Echoes of Syd and Rick

this is the first of two pieces written in response to a writing group challenge. The set topic was 'music'. The word limit was 750 (which I ignored for the second piece - see 'Riding the Steel Breeze'). For this piece I wanted to try a conversational style (the equivalent of breaking the 'fourth wall' perhaps?) I've also added a couple of YouTube links after the postscript.

Can you think of a song that you could identify from just one note on a keyboard?

OK, let's set the scene …....

It's 2006 and Pink Floyd's virtuoso guitarist David Gilmour is playing a concert at Gdansk Shipyard to celebrate the anniversary of the founding of the Solidarity Trade Union in Poland. It's not a Pink Floyd concert, but with Rick Wright on keyboards it almost is, especially when the band perform some classic Floyd material. The concert is being recorded and will later be released as David Gilmour's 'Live in Gdansk'.

Now, we'll go back briefly to 1971 ….....

Pink Floyd are gradually evolving into the band which will shortly conquer the world with their 'Dark Side of the Moon'. They are not yet there though, although the new album 'Meddle' provides a glimpse of what is to come two years later. A bit more than a glimpse in fact. The whole 23min 31sec of one side of the album is taken up by one track. It's a complex multi-part piece which starts quietly with Rick Wright's keyboard, shortly joined by Gilmour's melancholy guitar. The introduction ushers in the full band, and two verses with chorus precede a heavier, trademark Pink Floyd, prog-rock segment. There's an electronic 'noise' section in the middle with atmospheric wind, whistles, screeches etc. before the delicious moment where Wright fades in a gorgeous, sustained chord (more trademark Floyd) on the organ and the whole structure is rebuilt with a third verse leading into a lengthy climactic closing section with everything finally blown away in a sweeping wind. It's a brilliant piece of music – something to immerse yourself in. You might even feel emotional!

Excuse another detour here (don't worry, I'm keeping track of where we are) …....

A few years ago there was an article in The Guardian which I kept folded up inside my copy of Nick Hornby's excellent book '31 Songs'. I found it again recently. The writer recalls the occasion when a boy stood up at her school's end of year variety show and read the lyrics to Syd Barrett's 'Bike' (from Floyd's first album in 1967). The point was that he must have felt so passionately about that song that he wanted to stand on a stage and read it to the whole school.

“I've got a bike / You can ride it if you like / It's got a basket / A bell that rings / And things to make it look good / I'd give it you if I could / But I borrowed it.” (it starts to get a bit weird after that!)

I always thought that Roger Waters' lyrics to 'Echoes' would have been more suited to such an occasion. (I agree it's not Dylan Thomas or W.H. Auden, but it's rather more poetic than 'Bike' - and a little less psychedelic.) Here's verse 1 :

Overhead the albatross
Hangs motionless upon the air
And deep beneath the rolling waves
In labyrinths of coral caves
An echo of a distant time
Comes willowing across the sand
And everything is green and submarine

two old friends performing together

Now it's back to Poland, and that 2006 Gilmour concert in Gdansk …..

The stage is in darkness and 50,000 people are waiting expectantly to hear what is coming next.

Then just a single note (a high octave B that sounds like a submarine sonar) is played on a keyboard – the crowd erupt – they know what's coming now. A beam of blue light picks out Rick Wright as he plays his introduction. A minute later David Gilmour joins in with a wistful guitar accompaniment. The blue light picks him out too with 'smoke' from the dry ice adding hugely to the drama. For another 40 seconds it's just the two old friends performing together. Then, a cymbal shimmer invites the whole band to join in and the lighting bathes them in soft smoky red. It's ECHOES!

POSTSCRIPT

Rick Wright died of cancer in 2008, two years after the 'Live in Gdansk' concert and just a week before the album release. David Gilmour has stated that he will never play 'Echoes' again as his friend's contribution was so important to the song. For the same reason he said that Wright's death was the end of Pink Floyd.

A few selected resources

Album : Pink Floyd 'Meddle' (1971)

Album : David Gilmour 'Live in Gdansk' (2008)

Film / DVD : Live at Pompeii (1972)

DVD : Live at Pompeii (Director's Cut 2002)

Books :

Inside Out : A Personal History of Pink Floyd (Nick Mason) 2017 Edition

Their Mortal Remains (V&A Publishing 2017)

YouTube Videos :

Echoes (Live in Gdansk, 2006) https://youtu.be/EMneCi9F_UQ

Echoes (Meddle) https://youtu.be/53N99Nim6WE

Bike (from 'The Piper at the Gates of Dawn' 1967) https://youtu.be/2PoLaX4IA_0