Pink Floyd confirmed their status as one of the biggest and most adventurous bands in Britain with the release of Meddle in October 1971.

Away from the world of the singles chart that dominated my musical interests, one of the big albums of the year was Meddle by Pink Floyd. And the track everybody talked about was the 23-minute Echoes, which took up the whole of Side 2.

It’s prog without the drama, the dressing up and the show-off elements – no one felt the need to suddenly change the time signature or show off their virtuosity; nobody thought it would be a good idea to don a fox’s head, dress up as a medieval knight, or introduce a flugelhorn solo.

The song, which begins with the submarine-like ‘ping’ of a single note on Richard Wright’s piano, modified through a rotating Leslie speaker, evolves gently, naturally, experimentally; it’s more about textures and moods and subtle details. It has more in common with the avant-garde groups like Can than your ELPs and Yeses and Geneses.

Gilmour and Wright sing in the calm, melodic style that would be a trademark of the gazillion-selling Dark Side Of The Moon a couple of years later, for which this is almost a prototype.

Apparently the album began life with the title Nothings – Parts 1-24, before evolving into Son Of Nothings and, eventually, Return Of The Son Of Nothings, before someone sensibly realised that less can sometimes be more. Even in prog.

I’m pleased to learn that the album cover – a photo of a human ear underwater – was chosen after the band, communicating “by intercontinental telephone call” from their tour in Japan, vetoed the first choice of designer Storm Thorgerson at Hipgnosis, who felt strongly that it should be a close-up of a baboon’s anus.

Here are Pink Floyd performing the song in an empty amphitheatre in Pompeii – social distancing half a century before it had been invented.