"Echoes" is a song by the rock band Pink Floyd, and the sixth and last track on their 1971 album Meddle. It is 23 and a half minutes long and takes up the entire second side of the original LP. The track evolved from a variety of different musical themes and ideas, including instrumental passages and studio effects, resulting in the side-long piece. The music was written by the group, while Roger Waters' lyrics addressed themes of human communication and empathy, which he returned to in later work.
The song was performed live regularly by Pink Floyd from 1971 to 1975, including a performance in the film Live at Pompeii (1972). It was used for the opening shows on the 1987 A Momentary Lapse of Reason Tour but subsequently dropped. David Gilmour revived "Echoes" for his 2006 On an Island Tour, which featured Richard Wright, but retired the piece after Wright's death in 2008. The studio recording was used in the film Crystal Voyager (1973) while an edited version is included on the greatest-hits album Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd (2001).
"Echoes" has been regarded by critics as an important song that transitions between Pink Floyd's early experimental material as a cult band and later mainstream success. Several publications have remarked it as one of the best songs by the group. The group's members have mixed views of the track, but it was a particular favourite of Wright's.
Structure
"Echoes" begins with a "ping" that was created as a result of an experiment very early in the Meddle sessions, produced by amplifying a grand piano played by Richard Wright and sending the signal through a Leslie speaker and a Binson Echorec unit. After several "pings", a slide guitar played by David Gilmour gradually joins in. The verses are sung in harmony by Gilmour and Wright, and joined by a riff played by Gilmour and bassist Roger Waters in unison. This is followed by a guitar solo from Gilmour, played on a Fender Stratocaster through a Fuzz Face effects box, before repeating the previous riff. This leads into a funk-influenced jam.
The middle section of the song features Waters using a slide and a Binson Echorec. Gilmour plays a high-pitched screeching noise, which was created by plugging a wah-wah pedal in back to front (the guitar was plugged into the output of the pedal, and the input of the pedal was plugged into the input of the amplifier). Drummer Nick Mason later clarified that it was an accident, and their experience with working with Ron Geesin had taught them to embrace experiments and try anything if it would work on a song. This is followed by a repeat of the opening piano "pings" and a Farfisa organ solo from Wright, with a backing influenced by the Beach Boys' "Good Vibrations" (1967).
Following a final third verse, the end of the piece features a choral-sounding segment playing a Shepard tone. This was created by placing two tape recorders in opposite corners of a room; the main chord tapes of the song were then fed into one recorder and played back while at the same time recording. The other recorder was then also set to play what was being recorded; this created a delay between both recordings, influencing the chordal structure.
Composition
"Echoes" began as a collection of separate musical experiments, some of which were left over from previous sessions. The group then arranged the pieces in order to make a coherent piece originally referred to as "Nothing, Parts 1–24". Some pieces featured band members playing a recording without any idea what the rest of the group had or were going to play, while others simply had vague notes such as "first two minutes romantic, next two up-tempo". Not all of the pieces were used for the finished track, and out-takes included saying a phrase backwards, so it would sound correct yet strange when the tape was reversed. Subsequent tapes of work in progress were labelled "The Son of Nothing" and "The Return of the Son of Nothing"; the latter title was eventually used to introduce the as-yet-unreleased work during its first live performances in early 1971.