Not a single member of Pink Floyd could assert that they experienced an easy time going through every phase of their career. There was always a certain amount of pain associated with everyone attempting to have their creative voices heard. From dealing with Syd Barrett’s breakup to directing their grief into their best works, they made their way. While the band may have suffered numerous times for their craft, David Gilmour identified a single song as the pinnacle of the group’s cohesiveness.
Barrett led the charge in the band’s first incarnation with hit after hit. But after his expulsion because of serious mental health issues, Roger Waters took over. Even though the band was still playing space rock at the time, Waters soon emerged as the group’s leader. He would frequently dictate the song’s arrangement each time the members entered the studio.
They first figured out how to make their sound work. However, to find the ideal sound, the group needed to do a lot of trial and error. The band spent a large portion of the studio sessions working on the album Ummagumma. It was a half-studio, half-live disc, creating different avant-garde experiments that never quite worked into complete songs.
What they were producing dissatisfied the group. They believed that most of the material didn’t have a purpose, even when they began to create elaborate pieces for the album Atom Heart Mother. Although Gilmour and Waters have been known to distance themselves from Atom Heart Mother, everything started to come together with the next album.
When it comes to Pink Floyd’s classics, “Echoes” from Meddle got a lot of attention. Spanning 23 minutes, the epic song transports the listener to the depths of the ocean through sound. David Gilmour praised the preceding track as one of their best collaborations, marking a pivotal moment for the group.
Regarding the remaining tracks on the album, Gilmour described “One Of These Days” as “the most collaborative effort of anything we ever did”. Noting that it was a great example of the band playing off one another in just the right way. However, given the way the song develops, it’s clear why Gilmour liked the band’s collaborative approach.
Gilmour would later recall that the song began with various delay effects as the group prepared to record it. Waters added his own elements to complete the song. The track became an ideal blend of rock and roll and experimental music after Richard Wright and Nick Mason put their signatures on it. It even featured a guitar riff that could have been part of a long-lost Rolling Stones song.
Subsequently, the group proceeded to explore new creative frontiers with their subsequent release, Dark Side of the Moon. They crafted a seamless musical composition that revolved around life’s diverse facets and the preservation of humanity. Even though Gilmour and Waters would write some of the band’s best songs separately, “One Of These Days” best captures their friendship at its best.
