company contact whatsoever, except when their label manager would show up now and again with a couple of bottles of wine and a couple of joints." The band would apparently spend long periods of time working on simple sounds, or a particular guitar riff. They also spent several days at Air Studios, attempting to create music using a variety of household objects, a project which would be revisited between their next albums, The Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here.
Following these early experiments—called "Nothings"—the band developed "Son Of Nothings", which was followed by "Return Of The Son Of Nothings"—the working title of the new album. One of these early works involved the use of Richard Wright's piano. Wright had fed a single note through a Leslie speaker, producing a submarine-like ping. The band tried repeatedly to recreate this sound in the studio but were unsuccessful, and so the demo version was used on what would later become "Echoes", mixed almost exclusively at Air Studios. Combined with David Gilmour's guitar, the band were able to develop the track further, experimenting with accidental sound effects (such as Gilmour's guitar being plugged into a wah-wah pedal back to front). Unlike Atom Heart Mother the new multi-track capabilities of the studio enabled them to create the track in stages, rather than performing it in a single take. The final 23-minute piece would eventually take up the entire second side of the album.
"One of These Days" was developed around an ostinato bassline created by Roger Waters, by feeding the output through a Binson Echorec. The bass line was performed by Waters and David Gilmour using two bass guitars, one on old strings. Nick Mason's abstruse "One of these days I'm going to cut you into little pieces" line was recorded at double speed using a falsetto voice, and replayed at normal speed.
Meddle was recorded between the band's various concert commitments, and therefore its production was spread over a considerable period of time.[10] The band recorded in the first half of April, but in the latter half played at Doncaster and Norwich before returning to record at the end of the month. In May they split their time between sessions at Abbey Road, and rehearsals and concerts in London, Lancaster, Stirling, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Nottingham. June and July were spent mainly performing at venues across Europe. August was spent in the far east and Australia, September in Europe, and October to November in the US. In the same period the band also produced Relics, a compilation album of some of Pink Floyd's earlier works. A quadraphonic mix of the album was prepared at Command Studios on 21 and 26 September, but remains unreleased.
Composition
Though the tracks possess a variety of moods, Meddle is generally considered more cohesive than its 1970 predecessor Atom Heart Mother. The largely instrumental "One of These Days" is followed by "A Pillow of Winds", which is distinguished by being one of the few quiet, acoustic love songs in the Pink Floyd catalogue. These two songs segue into each other across windy sound effects, anticipating the technique that would later be used on Wish You Were Here. The title of "A Pillow of Winds" was inspired by the games of Mah-Jong that Waters and Mason, and their wives, played while in the south of France.
The song "Fearless" (the title is the football equivalent of 'formidable') employs field recordings of the Liverpool F.C. Kop choir singing "You'll Never Walk Alone", their anthem, which brings the song to an end in a heavily reverberated fade-out. "San Tropez", by contrast, is a jazz-inflected pop song with a shuffle tempo, composed by Waters in his increasingly-deployed style of breezy, off-the-cuff song-writing. The song was inspired by the band's trip to the south of France in 1970. Pink Floyd give a rare glimpse into their sense of humour with "Seamus", a pseudo-blues novelty track featuring Steve Marriott's dog (which Gilmour was looking after) howling along to the music. "Seamus" often tops polls as the worst song Pink Floyd ever created, but the band would later use animal sounds again, in Animals.
The final song on the album is the 23-minute "Echoes". First performed as "Return of the Son of Nothing" on 22 April 1971 in Norwich, the band spent about six months on the track in three studios (Morgan, Air, and Abbey Road). The track opens with Richard Wright's 'ping'. "Echoes" was recorded almost entirely at Air Studios,[14] and completed in July 1971. "Echoes" also gave its name to the compilation album Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd, 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 seven minutes. Some of the material composed during the production of Meddle was not used, however one song would eventually become "Brain Damage", on The Dark Side of the Moon.
Packaging
The album's title Meddle is a play on words; a medal, and to interfere. Storm Thorgerson originally suggested a close-up shot of a baboon's anus for the album cover photograph. He was over-ruled by the band, who informed him via an inter-continental telephone call while on tour in Japan that they would rather have "an ear underwater". The cover image was photographed by Bob Dowling. The image represents an ear, underwater, collecting waves of sound (represented by ripples in the water). Thorgerson has expressed dissatisfaction with the cover, claiming it to be his least favourite Pink Floyd album sleeve: "I think Meddle is a much better album than its cover". Aubrey Powell (Thorgerson's colleague) shares his sentiments—"Meddle was a mess. I hated that cover. I don't think we did them justice with that at all; it's half-hearted." The gatefold contains a group photograph of the band (Floyd's last until 1987's A Momentary Lapse of Reason).
Release
Meddle was released on 30 October 1971 in the US, and 13 November in the UK. Reviews of the album were mixed. Rolling Stone's Jean-Charles Costa wrote "Meddle not only confirms lead guitarist David Gilmour's emergence as a real shaping force with the group, it states forcefully and accurately that the group is well into the growth track again", and NME called it "an exceptionally good album". Melody Maker were however more reserved, claiming the album was "...a soundtrack to a non-existent movie". "One of These Days" and "Echoes" were performed during Live At Pompeii, in two parts, and also on the BBC's 1971 In Concert. Although in the UK it reached number three, lack lustre publicity on the part of Capitol Records led to weak sales in the US, and a chart position of number 70. On 29 November 1971, "One of These Days" was released as a 7-inch single in the US, with "Fearless" on the B-side.
Meddle was later certified gold by the RIAA on 29 October 1973 and then double platinum on 11 March 1994, following the added attention garnered by the band's later successes in the United States.
Reissues
Meddle was later released as a remastered LP by Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab, and in April 1989 on their "Ultradisc" gold CD format. The album was included as part of the box set Shine On on 2 November 1992.
Track listing
Side one
No. Title Music Lead vocals Length
1. "One of These Days" Waters, Wright, Mason, Gilmour Instrumental 5:57
2. "A Pillow of Winds" Waters, Gilmour Gilmour 5:10
3. "Fearless" (including "You'll Never Walk Alone") Waters, Gilmour (including Rodgers, Hammerstein II) Gilmour 6:08
4. "San Tropez" Waters Waters 3:43
5. "Seamus" Waters, Wright, Mason, Gilmour Gilmour 2:16
Side two
No. Title Music Lead vocals Length
1. "Echoes" Waters, Wright, Mason, Gilmour Gilmour and Wright 23:29
Sales chart performance
Year Chart Position
1971 UK Albums Chart 3
1971 Billboard Pop Albums 70
Personnel
Pink Floyd
* David Gilmour – guitar, bass on "One of These Days", lead vocals, harmonica on "Seamus"
* Roger Waters – bass, lead vocals and guitar on "San Tropez"
* Richard Wright – hammond organ, piano, vocals on "Echoes"
* Nick Mason – drums, percussion, vocal phrase on "One of These Days"
Additional personnel
* Rob Black – engineering (Morgan Studio)
* Peter Bown – engineering (Air and EMI Studios)
* Peter Curzon – design on album remaster
* Bob Dowling – outer sleeve photos
* James Guthrie – remastering
* Hipgnosis – band photo
* John Leckie – engineering (Air and EMI Studios)
* Tony May – inner sleeve photos
* Pink Floyd – album cover design
* Roger Quested – engineering (Morgan Studio)
* Doug Sax – remastering
* Seamus the Dog – vocals on "Seamus"
* Storm Thorgerson – design on album remaster