A Pillow of Winds

"A Pillow of Winds"
Song by Pink Floyd
from the album Meddle
Released5 November 1971
Recorded21 March – July 1971
StudioEMI Studios, AIR Studios, Morgan Studios, London
Genre
Length5:13
LabelHarvest
Songwriters
ProducerPink Floyd

"A Pillow of Winds" is a song by the English rock band Pink Floyd, the second track from their sixth studio album Meddle (1971). The song, initially known as "Dave's Guitar Thing", was recorded and produced at EMI, AIR, and Morgan Studios between March and July 1971. Written by David Gilmour and Roger Waters, it is a slow, psychedelic, acoustic, and pastoral love ballad. Its title comes from the Chinese tile game mahjong, which Waters, Nick Mason and their wives played.

After Meddle's release on 5 November 1971, critics praised the soft and acoustic sound of "A Pillow of Winds", but were more mixed about Waters' lyrics. Robert Christgau lamented the use of the word "behold" in the third verse while Daniel Griffiths praised it for not using love clichés.

Recording and production

Recording of "A Pillow of Winds", known at that time as "Dave's Guitar Thing", started on 21 March 1971 at EMI Studios (now known as Abbey Road Studios) with Peter Brown as the audio engineer and John Leckie as the assistant audio engineer. The first take that was recorded was used as the base track for the final song. On March 25, additional guitar and vibraphone tracks were recorded and, perhaps, when Gilmour recorded electric slide guitar parts. On 30 March, the Abbey Road Studios 8-track tape was copied to the 16-track tape and moved to AIR Studios, where some of the sessions took place. Brown and Leckie continued to fulfill their roles, finishing the transition between "One of These Days" and "A Pillow of Winds". It was finished at Morgan Studios in July 1971 with Rob Black as the audio engineer and Roger Quested as his assistant.[1]

Music and lyrics

Spanning a length of five minutes and thirteen seconds,[2] "A Pillow of Winds" is a slow,[3] psychedelic acoustic,[4] song attributed to Roger Waters and David Gilmour[2] that, in its musical and lyrical themes, has been described by critics as a love and pastoral ballad.[5] According to writers Jean-Michel Guesdon and Philippe Margotin, the themes suit Gilmour's style of folk and country music.[2] Along with "Fearless" from the same album, it was the first song co-written by Gilmour and Waters since the 1968 song "Point Me at the Sky".[6] The track from Meddle starts off with a transition from the previous track, "One of These Days", as the song's wind synthesised by an EMS VCS-3 fades out.[7] It is followed by arpeggios, played by two acoustics and one electric guitar,[2] and accompanied by Richard Wright's Hammond organ and vibraphone along with Nick Mason's hi-hat.[8] To author Mick Cormack, the song features no real tune achieved through arpeggios and the acoustic guitar's nylon strings, which together give off a "droning, slumbering feeling".[9] Gilmour's lead vocal is performed in a sleepy-sounding tone[10]—Mark Blake assumes that the tone might suggest that the song's protagonist is going through a cannabis-induced sleep.[11]

The title stems from the Chinese tile game mahjong, which was regularly played by Waters, Mason, and their wives Judith Trim and Lindy Rutter in the south of France.[12] Guesdon and Margotin feel that Waters' lyrics give a feeling of peace, calmness and harmony. Furthermore, they argue that the lyrics can be seen "as a hymn of praise [...] to the all-powerful sun".[2] Pitchfork's Andy Cush noticed a similarity, whether intentional or not, between the first lines of the song: "A cloud of eiderdown draws around me, softening the sound; sleepytime, and I lie with my love by my side, and she's breathing low"; and the lyrics of "Flaming" from the group's debut album The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (1967), in which former member Syd Barrett sings: "Alone in the clouds all blue, lying on an eiderdown".[13]

Release and reception

"A Pillow of Winds" was released by Harvest Records on 5 November 1971 as the second track of the group's sixth studio album, Meddle.[14]

In a contemporary review, Jean-Charles Costa of Rolling Stone describes "A Pillow of Winds", along with another track from Meddle, "San Tropez", as "ozone ballads" [...]; "pleasant little acoustic numbers hovering over a bizarre back-drop of weird sounds".[15] The 1972 review by Circus' Ed Kelleher calls it "softly hypnotic", and praises Wright's organ and Gilmour's guitars as cornerstones, arguing that the song drifts around them.[16] Waters' lyrics received mixed reception among critics: Beats per Minute reviewer Daniel Griffiths praises Waters for not using love clichés and instead letting it "sound inherently Pink Floyd, regardless of the subject matter".[17] On the other hand, Robert Christgau laments the song's lyrics in his book Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981), heavily criticising the use of the word "behold" in the third verse and suggests for them to never use it again.[18] Andy Mabbett notes that the song was never performed live, suggesting that this led to its perception as a filler.[19]

Personnel

According to Guesdon and Margotin:[2]

Notes

Wikiquote has quotations related to A Pillow of Winds.

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Guesdon and Margotin theorise that Waters could have helped Gilmour by playing one of the acoustic guitars.

Citations

  1. ↑ Guesdon & Margotin 2017, pp. 244–245.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Guesdon & Margotin 2017, p. 244.
  3. ↑ Hart & Morrison 2022, p. 32.
  4. ↑ Beato & Gilmour 2025, 1:23:03–1:24:00 "Beato: To me that sounds psychedelic, Gilmour: Yeah, nice little acoustic thing, '[A] Pillow of Winds"; Reed 2012
  5. ↑ Griffiths 2012: romantic; Erlewine 2001, p. 307 & Mabbett & Charlesworth 1995, p. 40: pastoral; Hart & Morrison 2022, p. 32 & Guesdon & Margotin, p. 244: ballad
  6. ↑ Guesdon & Margotin 2017, p. 234; Blake 2008, p. 161.
  7. ↑ Jones 1996, p. 82; Reisch 2011, p. 8; Guesdon & Margotin 2017, p. 245
  8. 1 2 3 4 Guesdon & Margotin 2017, p. 245.
  9. ↑ Cormack 2024, p. 109.
  10. ↑ Jones 1996, p. 82; Blake 2008, p. 161.
  11. ↑ Blake 2008, p. 161.
  12. ↑ Mason 2004, p. 156; Guesdon & Margotin 2017, p. 244.
  13. ↑ Cush 2020.
  14. ↑ Povey 2007, p. 344.
  15. ↑ Costa 1972.
  16. ↑ Kelleher 1972.
  17. ↑ Griffiths 2012.
  18. ↑ Christgau 1981, p. 303.
  19. ↑ Mabbett & Charlesworth 1995, p. 40.

Works cited

Books

  • Blake, Mark (2008). Pigs Might Fly: The Inside Story of Pink Floyd. Minneapolis: Quarto Publishing Group UK. ISBN 978-1-84513-748-9 – via the Internet Archive.
  • Guesdon, Jean-Michel; Margotin, Philippe (2017). Elliott, Richard George; Smith, Jackie (eds.). Pink Floyd: All the Songs: The Story Behind Every Track. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers. ISBN 978-0-316-43924-4 – via the Internet Archive.
  • Cormack, Mike (2024). Everything under the Sun: The Complete Guide to Pink Floyd. London: History Press Limited, The. ISBN 978-1-80399-535-9.
  • Mason, Nick (7 October 2004). Inside Out: A Personal History of Pink Floyd. Weidenfeld & Nicolson Illustrated. ISBN 0-7538-1906-6 – via the Internet Archive.
  • Reisch, George A. (2011). Pink Floyd and Philosophy: Careful with that Axiom, Eugene!. New York: Open Court. ISBN 978-0-8126-9745-2.
  • Hart, Chris; Morrison, Simon A. (2022). The Routledge handbook to Pink Floyd. London New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-000-64956-7.
  • Jones, Cliff (1996). Another Brick in the Wall: The Stories Behind Every Pink Floyd Song (3rd ed.). Carlton Books Limited. ISBN 978-1-8586-8849-7.
  • Mabbett, Andy; Charlesworth, Chris (1995). The Complete Guide to the Music of Pink Floyd. London: Omnibus. ISBN 978-0-7119-4301-8.
  • Povey, Glenn (2007). Echoes : The Complete History of Pink Floyd (New ed.). Mind Head Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9554624-0-5.
  • Bogdanov, Vladimir; Woodstra, Chris; Erlewine, Stephen Thomas (2001). All Music Guide (4th ed.). San Francisco: Hal Leonard Corporation. ISBN 978-0-87930-627-4 – via allmusic.com.
  • Christgau, Robert (1981). "Consumer Guide '70s: P". Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies. Ticknor & Fields. ISBN 089919026X. Archived from the original on 6 April 2019. Retrieved 10 March 2019 – via robertchristgau.com.

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