Musical Analysis: Pink Floyd - Echoes
... literally?). Some people also feel at this point that “no-one” after being used so many times is actually a person or a force, instead of the absence of someone. Others feel that the lyrics represent evolution, saying that we came from the ocean, and we’ve known the waves since the beginning of time. No one forced us to leave the ocean, but we did, without knowing why or where it first happened. The second part acknowledges that we all came from the first creature who came out of the ocean, (“I am you and what I see is me.”) remembering that no one made us leave, and at that time going on to land when we were exclusively aquatic, would mean our death. Those lyrics could also represent the conformity we express as a people. The third section could mean that although we can’t travel around the sun (space travel), we also thought that life on land was impossible. Flying around the sun would give us the feeling of evolving further. The light could be the way the sunlight looks from underneath the water, when we looked at it, inspiring us to leave the sea and perhaps feeling connected to a higher being (sunlight wings). Throwing the windows wide could represent how we can now control light (instead of the sun) and we will evolve more. These are very complex ideas about what the song is trying to express and requires interpretative listening. The beginning of the piece begins in the characteristic early-Pink Floyd dreamscape. PING!... PING!... A very high-pitched note is struck on the keyboards. Then slowly, a gentle background noise fades in from the synthesizers and key boards while the guitar makes it entrance playing soft and flowing notes in a piano volume. The texture becomes thicker as the keyboards pay out a little bit more and the bass guitar enters to fill in the gaps about a minute and forty seconds into the piece. Ten seconds later, the drums come in and give a more complete and urgent feel to the music which provides a rock-ballad rhythm, and begins a brief build-up and crescendo to a mezzo forte (depending also on the volume you are have the music at). The music returns to a pattern similar to the one preceding the climax but with the percussion providing more of a beat. The dynamics are soft again but build the same way to a climax, just before the lyrics begin. The guitar fades out and the lyrics start. At this point the lyrics become the melody. The melody is sung by two voices, a tenor voice and a second singing in major thirds above it. The melody is very smooth and flowing, and the harmony provides more depth to the melody by supporting and expanding it’s feeling. But once the lyrics stop, the instruments take over again and build into another climax where the guitar takes the lead in soloing and the drums keeping strong beats. The music decrescendos and the second section starts. After the lyrics end, the music returns to the pattern that came after the first section. The background instruments alternate between getting louder and softer, but the guitar remains in the lead. Seven minutes into the song, the rhythm of the music changes into a funk “jam” where the bass and percussion are acting as the rhythm section, and the guitar and keyboards alternate leading parts. The piece slows around 11 minutes in with wind noises replacing the jam. The eerie, piercing notes come from the guitar (courtesy of a Wah-pedal), and are accompanied the wind noises as the interlude takes over. At this point, the time signature has become non-existent or non-metric. Very faintly (you must listen carefully) you can hear the ambient noise of seagulls in the background. The wind fades out and a new rhythm is introduced with the keyboards dominating, and guitar becomes louder as the piece keeps going. The rhythm changes yet again with doubled guitars playing. The structure of the piece is repetition and contrast with the repetitious part being the verses and the rhythms after the lyrics. This theme is contrasted by the middle section during the funk portion and the spacey dreamscape. The main theme is reintroduced with the third verse and the fade out with wind noises and soft, flowing guitar notes, much like how the song began with a few variations (which are characteristic of repetition and contrast). The unexpected changes in rhythm help make it such an interesting and unique piece of music. It is very difficult to try to describe to someone what you are feeling as you listen to a piece of music because, as with the various ideas about what image or feeling the lyrics are trying to express, each person will feel something different. Myself, I feel something different each time I listen to the song. Setting the lyrics aside, the music alone creates such powerful imagery. I think that it is also worth mentioning that some important aspects of the song may be missed without listening to it through headphones and it’s very hard to hear all of the complex additions in just one listen. It’s funny, because the first time I listened to the song to analyze it (I had listened to the song before, but never with such intensity), I heard the part just before the first verse, and I felt like I was drowning. It might seem weird to say, but the music sounded like something happening; it sounded like drowning. I find it so incredible that one piece of music can evoke so many different images each time I listen to it. The melancholy opening and dramatic chorus are simply amazing. I definitely get the feeling that the song represents our evolution, and it seems as though the lyrics provide more meaning to the images the music creates. The lyrics create such powerful imagery that I can envision myself exactly where the first verse describes. Without even hearing the lyrics in the beginning, I immediately feel like I am underwater as the music provides a certain, eerie, unreal and disconnected feeling from the world. When the lyrics are sung, I feel like I am in a distant, innate, ancestral past, and I am living underneath the ocean waves so old that they themselves do not have an age. I feel like I am very deep down in the water. Then, as the lyrics say, something inspires our life to rise above the ocean waves, restrictions, and boundaries. Why did we leave the ocean? We do not know. Perhaps it was to feel closer to a higher being; perhaps it was one of our very first urges to evolve and explore the unknown. The music after the first lyric section complements this image perfectly because of the feel it has to it: almost uncertainty and fear. Again, the music is feeling like an emotion or feeling like something it happening. Perhaps this section is saying that we are the echoes of a distant time. The second verse brings us forward millions of ye...