The passing of Pink Floyd’s Richard Wright still remains a painful subject at Listening Post. But coupled with the earlier and still saddening loss of sci-fi titan Arthur C. Clarke, it is nearly unbearable.

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And eerie, considering that Pink Floyd’s mind-blowing "Echoes," written by all of the band members long before petty divisions tore them apart, was a perfect soundtrack to Clarke and Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Pink Floyd’s seminal Meddle was the first release in what was to be the band’s storied run at the record books, and "Echoes" commanded the entire second half of the album. It is an epic without peer in rock, which hordes of resourceful fans would eventually mash in near-perfect synchronization with 2001‘s storied finale "Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite."

The phenomenon boasts its own fan site

and Wikipedia mention. And while the band never came out and declared "Echoes" an intentional soundtrack to Clarke and Kubrick’s film, Nicholas Schaffner’s biography Saucerful of Secrets: A Pink Floyd Odyssey did little to beat down the rumors of a direct connection.

"Roger Waters, yet to balk at the sci-fi association, went so far as to say his ‘greatest regret’ was that they didn’t do the score for 2001: A Space Odyssey," the book explains, "parts of which, particularly in the long, mind-blowing hallucinatory sequence near the end, nonetheless sound remarkably Floydian."

In honor of Wright’s memory and compositional accomplishments, and thanks to the glorious wonder of YouTube, I present the synchronization here for your viewing pleasure.

It’s hard to watch these clips without thinking of Wright’s passing on Monday. Here’s hoping he’s a happy space baby manning the synths at the Great Gig in the Sky.

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