1971 Rock Classic, Lasting Nearly 24 Minutes, Became a Timeless Masterpiece
In 1971, Pink Floyd went into the studio completely unprepared and came out with one of the greatest songs in rock history - "Echoes."
The band was worn out from touring and arrived without a single idea between them. Their only starting point was a faint "pinging" sound from a piano across the room. They were so stuck for ideas that they temporarily called the song "The Return of the Son of Nothing."
That single piano note came from keyboardist Richard Wright, and it became the foundation of a nearly 24-minute track. "Echoes" went on to fill the entire second side of Pink Floyd's 1971 album Meddle, and in many ways, was the band finding their voice.
David Gilmourlater described it as "the one where we were all discovering what Pink Floyd was all about."
The band used pieces from earlier sessions and layered them on top of each other, sometimes recording their parts without knowing what anyone else would play. The whole thing came together across three studios - Abbey Road for the basic tracks, AIR Studios in London for overdubs and Morgan Studios for the final assembly.
According to Wright, he played a bigger role in writing the song than he ever got credit for. The whole piano thing at the beginning and the chord structure is mine, so I had a large part in writing that," he said in a 2008 interview, per Far Out magazine. "But it's credited to other people of course."
"Roger obviously wrote the lyrics," he added, referring to Roger Waters.
Wright also let slip that Gilmour's iconic wailing guitar sound wasn't planned at all. A roadie had plugged the wah-wah pedal in backwards, flooding the room with feedback.
Rather than fix it, Gilmour just started playing with it. "He played around with that and created this beautiful sound," Wright recalled.
Critics responded well to Meddle when it was released, and the album peaked at No. 3 on the U.K. Albums chart. Over the years, Pink Floyd's "Echoes" has regularly found itself on lists of top rock epics ever made.
As much as fans want to hear "Echoes" live, Gilmour has made it clear that isn't going to happen.
Before his 2016 solo concert at the Amphitheatre of Pompeii, the same venue where Pink Floyd filmed Live at Pompeii, he sat down with Rolling Stone and explained why the song wouldn't be part of the show.
"It would be lovely to play ‘Echoes' here, but I wouldn't do that without Rick," he said, referring to Wright, who passed away in 2008. "There's something that's specifically so individual about the way that Rick and I play in that, that you can't get someone to learn it and do it just like that. That's not what music's about."
That leaves fans with just one thing left to argue about - which version is better: the Live at Pompeii performance from 1972 or the BBC recording from 1974?
Related: Legendary '60s Rock Band Released a Song 45 Years Ago That Led to Their Split
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This story was originally published June 5, 2026 at 10:50 AM.