David Gilmour’s single favourite Pink Floyd song
As much as David Gilmour has reinvented himself musically on many occasions throughout his solo career, he will always remain intrinsically tied to Pink Floyd. Although his relationship with his bandmates has soured significantly, especially in recent years, Gilmour can look back upon what they made with immense pride from a musical perspective.
Being a member of Pink Floyd took its toll on everybody involved with the operation. They didn’t miraculously become one of the defining forces in rock history without putting in the hard yards and driving themselves to the brink for the sake of their art. Their work was meticulously layered, which was a direct result of the many hours they poured into crafting each composition in the studio, which paid off epically.
Pink Floyd were unafraid of crafting compositions which broke the mould. Significantly, while many bands spent their time chasing their next hit single, tailoring their sound to suit the radio requirements, Pink Floyd cared exclusively about albums. All the songs needed to match up contextually to create a body of work that was more than the sum of its parts.
A fine example of this admirable trait, which made Pink Floyd great, is ‘Echoes’ from 1971’s Meddle. With a running time of 23 minutes, Pink Floyd displays their most exceptional attributes throughout the track, providing the first glimpse of the sonic trajectory they’d find themselves on across the decade.
The highlight of the composition is the beautiful duelling between Gilmour and keyboardist Richard Wright, who the Pink Floyd guitarist misses deeply. Due to their special bond, the grandiose track is in a league of its own for the musician.
During Gilmour’s online Von Trapped series of videos in 2021, he spoke about the song when asked about his favourite Pink Floyd song. “‘Echoes’, I would think,” he snappily responded. “‘Echoes’ was terrific fun to play, particularly on my last solo tour with Rick Wright, a duet thing between him and me. Couldn’t and shouldn’t be played again now he’s dead.”
Gilmour has stayed true to his word regarding ‘Echoes’. It remains absent from his set lists as having somebody else fill in for Wright wouldn’t be right, and nobody else could capture the magic they once made together. Although Gilmour is more than happy to play many Pink Floyd tracks during his solo shows, ‘Echoes’ remains off-limits.
Furthermore, according to Gilmour, the song was crucial to the band’s development and made Meddle what it was. Looking back upon the album with Guitar World in 1993, he said, “Well, I think ‘Echoes’ is the masterwork of the album – the one where we were all discovering what Pink Floyd is about. ‘One Of These Days’ is a little subsidiary piece that came out of the work on ‘Echoes’.”
He continued: “I always loved it. It’s seminal, I suppose, yeah. A lot shorter, in any case – better for radio play. Meddle is really the album where all four of us were finding our feet – the way we wanted Pink Floyd to be. Much more than on Ummagumma or Atom Heart Mother.”
Elsewhere in the conversation, Gilmour discussed the long road that Pink Floyd embarked upon before recording 1973’s The Dark Side Of The Moon. He noted how early tracks such as ‘A Saucerful of Secrets’ and ‘Atom Heart Mother’ helped them decipher the band they wanted to become before ‘Echoes’ acted as the final piece in the jigsaw.
Not only is ‘Echoes’ a stand-out track from Pink Floyd’s repertoire, which put them on the path to creating rock history with The Dark Side Of The Moon, but it’s also a poignant reminder of the irreplaceable bond he shared with his late friend.
