One of These Days (Pink Floyd song)

"One of These Days"
Single by Pink Floyd
from the album Meddle
B-side	"Fearless" (US & Italian single) "Seamus" (Japanese single)
Released	October 30, 1971 (US) November 5, 1971 (UK) November 29, 1971 (US single) 1971 (Italian single) 1971 (Japanese single)
Format	7"
Recorded	July 19–21, 23-25, 1971 Morgan Studios, London August 1971 AIR Studios, London
Genre	Progressive rock, hard rock
Length	5:57 5:32 (US single)
Label	Harvest (UK) Capitol (US)
Writer(s)	David Gilmour Roger Waters Richard Wright Nick Mason
Producer	Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd singles chronology
"The Nile Song" (1969) "One of These Days" (1971) "Free Four" (1972)
Meddle track listing "One of These Days" (1) "A Pillow of Winds" (2) Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd track listing "When the Tigers Broke Free" (5) "One of These Days" (6) "Us and Them" (7)

"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]

Overview

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.

Live performances

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.

Personnel

• David Gilmour – guitar, slide guitar, bass guitar (right channel)
• Roger Waters – bass guitar (left channel)
• Nick Mason – drums, backwards cymbal, vocal phrase
• Richard Wright – Hammond organ, piano, sound effects

Delicate Sound of Thunder/P•U•L•S•E tours

• David Gilmour – lap steel guitar
• Guy Pratt – bass guitar
• Nick Mason – drums, cymbal flourishes, vocal phrase (recording)
• Richard Wright – synthesizer
• Gary Wallis – percussion, extra drums on P•U•L•S•E
• Tim Renwick – guitar
• Jon Carin – synthesizer

Music video/concert visuals

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.

Cover versions

• Girls Under Glass released a version of this song on their 1995 album Crystals & Stones called "(Another) One of These Days"^[10]
• The German progressive trance project Haldolium released a cover version of this song on a 12" picture disc in 2001 on Free Form Records. Their version, which was a success throughout the worldwide goa and trance scenes, was heavily inspired by the Girls Under Glass version.^[11]
• The stoner rock band Men of Porn covered "One of These Days" on their 2001 release Experiments in Feedback.
• Blue Man Group covers this song during their How to Be a Megastar 2.0 tour in 2006. They use their Tubulum instrument to simulate the double-bass guitar effect.
• Metallica covered "One of These Days" live in Seoul in 2006.
• Psychedelic black metal band Nachtmystium included a musical homage entitled "One of These Nights" as the opening track on their 2008 album Assassins: Black Meddle, Part 1 (the album title itself is a reference to Pink Floyd's 1971 album Meddle). The song features many of the same elements of the original, but reinterpreted within a black metal idiom. It opens with wind, much like like the original, but the bass is replaced with a chugging guitar ostinato while the keyboard "stabs" feature darker harmonies. The sole lyric from the original is also changed to state: "One of these nights I'm going to fucking die."
• Gov't Mule has covered "One of These Days" live three times. The first time on October 31, 2008 at the Orpheum in Boston, on February 8, 2009 at the House of Blues in Dallas, and as the opening song at the Friday night Midnight set at Wanee Festival 2010. All three times, lead singer and guitarist Warren Haynes deliberately omitted the spoken intro line.
• German techno and trance producer Cosmic Baby, aka Harald Blüchel, produced an uncredited cover version of the song on his 1994 album Thinking About Myself, under the track title of "Au Dessous Des Nuages".
• Dream Theater covered "One of These Days" during a show in Rotterdam in 2004.

"One of These Days" in popular culture

"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]

References

1. ^ Strong, Martin C. (2004). The Great Rock Discography (7th ed.). Edinburgh: Canongate Books. p. 1177. ISBN 1-84195-551-5. 
2. ^ Mabbett, Andy (1995). The Complete Guide to the Music of Pink Floyd. London: Omnibus Press. ISBN 0-7119-4301-X. 
3. ^ Interview with David Gilmour, Guitar World, February 1993.
4. ^ 'One of These Days' section Echoes FAQ, Ver. 4.0, The Pink Floyd Fan Club.
5. ^ A Tree Full of Secrets CD#3 Track Listing, The Pink Floyd RoIO Trading Pages.
6. ^ Kendall, Charlie (1984). "Shades of Pink - The Definitive Pink Floyd Profile". The Source Radio Show. http://www.pinkfloydfan.net/t1483-gilmour-waters-mason-wright-shades.html. Retrieved 2011-07-26. 
7. ^ Meddler, The Pink Floyd RoIO Database.
8. ^ This Could Happen To You: Ikon in the 1970s, exhibition programme, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, England, July 2010.
9. ^ ^{a b c} Mabbett, Andy (2010). Pink Floyd — The Music and the Mystery. London: Omnibus Press. ISBN 9781849383707. 
10. ^ Girls Under Glass — Crystals & Stones, Discogs.
11. ^ Haldolium — One Of These Days, Discogs.
12. ^ Krisztina Czako (HUN) — 1992 Albertville, Ladies' Free Skate.
13. ^ Comic page, Sluggy Freelance.
14. ^ Little Pieces, McAfee.