Who Wrote the Lyrics for 'Echoes'? The Waters-Gilmour Split and How the Instrumentals Shaped the Words

The line “Strangers passing in the street, by chance two separate glances meet” is pure Roger Waters. While the music for Meddle’s centerpiece was a group jam—Gilmour, Wright, Mason, and Waters all contributed instrumental ideas—the lyrics were entirely Waters’ domain. He later said the song was about “the potential for human connection in a disconnected world,” a theme he’d revisit more cynically on The Wall.

The instrumental sections didn’t just support the lyrics; they dictated where the lyrics could go. The band had already recorded the long, free-form middle section (the submarine ping, the seagull-like slide guitar, the brooding keyboard break) before Waters wrote any words. That meant his verses had to bookend the song—only at the beginning and the end—leaving a huge, wordless expanse in the middle. Waters later admitted he preferred it that way, because the instruments could say what language couldn’t.

So the structure is reversed from most songs: