Well, you may or may not be shocked that this was the next album I chose to tackle. Now, keep in mind, this is not a "best album by..." blog by any means but more or less a list of albums that really bowled me over at some point in my life. Most people would probably think that I'd opt for "Dark Side of the Moon" or maybe "The Wall", and in all fairness both of those will probably end up here at some point, but "Meddle" is the album that really knocked me out when I first heard it AND made me a Pink Floyd fan.
The irony is that, until my sister made me go to a midnight showing of "The Wall", I actually thought Pink Floyd was a heavy metal band and didn't really give them the time of day. I recall sitting in a class during freshman year of high school by some seniors who were diehard music fans, and I was telling them that I didn't listen to Floyd because I didn't like heavy metal. I still remember the odd look that one of the guys gave me and, well, it was well deserved. Of course, he quickly corrected me but I wasn't sure at that time if I really believed him.
I think I saw "The Wall" at that midnight showing shortly after this occurred, so right around the age of 13. I was still in a very heavy 80's music phase of U2, INXS, Red Rider, and Big Country, etc., and starting to move into R.E.M. at that point. My other love was Genesis, mainly 1980 - 84 Genesis and just starting to get into the Gabriel era. Needless to say, seeing "The Wall" blew my mind exactly as my sister had predicted, and it wasn't long after that I copied the album onto a blank cassette and promptly wore it out. Oddly, though, I didn't give Floyd really another thought at that time and had literally no urge to listen or buy another album (which in hindsight is certainly a bit strange).
That all changed about two years later, when I started hanging out with a certain friend of mine and we'd spend all hours of the night talking about music we liked, listened to, wanted to explore, and then shared endless albums that we had found. I spent a lot of time sleeping over at his house at this point due to my own chaotic family life at home with my parents, and it wasn't unusual if we sat up very late at night and listened to various records. He's actually completely responsible for getting me into both Marillion and the Church, the latter of which is the band that Marty Willson-Piper was in and with whom I now am trying to record my own EP with.
In any event, one very memorable night, my friend put on "Meddle" without telling me who it was. In all honesty, we were probably drunk but it doesn't really matter since the album completely mesmerized me. The opening "One of These Days" was unlike anything I had ever heard in my life previously, especially once you get to the tremolo bass effect and vocal bit. But, it wasn't until the next track, "A Pillow of Winds", that I was completely hooked and bowled over.
To this day, "A Pillow of Winds" is still one of my favorite all time tracks by Pink Floyd. It's the perfect blend of Grateful Dead styled "California Country" except it's like English Country, and yet it also feels sort of improv'd and completely off the cuff. I can't imagine that they've ever attempted to play this live because it just doesn't even feel like it would be possible but who knows. In short, the song is simply dreamy and glorious, and having it follow the completely different sounding "One of These Days" is still what I think one of the most brilliant ways to put an album together in a track listing.
In fact, to take that further, that's exactly what makes "Meddle" the album that I think is just completely beyond words, and this is for a band that made multiple albums that are beyond words. The mix of having 5 random songs on Side 1, some of the "English Country" sound while others are not, and then pairing it with the epic "Echoes" on Side 2, hands down one of the best prog songs ever made or composed by anyone, is simply beyond words brilliant, in my opinion at least. There are many albums that tout "play it loud with the lights off" but "Meddle" just might be the original. The fact that they decided collectively to go from "One of These Days" to "A Pillow of Winds", and then into "Fearless", an almost acoustic anthem, if you will, followed by the highly corny "San Tropez", and then ending with the strange bluesy track "Seamus" with a dog crooning in the background...well, it's just bloody brilliant. It seems on paper that it would never work in a thousand years and yet somehow it's perfect.
To this day, the tracks on Side 1 constantly influence my own music creation and I've tried more than once to compose something as brilliant as these tracks. So far, I don't think I've really come close...but I'm still trying. "Meddle" may seem a bit confusing or all over the place to some listeners, and I can certainly see why, but for my money it was Pink Floyd finally nearing their high point and yet still doing things completely their way without worry about commercialism, satisfying fans, etc. Of course, that's not to say that the albums that followed suffered really at all from that either, but there's simply something a bit more organic and real about "Meddle" versus the ones that followed. It's like an independent album that was actually done on a major label, the best of both worlds. Music like this doesn't really exist today because, well, no label would allow or finance it. "Meddle" is simply composed of artistic risk from start to finish, and the best part of it, coupled with the hauntingly amazing album cover, is that the whole thing turned out to be a masterpiece work of art.
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