Music Education: Pink Floyd's "Meddle"

My music education has always come in waves, often by people who have changed my life. The right songs, albums, artists... they tend to enter my world at just the right times, at times when they mean the most to me and at times when I need them the most. That's how it goes, I guess. It's been a while since I've had such an occasion, but as of late my world has been beautifully shaken. The accompanying soundtrack of new music has shaken me, too... songs to love to. Songs to live by. Songs I wasn't quite meant to hear until this point in my life.

Pink Floyd's "Meddle" is the first in a series of albums I've been introduced to and have fallen in love with. I thought I was a Pink Floyd fan before, in the Dark Side of the Moon/ The Wall kind of way, but, of course, I had no idea what I was missing. Meddle is my new favorite, though there is more to be explored...

What I do know is that Pink Floyd albums always paint a certain landscape with their music- sounds that are vast, epic. Songs that create a sense of place- a place you live in while you're listening. Meddle is full of places slightly lonely... the feeling you get remembering old friends and good times past. The types of places that stay with you long after things have changed. I love how that feeling carries through the album. It is thoughtful, full of growth, empowering in the way you feel empowered when you realize you're somehow different... a perfect feeling for this moment. It's an album that simmers with strength. It's extremely honest in that way that music can be.

The songs....

One of These Days
This song rallies like an intro song should... a thumping bass line leading you in... guitar riding in behind, bass drum hitting in just the right spots... it's a great start to the album and all its highs and lows... like taking a look at a place from the top of a mountain before going down into it. Their music is so rich, so full of energy and sound.


A Pillow of Winds
And then... slidey, sleepy, this song is one of nighttime reflection. The kind of alone you feel when someone is sleeping beside you but you lie there awake. It's not necessarily sad, just solitary. The guitars in this song are so pretty, so filling... the perfect blend of twang and melody. And through all the tense, just-beside-comfort slides and bends, it leaves off somewhere brighter. It fades into a sound a little more sure, like sunrise finally hitting the point of day.

And I rise, like a bird,
In the haze, when the first rays
Touch the sky.

And the night wings die.

Fearless
This song... by far the most special on the album. I've spent a few subway rides listening to this song on repeat (as I'm doing now), which is always the sign of a song that really hits me. It's perfect in that way that "Wish You Were Here" is perfect, but to very different effect. The song opens so sure of itself, taking you into that simple but perfect riff, the crowd echoing faintly behind... an anthem for all those who walk the less-traveled roads, who find the way to be fearless. It's a song to fill that space outside... the free space, just below the mainstream, where anything can go. (I heard Ian McKaye talk about that space in reference to punk music, and it stuck with me.) This song has relevance in so many ways, a place for so many moments. For now, for me, it's brushing past caution, watching it get smaller as you walk towards the challenging things. It's about doing it anyway. It's about taking a look at things from the edge, instead of the center. It's about the fact that there's beauty in ugliness, in struggling and suffering and being able to find that and face it is a step towards fearlessness. It's about saying fuck it and finding that you made the best decision of your life. It's about doing what you want to do, not what you're supposed to do.

And who's the fool who wears the crown?
And go down,
in your own way
And every day is the right day

San Tropez
This song is a vacation song from the first sound. Not necessarily a song you listen to on vacation, but one that captures the feeling of being away from home, a place where you can be something simpler. I love the swing of it. I love the story it tells. I've lived in this song before. It's the light point of the album, the most carefree and still it carries the mood. "If you're alone I'll come home."


Seamus
My love for the sound of the blues makes this song another favorite, for the way it bends my insides just slightly. I love that the dog howling is part of the instrumentation. I love the interplay of the guitar and the keys and the bass line. I love that the song is busy and simple and slides all over my nerves. I love the piano solo. I love that I wish it was longer, like I wish all blues songs were one long soundtrack in my brain. I love it.

Echoes
And after five fantastic and completely unique songs, Pink Floyd sends you out with an epic so full it could be its own album. This is more of what I know of Pink Floyd's sound and it's something they do like no band does. Their sounds dig deep... they create images and feelings and landscapes even before a word is spoken. That recurring riff sounds so familiar to me, yet so uniquely Pink Floyd... This song brings home the mood of the album- alone but not lonely, wandering but not lost, curious but not uncertain. It builds and it moves and it breaks it down and rocks it out. They really are masters of sound and all the things it can do. I love all the highs and lows... the sweeping and abstract and the pure rock n' roll of it. I love how it drives and then settles and the pushes back up. It's so physical... so seizing. And I love the way their lyrics lull and calm, and then release with the music. (Did I mention this song was moving?) All in all... incredible.

This one is going in the favorites pile, certainly. A fabulous start to a new phase... in music, in life, and the like............