| "One of These Days" | |||||||||||||||||||
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| Single by Pink Floyd | |||||||||||||||||||
| from the album Meddle | |||||||||||||||||||
| B-side | "Fearless" (US & Italian single) "Seamus" (Japanese single) |
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| Released | October 30, 1971 (US) November 5, 1971 (UK) November 29, 1971 (US single) 1971 (Italian single) 1971 (Japanese single) |
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| Format | 7" | ||||||||||||||||||
| Recorded | July 19–21, 23-25, 1971 Morgan Studios, London August 1971 AIR Studios, London |
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| Genre | Progressive rock, hard rock | ||||||||||||||||||
| Length | 5:57 5:32 (US single) |
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| Label | Harvest (UK) Capitol (US) |
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| Writer(s) | David Gilmour Roger Waters Richard Wright Nick Mason |
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| Producer | Pink Floyd | ||||||||||||||||||
| Pink Floyd singles chronology | |||||||||||||||||||
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"One of These Days" is the opening track from Pink Floyd's 1971 album Meddle.[1][2] The song is instrumental except for a distorted, low voice that says "One of these days I'm going to cut you into little pieces" and features double-tracked bass guitars played by David Gilmour and Roger Waters. Waters' bass is panned hard left with Gilmour's fading into the right channel. Gilmour's bass sound is quite muted and dull. According to Gilmour, this is because that particular instrument had old strings on it, and the roadie they had sent to get new strings for it wandered off to see his girlfriend instead.[3]
Contents |
The track opens with a "wind sound" emulated by means of a delayed wind drum slowed down to half speed. The ending solo on the left speaker is David Gilmour playing a regular guitar solo duelling with himself, via multi-tracking, playing slide on right speaker.
The threat, a rare vocal contribution by Nick Mason, was recorded through a ring modulator and slowed down to create an eerie effect. It was aimed at Sir Jimmy Young, the then BBC Radio 1 and Radio 2 DJ whom the band supposedly disliked because of his tendency to babble. During early 1970s concerts, they sometimes played a sound collage of clips from Young's radio show that was edited to sound completely nonsensical, thus figuratively "cutting him into little pieces".[4] The bootleg compilation A Treeful of Secrets contains a demo version of "One of These Days" in which the Jimmy Young collage loops in the background during the song. However, the authenticity of this demo has not been confirmed.[5]
'Possibly the most interesting thing about "One of These Days" is that it actually stars myself as vocalist, for the first time on any of our records that actually got to the public. It's a rather startling performance involving the use of a high voice and slowed down tape.'— Nick Mason, [6]
According to John Peel, Waters has described "One of These Days" as a "poignant appraisal of the contemporary social situation".[7] Gilmour has stated that he considers the song the most collaborative piece ever produced by the group.
A film, 'French Windows', was made by Ian Emes,[8][9] set to the piece and featuring people and gibbons dancing against various backgrounds. It was back-projected by Pink Floyd during live performances[9] and shown on television. It has since been released as an "extra" on the band's Pulse DVD.[9]
The Japanese release of this song was titled 吹けよ風、呼べよ嵐 (fuke yo kaze, yobe yo arashi), which loosely translates to "Blow, Wind! Call Forth, Storm!" This is the only song on the Japanese release of Meddle to receive an alternate titling.
The song was a concert staple on the band's 1971–1973 and 1987–1994 tours. The Live at Pompeii version was retitled as "One of These Days I'm Going to Cut You into Little Pieces", the full spoken threat.
It was resurrected for the group's 1987/1988/1989 A Momentary Lapse of Reason world tour and 1994 The Division Bell tour, performed by David Gilmour on lap steel guitar, Tim Renwick on rhythm guitar, Guy Pratt on bass, Richard Wright and Jon Carin on keyboards, with Nick Mason and Gary Wallis on drums and percussion. It was included on the Delicate Sound of Thunder and Pulse albums and videos released respectively in 1988 and 1995, but is absent from the Pulse CD and iTunes editions.
Delicate Sound of Thunder/P•U•L•S•E tours
The music video is extremely psychedelic and shows odd things, including: boys doing ballet, French curve-like shapes, cuboids, clocks, a spinning visual similar to that of the title sequence to Doctor Who (in fact, there is a direct musical quote of the theme from Doctor Who at around 2:35 and another at 3:05 into the track) and a swirling vortex with boxes floating above it (which is where the eerie threat is spoken). It was included in Fantastic Animation Festival under the title "French Windows".
Another promo video was used to promote Delicate Sound of Thunder and got brief airing on MTV in 1989. It showed the band performing the track on stage at Nassau Coliseum and shots of the inflatable pig that flew over the audience during the song in the show. The end of the clip blacks out instead of segueing into "Time" like on the Delicate Sound of Thunder video.
"One of These Days" has been used in various sporting contexts. It is the entrance music of Abdullah the Butcher (Larry Shreve), a professional wrestler best known from WCW in the early 1990s. Hungarian figure skater Krisztina Czakó used "One of These Days" (along with "Shine On You Crazy Diamond")[12] as the music for her long program at the 1992 Winter Olympics, one of the few times that a classic rock song has ever been featured in an elite-level ice skating competition. Additionally, Frank Zane used the song as his posing music at the 1983 Mr. Olympia competition. For many years, the Italian sports show Dribbling also used the song as its opening theme.
The song can also be found in other media. In the webcomic Sluggy Freelance story arc "Fire and Rain", the only arc to feature a "soundtrack" of sorts, Oasis makes a reference to the song, stating that she is "gonna cut [Zoe] into little pieces." Under the dialogue is a caption reading "'One of These Days' by Pink Floyd."[13] The song is played during the ending credits of The Sopranos episode "The Fleshy Part of the Thigh" and is used in the Cosmos: A Personal Voyage episode "The Lives of Stars". A 1973 Bruce Lee documentary entitled The Man and the Legend used the song, as well as the BBC drama Life on Mars.
In another more unique instance, a 1991 computer virus called "Little Pieces" cleared the victim's screen and displayed the message "One of these days I'm going to cut you into little pieces," referring to the sole lyric of the song.[14]
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