Pink Floyd- Meddle 55th- David Gilmour, Nick Mason, Roger Waters

Judging by the sheer outsized volume of well-deserved attention heaped on Pink Floyd’s 1973 game changer Dark Side of the Moon, one could easily assume it was the Cambridge, England quartet’s first album of any consequence. But with October 30, 1971’s Meddle, containing the embryonic epic “Echoes”, Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour, Nick Mason, and co-founder (with Syd Barrett) Roger Waters unanimously maintain that Meddle was their Apollo 8 musical mission, which would soon after allow  Pink Floyd’s lunar landing on the far side of rock history.

Meddle by Pink Floyd certainly is not the most famous of their Seventies output, but nevertheless it is a formative stylistic bridge to essential icons Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals, and The Wall , which makes Meddle one of Progressive Rock’s most important releases. You’ll hear Pink Floyd’s debut single “See Emily Play” and “Astronomy Domine” from their first album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, Syd Barrett’s meteoric flash of brilliance and subsequent flame out; “One of These Days”, with the appearance of the supercharged lap steel guitar wielded ever since by David Gilmour; and “Childhood’s End” 2016 remix, originally found on Meddle‘s follow-up, Obscured by Clouds. David Gilmour, Nick Mason, and Roger Waters are my guests here In the Studio in my classic rock interview for eyewitness accounts from the front lines of progressive rock history. –Redbeard