Echoes (song)
"Echoes" is a 23 and- a- half minute song by Pink Floyd, with lengthy instrumental passages. It was written by Roger Waters, Richard Wright, David Gilmour, and Nick Mason. The track closes the album Meddle. It also appears in shortened form on disk 1 (track 5) of the compilation album which took its name, Echoes.
The song is unofficially divided into three parts: Sea, Air, and Land.
Sea
The Sea part lasts for the first 11 minutes of the song. It starts with a sonar-like sound created by Richard Wright who sent his keyboard signals through a Leslie rotating speaker. It continues with a soft guitar solo by Gilmour, before continuing to the first verse. The lyrics speak about the sea, from beneath the surface. After 5 minutes, another solo runs for about 2 minutes before breaking into a long riff featuring 3 minutes of slide guitar work, before the rise into the air.
Air
The Air part starts as the riff fades away, at the 11 minute mark. High pitched guitar "screams" occur during the first half of this part, before they become background noises under the sound of seagulls, also an interesting effect by guitar created when Gilmour ran the cables backwards into his Wah-Wah peddle. This part ends with the descent, a long keyboard solo, at around the 16 minute mark.
Land
Land, the last part of the song starts with the descent from the air. A long keyboard solo moves into the lyrics that last only one line (a format whih recurs on Shine On You Crazy Diamond). After they end, another heavy guitar solo is played and the song falls back into the echoes of the wind, and a soft solo alongside keyboards is played for a minute, before the echoing winds take over. They, too, are a guitar effect created by running a steel slide (a hollow cylinder of metal, inspired by the neck of a glass bottle), along the strings of a bass guitar.
Referenced By
Australian Pink Floyd Show | Echoes | Live at Pompeii: Directors Cut
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