I had a strange introduction to Pink Floyd via the Relics budget album. It was, of course, tracks from the initial version of the band with Syd and in 1974, and it gave me a false impression of what the band was like. That mix of noise and whimsy which characterised them at the time was psychedelic to its core. And I loved songs like Julia Dream and the dissonance excursion of Interstellar Overdrive as well as the driving chords of Remember The Day.
So when I asked for Meddle for Xmas I thought I’d be getting more of the same. For some reason, the ear on the cover was said at school to be a pig’s ear. I’m not sure why, if it was (and it’s not) this was so exciting but 13 year-olds are easily amused aren’t they?
I was pleased with the first side. One Of These Days is still a favourite but it was Echoes that really made my Brutus flares flap. It had everything. Soaring guitar, elegiac and poetic vocals, weird noises and a soothing mellotron. I played it over and over, marvelling that such music existed. It really blew my young mind. And it sounded great on the music centre’s speakers which I would regularly crank up and close the door.
One day, my grandma was staying. She was a gnarly Yorkshire woman, held together till her late 80s by nicotine, tar and bitterness. She entered the room with Echoes rattling the windows, holding a cup of tea.
Now, she had an odd habit of giving you the tea and standing next to you while you drank it. Slow or fast, it didn’t matter, she just stood there until you drained the cup and she could wash it up.. It was quite intimidating really. As she waited on this occasion, the song reached the bit with the howling banshees. I remember it like it has just happened. ‘This is a bit weirdy’ she said in an unimpressed Yorkshire tone. To be fair, it must have seemed very odd to her generation born in 1900.
This naturally confirmed its brilliance to me as there was nothing better than an adult saying ’this is just noise’ but I preferred this to mother pretending to like Yes. You don’t want them liking anything, do you? They must have thought I was taking a strange turn and I still identify the record as ‘a bit weirdy’
