The final Pink Floyd song David Gilmour and Roger Waters collaborated on
There is no feud in the realm of rock music as long-running or hostile as that between Pink Floyd frontman David Gilmour and the band’s ex-creative director, Roger Waters. Although they once seemed unbreakably close, penning numerous classic tracks together that range from ‘Echoes’ to ‘Wish You Were Here’, the two musicians have been at loggerheads since Waters’ acrimonious departure from the band in 1985.
The 1983 album The Final Cut signalled the end of the band’s classic lineup. During that bleak chapter, Waters was mainly in control of proceedings. Gilmour was relegated to session guitarist, keyboardist Rick Wright had already left during the making of 1979’s The Wall, and drummer Nick Mason was largely absent due to a growing love of racing motorcars and a collapsing relationship.
The story of The Final Cut is well-known, given that it was where Waters and Gilmour’s relationship passed the point of no return. Things then reached fever pitch in October 1986 when Waters launched high court proceedings to try and dissolve the band, believing they could not continue on without him, although he was ultimately proven wrong. The pair would briefly put their differences aside for a surprise reunion show at 2005’s Live 8, but now that’s just a distant memory, with both recently trading intense – and very public – barbs.
Attempting to put the feud between Gilmour and Waters into context, Nick Mason told Rolling Stone in 2018: “It’s a really odd thing in my opinion. But I think the problem is Roger doesn’t really respect David. He feels that writing is everything and that guitar playing and the singing are something that, I won’t say anyone can do, but that everything should be judged on the writing rather than the playing. I think it rankles with Roger that he made a sort of error in a way that he left the band assuming that without him, it would fold.”
He added: “It’s a constant irritation, really, that he’s still going back to it. I’m hesitant to get too stuck into this one, just because it’s between the two of them rather than me. I actually get along with both of them, and I think it’s really disappointing that these rather elderly gentlemen are still at loggerheads.”
Whilst there are many moments of note in the Gilmour and Waters saga, today we’re remembering the “last” song the pair worked on collaboratively, according to David Gilmour. It also happens to be one of their most revered, ‘Comfortably Numb’, from The Wall, which is so potent that it was released as a single in 1980.
Interviewed in Mark Blake’s 2008 book Comfortably Numb: The Inside Story of Pink Floyd, Gilmour reflected that the track arrived as “the last embers of mine and Roger’s ability to work collaboratively together”. What a way to bow out it was, too, featuring some of the best work by Gilmour and Waters.
It’s an interesting point, as even this collaborative triumph wasn’t without its share of bickering. Gilmour later said: “We argued over ‘Comfortably Numb’ like mad. Really had a big fight, went on for ages”.
Elsewhere, talking to Absolute Radio in 2011, Waters recalled the argument that spawned one of Pink Floyd’s classic tracks. He said: “Dave and I, when we were in the South of France where we did most of the recording for The Wall, we had quite a serious disagreement about the recording of ‘Comfortably Numb’.”
He continued: “It’s probably one story where his memory and my memory are almost exactly the same. It was that we had made a rhythm track and I loved it and he thought it wasn’t precise enough rhythmically, so (he) re-cut the drum track and said, ‘That’s better’, so I went, ‘No, it’s not, I hate that.'”
Touching on the nuances inherent to writing music collaboratively, Waters said: “It’s a very strange thing when you’re a musician and you work in these things, there are things to a layman which may seem like nothing that (are) is really glaring and jarring. Though, I did read that David said somewhere or other that if we listened to them both now, we wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference.”
While on record, it ranks as one of the finest moments of The Wall; it was performing the song live that the vision of the track truly came to life. Gilmour’s solo was front and centre. During a performance, Roger Waters arrives at the stage bathed in the spotlight before the end of the opening verse as it fades out. Next thing you know, the chorus begins from David Gilmour placed around 30 feet up in the air with lights shining from behind him on to the audience; he begins his career-defining solo. As that ends and the audience erupts with praise, the lights go out, and we’re directed back to Waters.
Another similar interchange begins with the second verse as Gilmour again takes his place at the top of the wall. Another starring solo sees the crowd open-mouthed in admiration for the guitarist as he wails on his guitar. It’s a typification of how Floyd transferred their mammoth creativity into both the studio and the live show. Arguably the band’s most famous song, it’s hard to fight its position as our favourite.
Listen to ‘Comfortably Numb’ below.
