Echoes: The 23-Minute Space Rock Epic That Defines Pink Floyd's Atmospheric Sound

If you want another Pink Floyd song that floats in the same cosmic haze as “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun,” go straight to “Echoes” from Meddle (1971). Both tracks lean into that slow-burning, keyboard-heavy drift that makes you feel like you’re watching a galaxy form—but “Echoes” stretches that feeling into a full 23-minute trip. Richard Wright’s swirling Hammond organ and the weird, resonant “ping” at the beginning are pure space rock architecture.

“Echoes” anchors side two of Meddle, an album that saw the band figuring out their post-Syd identity. The song was built from a single note played through a Leslie rotating speaker, then evolved into shifting sections that cover everything from eerie underwater imagery to a heavy, distorted middle jam. It’s the first real masterpiece of the Gilmour-Waters-Wright-Mason lineup, and live versions (like the one on Pompeii in 1972 turned into a literal space opera)