Echoes ( Pink Floyd song ) - wikipedia Echoes ( Pink Floyd song ) `` Echoes '' Song by Pink Floyd from the album Meddle Published Pink Floyd Music Publ Released 30 October 1971 ( US ) 5 November 1971 ( UK ) Recorded January 1971 Abbey Road, London March, April 1971 AIR Studios, London May 1971 Morgan Studios, London June, July 1971 Morgan Studios, London AIR Studios, London August 1971 AIR Studios, London Genre Progressive rock space rock psychedelic rock Length 23 : 31 ( Meddle version ) 16 : 30 ( Echoes version ) Label Harvest Songwriter ( s ) Roger Waters, Richard Wright, Nick Mason, David Gilmour Producer ( s ) Pink Floyd `` Echoes '' is a composition by Pink Floyd including fully extended instrumental passages, continuous sound effects, and musical improvisation. Written in 1970 by all four members of the group, `` Echoes '' provides the extended finale to Pink Floyd 's album Meddle. The track has a running time of 23 : 31 and comprises the entire second side of the vinyl and cassette recordings. It also appears in shortened form as the fifth track on the compilation album which took its name, Echoes : The Best of Pink Floyd. The composition was originally assembled from separate fragments, and was later split in two parts to serve as both the opening and closing numbers in the band 's film Live at Pompeii. The song was used to open the band 's 1987 A Momentary Lapse of Reason Tour after not being played for over a decade, but was retired again after 11 shows. It was revived for Gilmour 's 2006 On an Island Tour, where it was performed at every show. Live versions were released on Gilmour 's albums Live in Gdańsk and Remember That Night. Contents 1 Structure 2 Composition 3 Live performances 4 Reception 5 Echoes and 2001 : A Space Odyssey synchronisation rumours 6 Alleged plagiarism 7 Cover versions 8 Personnel 9 References 10 External links Structure Each verse of the song follows a pattern of three strophes. The composition uses many progressive and unconventional musical effects. The ping sound heard at the beginning of the song was created as the result of an experiment very early in the Meddle sessions. It was produced through amplifying a grand piano, played by Richard Wright, and sending the signal through a Leslie speaker and a Binson Echorec. David Gilmour used a slide guitar for certain sound effects on the studio recording and for the introduction in live performances from 1971 to 1975. A throbbing wind - like sound was created by Roger Waters vibrating the strings of his bass guitar with a steel slide and feeding the signal through an Echorec. The high - pitched electronic `` screams '', resembling a distorted seagull song, were discovered by Gilmour when the cables were accidentally reversed to his wah pedal. After observing the song being created, Nick Mason noted : `` The guitar sound in the middle section of ' Echoes ' was created inadvertently by David plugging in a wah - wah pedal back to front. Sometimes great effects are the results of this kind of pure serendipity, and we were always prepared to see if something might work on a track. The grounding we 'd received from Ron Geesin in going beyond the manual had left its mark. '' Harmonic `` whistles '' can be heard produced by Richard Wright pulling certain drawbars in and out on the Hammond organ. Rooks were added to the music from a tape archive recording ( as had been done for some of the band 's earlier songs, including `` Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun '' ). The second half of the song, where Gilmour plays muted notes on the guitar over Wright 's slowly building Farfisa organ solo, was inspired by the Beach Boys song `` Good Vibrations ''. The `` choral '' - sounding segment at the end of the song 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, heavily influencing the structure of the chords while at the same time giving it a very `` wet '' and `` echoey '' feel. It results in a Shepard tone. Composition The piece had its genesis in a collection of separate musical experiments written by the band, some of which had been left over from previous sessions. The group then arranged the pieces in order to make a coherent 23 - minute piece originally referred to as `` Nothing, Parts 1 -- 24 ''. 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. Studio recording was split between Abbey Road Studios, Morgan Studios and AIR Studios in London ; the latter two were used because they had a 16 - track recorder, which made assembling the individual components of the songs easier. In an interview in 2008 with Mojo, when asked who had composed `` Echoes '', Wright stated he had composed the long piano intro and the main chord progression of the song. In the same interview he confirmed that Waters wrote the lyrics. During this stage of its development, the song 's first verse had yet to be finalised. It originally referred to the meeting of two celestial bodies. The first verse originally took words from Muhammad Iqbal 's poem `` Two Planets '', and later this was rewritten with the incorporation of original underwater imagery instead. The title `` Echoes '' was also subjected to significant revisions before and after the release of Meddle : Waters, a devoted football fan, proposed that the band call its new piece `` We Won the Double '' in celebration of Arsenal 's 1971 victory, and during a 1972 tour of Germany he jovially introduced it on two consecutive nights as `` Looking Through the Knothole in Granny 's Wooden Leg '' ( a reference to The Goon Show ) and The Dam Busters, respectively. Live performances Pink Floyd first performed `` Echoes '' at Norwich Lads Club on 22 April 1971. It was a regular part of the band 's set up to the concert at Knebworth Park on 5 July 1975. The song was performed for Live at Pompeii, where it was split in two halves to open and close the film. The 1974 and 1975 performances featured backing vocals by Venetta Fields and Carlena Williams and saxophone solos by Dick Parry instead of the guitar solos in the 1971 -- 73 performances ( apart from the first show of the US 1975 tour, where Gilmour does the first middle solo then gives way to Parry 's sax ). It was performed eleven times on the band 's 1987 A Momentary Lapse of Reason world tour, in a slightly rearranged version trimmed down to 17 minutes. It was then dropped as the band were not happy with the performances. Gilmour resurrected the song on his 2006 On an Island tour as the closing number of the main set. He sang the low parts together with Wright, while touring keyboardist Jon Carin sang the higher parts. Wright would bring the Farfisa out of retirement just for this song for the tour. These performances appear on Gilmour 's Remember That Night DVD / Blu - ray and Live in Gdańsk album / DVD. Gilmour told Rolling Stone in 2016 upon returning to Pompeii to play a solo show that he would have loved to perform `` Echoes '' but felt he could not do so without Wright, who had died in 2008 -- `` There 's something that 's specifically so individual about the way that Rick and I play in that, that you ca n't get someone to learn it and do it just like that. '' Reception In a review for the Meddle album, Jean - Charles Costa of Rolling Stone gave `` Echoes '' a positive review. Costa described `` Echoes '' as `` a 23 - minute Pink Floyd aural extravaganza that takes up all of side two, recaptures, within a new musical framework, some of the old themes and melody lines from earlier albums. '' Costa further went on : `` All of this plus a funky organ - bass - drums segment and a stunning Gilmour solo adds up to a fine extended electronic outing. '' Echoes and 2001 : a Space Odyssey synchronisation rumours Similar to the Dark Side of the Rainbow effect, at - large rumours suggested that `` Echoes '' coincidentally synchronises with Stanley Kubrick 's 1968 film 2001 : A Space Odyssey, when played concurrently with the final 23 - minute segment titled `` Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite ''. At the time of the film 's production in 1967 -- 1968, Pink Floyd was not working on any material suitable for the film, nor were they contacted about supplying music. It is likely that Kubrick never heard the band 's music until after the film was finished. The 1973 George Greenough film Crystal Voyager concludes with a 23 - minute segment in which the full version of `` Echoes '' accompanies a montage of images shot by Greenough from a camera mounted on his back while surfing on his kneeboard. Alleged plagiarism In interviews promoting Amused to Death, Waters claimed that Andrew Lloyd Webber had plagiarised the riff from `` Echoes '' for sections of the musical The Phantom of the Opera ; nevertheless, he decided not to file a lawsuit regarding the matter. He said : Yeah, the beginning of that bloody Phantom song is from Echoes. * DAAAA - da - da - da - da - da *. I could n't believe it when I heard it. It 's the same time signature -- it 's 12 / 8 -- and it 's the same structure and it 's the same notes and it 's the same everything. Bastard. It probably is actionable. It really is ! But I think that life 's too long to bother with suing Andrew fucking Lloyd Webber. Cover versions British musician Ewan Cunningham covered `` Echoes '' in a YouTube video which featured him playing all of the parts himself. This cover was heavily based on the Live at Pompeii version and went on to receive praise from Nick Mason. British electronic music project Banco de Gaia covered `` Echoes '' on their 2009 album Memories Dreams Reflections. Personnel David Gilmour -- lead vocals ( lower harmony ), electric guitars, sound effects Richard Wright -- lead vocals ( higher harmony ), grand piano ( through Leslie 145 speaker ), Hammond organ, Farfisa organ, sound effects Roger Waters -- bass guitar, slide bass, sound effects Nick Mason -- drums, percussion, sound effects References Citations Jump up ^ Murphy, Sean ( 22 May 2011 ). `` The 25 Best Progressive Rock Songs of All Time ''. PopMatters. Retrieved 31 July 2016. Jump up ^ `` Pink Floyd -- Meddle ''. Jump up ^ `` Echoes : the album credits ''. Pink Floyd. Archived from the original on 2 June 2010. Retrieved 20 June 2013. Jump up ^ Manning 2006, p. 195. Jump up ^ Mason 2004, p. 145. ^ Jump up to : Mojo 2008, p. 83. ^ Jump up to : Mason 2004, p. 148. Jump up ^ `` Pink Floyd news : : Brain Damage, 7 April ''. Retrieved 20 November 2009. Jump up ^ DeRiso, Nick. `` Top 10 Richard Wright Pink Floyd Songs ''. Ultimate Classic Rock. Retrieved 24 April 2017. Jump up ^ Harris 2006, p. 74. Jump up ^ Povey 2006, p. 124. ^ Jump up to : Povey 2006, p. 142. Jump up ^ Mason 2004, p. 151. Jump up ^ Mabbett 2010, p. 110. Jump up ^ Povey 2006, p. 171. Jump up ^ Povey 2006, p. 197. Jump up ^ Povey 2006, p. 125. Jump up ^ Povey 2006, p. 247. Jump up ^ Povey 2006, p. 307. Jump up ^ Glow, Kory ( 7 July 2016 ). `` David Gilmour Talks Pompeii Return : ' It 's a Place of Ghosts ' ''. Rolling Stone. Retrieved 27 September 2017. ^ Jump up to : Costa, Jean - Charles ( 6 January 1972 ). `` Meddle ''. Rolling Stone. Retrieved 25 July 2017. Jump up ^ `` The Kubrick FAQ ''. visual - memory. Retrieved 26 March 2014. Jump up ^ Wu, Su ( 9 October 2015 ). `` A Meditative Surf - Film Soundtrack for Your Chill Weekend Ahead ''. The New York Times. Retrieved 10 June 2016. Jump up ^ `` Who the hell does Roger Waters think he is ? ''. Q Magazine. November 1992. Archived from the original on 5 December 1998. Retrieved 20 November 2009. Jump up ^ `` Ewan Cunningham Echoes ''. smash.com. Smash Inc. Retrieved 2017 - 01 - 23. Jump up ^ Mason, Nick ( 7 January 2017 ). `` '' Looks like we are all out of a job ! `` ''. Nick Mason ( official Twitter feed ). Retrieved 24 April 2017. Sources Blake, Mark ( November 2008 ). `` The Dream Is Over '' ( PDF ). Mojo. Harris, John ( 2006 ). The Dark Side of the Moon. The Making of the Pink Floyd Masterpiece. Da Capo Press. ISBN 978 - 0 - 306 - 81500 - 3. Mabbett, Andy ( 2010 ). Pink Floyd - The music and the mystery : The Music and the Mystery. Omnibus Press. ISBN 978 - 0 - 857 - 12418 - 0. Manning, Toby ( 2006 ). `` The Albums ''. The Rough Guide to Pink Floyd ( 1st ed. ). London : Rough Guides. p. 164. ISBN 1 - 84353 - 575 - 0. Mason, Nick ( 2004 ). `` There Is No Dark Side ''. Inside Out : A Personal History of Pink Floyd ( New ed. ). Widenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 0 - 297 - 84387 - 7. Povey, Glenn ( 2006 ). Echoes : The Complete History of Pink Floyd ( New ed. ). Mind Head Publishing. ISBN 978 - 0 - 9554624 - 0 - 5. External links Wikiquote has quotations related to : Meddle ( album ) Did Pink Floyd Meddle with 2001 ? Lyrics of this song at MetroLyrics Meddle Songs Side one `` One of These Days '' `` A Pillow of Winds '' `` Fearless '' `` San Tropez '' `` Seamus '' Side two `` Echoes '' Related articles Meddle Tour The Piper at the Gates of Dawn A Saucerful of Secrets More Ummagumma Atom Heart Mother Meddle Obscured by Clouds The Dark Side of the Moon Wish You Were Here Animals The Wall The Final Cut A Momentary Lapse of Reason The Division Bell The Endless River Pink Floyd Nick Mason Roger Waters Richard Wright Syd Barrett David Gilmour Studio albums The Piper at the Gates of Dawn A Saucerful of Secrets More Ummagumma Atom Heart Mother Meddle Obscured by Clouds The Dark Side of the Moon Wish You Were Here Animals The Wall The Final Cut A Momentary Lapse of Reason The Division Bell The Endless River Live albums Ummagumma Delicate Sound of Thunder Pulse Is There Anybody Out There ? The Wall Live 1980 -- 81 Singles `` Arnold Layne '' / `` Candy and a Currant Bun '' `` See Emily Play '' / `` The Scarecrow '' `` Flaming '' / `` The Gnome '' ( US ) `` Apples and Oranges '' / `` Paint Box '' ( UK ) `` It Would Be So Nice '' / `` Julia Dream '' `` Let There Be More Light '' / `` Remember a Day '' ( US ) `` Point Me at the Sky '' / `` Careful with That Axe, Eugene '' ( UK ) `` One of These Days '' / `` Fearless '' ( US ) `` Free Four '' `` Money '' / `` Any Colour You Like '' ( US ) `` Time '' / `` Us and Them '' ( US ) `` Have a Cigar '' / `` Welcome to the Machine '' ( US ) or `` Shine On You Crazy Diamond Part I '' ( Europe ) `` Another Brick in the Wall ( Part II ) '' / `` One of My Turns '' `` Run Like Hell '' / `` Do n't Leave Me Now '' ( Europe / some US ) or `` Comfortably Numb '' ( later US ) `` Comfortably Numb '' / `` Hey You '' ( US ) `` Pink Floyd The Wall - Music From The Film '' ( `` When the Tigers Broke Free '' / `` Bring the Boys Back Home '' ) `` Not Now John '' / `` The Hero 's Return ( Parts 1 and 2 ) '' `` Learning to Fly '' / `` Terminal Frost '' and / or `` One Slip '' `` On the Turning Away '' / `` Run Like Hell ( live ) '' ( UK ) `` One Slip '' / `` Terminal Frost '' / `` The Dogs of War '' ( UK ) `` Take It Back '' / `` Astronomy Domine ( live ) '' ( US ) `` High Hopes '' / `` Keep Talking '' / `` Marooned '' `` Wish You Were Here ( Live ) '' / `` Coming Back to Life ( live ) / `` Keep Talking ( live ) '' ( UK ) `` Louder than Words '' Compilations The Best of the Pink Floyd / Masters of Rock Relics A Nice Pair A Collection of Great Dance Songs Works 1967 : The First Three Singles Echoes : The Best of Pink Floyd The Best of Pink Floyd : A Foot in the Door 1965 : Their First Recordings Box sets Shine On Oh, by the Way Discovery The Early Years 1965 -- 1972 Films Concerts London ' 66 -- ' 67 Live at Pompeii Delicate Sound of Thunder Pulse Narratives The Wall The Final Cut Documentaries The Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett Story London ' 66 -- ' 67 The Story of Wish You Were Here Soundtracks San Francisco The Committee Tonite Lets All Make Love in London More Zabriskie Point Obscured by Clouds Pink Floyd -- The Wall La Carrera Panamericana Tours World Tour 1968 The Man and The Journey Tour Atom Heart Mother World Tour Meddle Tour Dark Side of the Moon Tour Wish You Were Here Tour In the Flesh The Wall Tour A Momentary Lapse of Reason Tour The Division Bell Tour Related media and tributes 19367 Pink Floyd The Amazing Pudding The Australian Pink Floyd Show Barn Jams Brit Floyd The Dark Side of the Moo `` Embryo '' Inside Out : A Personal History of Pink Floyd The Man and The Journey Music from The Body Pinkfloydia `` Proper Education '' Synalpheus pinkfloydi Umma gumma Their Mortal Remains Other topics Discography Videography Song list Unreleased material Members Bootleg recordings Pink Floyd live performances The 14 Hour Technicolor Dream Azimuth Co-ordinator Blackhill Enterprises Britannia Row Studios Dark Side of the Rainbow EMS Synthi A Games for May Midsummer High Weekend Pink Floyd pigs Publius Enigma Why Pink Floyd... ? Book Portal Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Echoes_(Pink_Floyd_song)&oldid=837696330 '' Categories : 1971 songs 1971 compositions Pink Floyd songs Songs written by David Gilmour Songs written by Nick Mason Songs written by Richard Wright ( musician ) Songs written by Roger Waters Song recordings produced by David Gilmour Song recordings produced by Roger Waters Song recordings produced by Richard Wright ( musician ) Song recordings produced by Nick Mason Songs of the Vietnam War Hidden categories : Use British English from November 2016 Articles with hAudio microformats All articles with unsourced statements Articles with unsourced statements from April 2017 Talk More Contents About Wikipedia Català Čeština Deutsch Ελληνικά Español Euskara فارسی Français Italiano עברית ქართული Nederlands 日本 語 Norsk Norsk nynorsk Polski Português Русский Slovenčina Українська Tiếng Việt 12 more Edit links This page was last edited on 22 April 2018, at 12 : 39. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution - ShareAlike License ; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia ® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. About Wikipedia

Question: who wrote the lyrics to echoes by pink floyd
Answer: Pink Floyd