Το κείμενο αυτό αναρτάται στη μνήμη του κιμπορντίστα του συγκροτήματος, του Richard Wright ο οποίος, αν ζούσε σήμερα, θα είχε γενέθλια.

Echoes – A narration of the song (Studio version)

A ping. Then another one. Little by little, the soundscape is filled with strange, dissociated sounds without meaning nor organization.

And, suddenly, Dave’s guitar plays just a single sliding. And suddenly, the meaning of all these little strange sounds is revealed to you. They were organized since the beginning, but it’s only now that you get it. A serene moment follows where Echoes main theme is developing, presenting itself. Broken by Nick’s drum invasion the theme ends with a meditation.

Meditation is a keyword in Echoes. The melody is meditating, the instruments are meditating, the music itself is meditating, as if they had life of their own. And then, it’s like each one is playing independently, on his own. Yet they all together play in harmony, being part of a mystical communion. Meditation and communion of music are to be repeated in “Dark Side of the Moon” and “Wish you were here”.

It’s like that that Echoes main them is exposed a second time immediately after the first exposition, but now it’s different. This process of thinking over itself has altered it.

Voice is the new addition to the theme that has know reached a sufficient maturity. It is repeated but it’s after the lyrics’ end we can see the change. The drums and the bass “attack”, while the organ and the guitar agoniously try to keep on. Bass and drums recess to give the guitar the opportunity to comment over Echoes theme. Dave’s guitar is actually singing while feelings are escalating from a melancholic thought to pain and then agony: bass and drums are attacking again. The “phantom of the opera theme”, with its downward melody is relentless and definitive. The guitar is struggling to overcome it and to keep is agonizing song going.

The struggle is interrupted. The band is now playing jazz. Again, each one plays his own melody, narrating his own story, living his own life. They hear like isolated, but are they?

As the jazz music is fading out, the soundscape changes to a desert. The wind blows, as the creatures are crying out to the god (to the Sun maybe?) as they struggle for survival.

Is it that vital forces have won and begin to breed life or we are getting out of the desert soundscape to get back to a fertile place? We can only say that little by little, the vital forces are taking up the instruments, and music is raising up: simple motifs and musical schemes is all we hear. We are witnessing the birth of Echoes theme as it grows up from its embryonic form. Escalation to the maximum peak takes place as the moment of the birth arrives. The main theme is back. Were we back in time where it all began or was it destroyed to be built up again?

The relentless bass is coming back again. Now it’s the organ that resists its omnipotence but not for long. As the battle that began in the first part is raging, music is going higher, and higher, and higher until it reaches a peak where things can not go further anymore. And it explodes.

Everything has finished. The soundscape has changed again along with our perspective: all this time we’ve been in a trip on a music land and now we are going away. Our trip has ended, everything is over, only memories remain. The guitar and the organ talk to each other gently over their memories, bass and drums sustaining. The sound of a plane is marking our departure as the memories are fading away….

That boy would be me and, yes, that album would be no other than the legendary “The Wall” by Pink Floyd. And, aside from on these tapes – today sleeping quietly in a safe place – “Another brick in the Wall pt.II” has ever since been recorded into my very soul.

As the years went by, I grew to reject pop & rock music altogether, mainly because of what I still call “the dreadful 80s”. But I never rejected Pink Floyd. During those years of my rejection of pop & rock, I kept them in a special place, along with the other musical memories of my childhood.

No surprise then that, in the late 90s, when I re-discovered rock music, Pink Floyd was the starting point. And, how beautifully, wonderfully this music blew my away. And how inspiring were the lyrics which I could understand at that time. Especially the Wall, with its yin-yang culmination point, “Comfortably Numb”. It was that verse:

When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse

that took me back then, to ’79, that fleeting glimpse going back to a little child putting “The Wall” on the turntable and listening to it again and again.

I can’t explain, you would not understand

This whole soul-stirring, I must admit, grew to feelings of anger when I read the accounts of people who had actually seen “The Wall” live, telling the tale of the definitive rock show, encompassing not just music but also animation and theatre. How I envied those people! Why hadn’t I been born a couple of decades earlier, to be able to travel to London and experience this show myself? When I put that to my best friend (a devout Pink Floyd fan also) he had replied “my friend, we were there, somehow”. True, then, but not very satisfying.

Needless to say, when Roger Waters announced he would perform The Wall again, all these emotions woke up once more. I am not speaking figuratively, I even dreamt about Roger performing the Wall, in the Olympic Stadium, long before the concert was announced (and, in fact, in my dream, he was joined by David and Nick). So when, one day, Roger himself appeared in the news announcing the concerts in Athens, all I could do was walk around mumbling: “The Wall in Athens! The Wall in Athens!”

I won’t go through all the details, my mobile alert on the ticket sales’ opening day, my anguish till I had the tickets in my hands, etc.

The day came. And I was there. And my best friend too. The Mother, the Teacher, the Wife, the Pig… everybody! We were actually there. Shouting during Mother, putting on our masks during Empty Spaces, crossing our hands during In the Flesh reprise, and, yes, singing Comfortably Numb together with Roger.

No, I won’t, I can’t describe the show itself. It was beyond words. I’ll just state that, for whoever ever doubted that art alone can make our world a better place, I am not aware of any answer more definitive than this.

This one goes to you, Roger. You, who created a dream in a young boy’s heart and made that dream come true.  For this show was all I had ever dreamed about, and more. Paraphrasing your lyrics,  I would say to you that, when I was a child, I caught a fleeting glimpse out of the corner of my eye. Friday night, I turned to look and it was there.

Thank you Roger!

P.S. thanks to L.T. for editing the text.

Το τελευταίο κομμάτι, του τελευταίου άλμπουμ το οποίο, όχι μόνο φέρει το σημαδιακό τίτλο Breakthrough, αλλά και κλείνει με τους εξίσου σημαδιακούς στίχους:

«You feel untied, beatified and loved for evermore»

Α ρε Rick… Μας λείπεις κιόλας…

Richard Wright

28/7/1943 – 15/9/2008

Tell me true, tell me why was Jesus crucified
Is it for this that daddy died?
Was it you? Was it me?
Did I watch to much T.V.?
Is that a hint of accusation in your eyes?
If it wasn’t for the nips
being so good at building ships
the yards would still be open on the clyde
And it can’t be much fun for them
beneath the rising sun
with all their kids committing suicide
What have we done, Maggie what have we done
What have we done to England
Should we shout, should we scream
“What happened to the post war dream?”
Oh Maggie, Maggie what did we do?