"Echoes" (Part 1) is a progressive rock piece by Pink Floyd, the sixth and last track on the album Meddle (1971). Written by Richard Wright, David Gilmour, Roger Waters and Nick Mason, with lyrics by Waters, it runs 23 minutes 29 seconds and fills the whole second side of the original LP. It was recorded between March and May 1971 at studios in London and grew out of experiments first titled "Nothing, Parts 1-24", then "The Son of Nothing" and "The Return of the Son of Nothing".
It opens with a piano ping passed through a Leslie speaker and a Binson Echorec, joined by Gilmour's slide guitar. Harmonised verses lead to a Gilmour solo on Stratocaster through a Fuzz Face, a funk-influenced jam, a section with Waters on slide and Gilmour's wah-wah screech, and a Wright Farfisa organ solo. The ending is a choral-sounding Shepard tone made with two tape recorders. Rolling Stone called it a 23-minute aural extravaganza, and the piece bridged the band's experimental period and mainstream success. It was a regular set piece until 1975 and appeared on Live at Pompeii (1972). Waters later accused Andrew Lloyd Webber of borrowing an instrumental from it for the theme of The Phantom of the Opera.
