The Pink Floyd lyric that Roger Waters thought defined him
Most of the greatest lyrics of all time often feel like they took no time to create. Even though it might feel impossible to pair just the right words with a melody, the best songwriters of all time usually have a knack for pulling bits of phrases out of the air and coming up with some general truth that everyone can grasp. While Pink Floyd may have had their fair share of cerebral subject matter throughout their discography, Roger Waters believed that one of their songs defined what he was all about.
In the band’s early days, there was hardly a chance that anyone could grasp what the band were trying to achieve. Since most of Pink Floyd’s first recordings featured Syd Barrett at the helm, many of the band’s lyric sheets consisted of various psychedelic turns of phrase, with Barrett practically throwing different images out into the open rather than making a straightforward narrative.
After Barrett left the fold after losing his mind to LSD, Waters took over for the next handful of records. Not wanting to make the same kind of music that Barrett was used to creating, many of the tracks on albums like A Saucerful of Secrets were moodier than what had come before, including the live staple ‘Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun’.
Even though Waters had the potential to make biting lyrics, their next few albums seemed to have lyrics as just filler words to accompany the group’s instrumental work. While a song like ‘Careful With That Axe, Eugene’ may have become one of the band’s enduring classics from around this time, the voice should be more of an instrument than an emotional translator, with Waters screaming at the top of his lungs throughout the song.
By the time the band landed on the album Meddle, they started to have a clear vision of what they wanted to do. Working as a genuine collaboration between each band member, David Gilmour and Waters composed songs that played to their strengths, from the blues-infused sounds of ‘One Of These Days’ to the borderline soft rock sounds of ‘San Tropez’.
Then again, everything on the record pales in comparison to the band’s phenomenal closing track, ‘Echoes’. While much of the piece is comprised of instrumental music spanning 23 minutes, Waters thought that the handful of lyrics that he wrote for the song was one of the finest statements he ever made in song.
Discussing the lyrics about human connection, Waters thought that ‘Echoes’ marked the beginning of him coming into his own as a songwriter, telling CNN, “I only got one message. ‘Two strangers passing in the street, by chance, two person’s glances meet, and I am you, and what I see is me.’ That’s my message, and that was on Meddle. My message hasn’t changed”.
As Waters would recall, during the Classic Albums episode on Dark Side of the Moon, he would consider the song “the beginning of empathy”, leading to the group taking on humane topics on their following albums. From the heartfelt tribute to Barrett in ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’ to the meditation on life in ‘Time’, the effect of ‘Echoes’ forced Waters to stop looking inward and begin focusing on the greater truths of society.
