David Gilmour gave his honest opinion on the golden period of Pink Floyd: “I don’t see it as any positive stance”
From the onset, Pink Floyd was a complicated operation. Whether it be the Syd Barrett-led period or the one headed up by Roger Waters, the group was comprised of uncompromising characters. All of them were musical forces and had their own views on how the music should sound. Of course, this inherent friction created many iridescent sparks, but it also came with immensely fraught consequences.
While Pink Floyd pioneered a unique, very English riff on psychedelia with their spacey 1967 album The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, the following year, maverick frontman and guitarist Syd Barrett departed due to a severe decline in mental health and intense drug-taking. When working on their hotly-anticipated follow-up, A Saucerful of Secrets, the band leader’s old school friend David Gilmour was drafted in on guitar, which provided them with the key to their future. After Barrett was ousted in April 1968, the group were once again a quartet, this time led by bassist Waters, and they finished the record. In a display of how masterful each member was, all provided lead vocals on this opus.
Following the release of the widely misunderstood album, the group embarked on a period of creative experimentation that would see them refine their craft by trying and failing at several different artistic exploits. Furthermore, as their definitive, cerebral sound took shape, so did a hegemon. While all had input in the music to differing extents, during the band’s most celebrated period between 1971’s Meddle and 1979’s The Wall, Waters reigned supreme as the group’s creative director.
For a time, this was adequate, as Waters was the real driving force between the band’s masterpieces, 1973’s concept album highpoint The Dark Side of the Moon and its 1975 follow-up, Wish You Were Here, with Gilmour also vital. Following this, although 1977’s Animals is now deemed one of their best works, it was during this period when the cracks started to show within the quartet. Waters became more dictatorial to the point that it all fell apart when they were making 1979’s The Wall.
The final album to feature the band as a quartet, it saw the bassist become an autocrat, with Gilmour sidelined to an almost comical degree, and keyboardist Richard Wright fired during production but, strangely, stayed on as a salaried hired hand. These were just the tip of the iceberg, too. Accordingly, Gilmour would later call this era the group’s “worst period”.
With Waters taking a tight grip on every aspect of band operations and pouring more and more of himself and his worldview into their work, by the time The Wall arrived, the group was very different from the one that had produced a string of masterpieces earlier in the decade. As with any dictator, his term became untenable, and after the making of 1983’s The Final Cut, he was gone. The plebians had revolted, strewn up their ruler, and instituted something more akin to democracy.
It wasn’t as if the band members hadn’t made their thoughts known before Waters finally left. Speaking to The Guardian in 1978, in the midst of that strange period between Animals and The Wall, a rather dejected-sounding Gilmour poured cold water on the group’s supposed golden period. He gave his opinion about Waters dictating the entire operation.
He said: “We don’t represent anything as such. Roger is sitting around giving his ideas of what the world is about. I like what we say – though I don’t always think he says it very well. I agree with the ideas and I like making the music, but I don’t see it as any positive stance. It’s all about making music you can communicate to people with.”
