“I write better music”: the Pink Floyd member David Gilmour thought wasn’t a good musician
Not every band needs to hire absolute top-level musicians to be in the group. Their limitations have defined some of the greatest artists of all time, and the best way for people to show their true capabilities is to use those limitations to their advantage whenever they write a song. Although David Gilmour admitted to not being the best guitarist ever to touch the fretboard, he felt that one of his Pink Floyd bandmates never had what it took to be a legendary musician.
Then again, the whole premise behind Pink Floyd didn’t even adhere to proper music theory half the time. Looking at what they did with Syd Barrett in their early days, half of the songs seemed to be about absolute nonsense and relied on musique concrete to make their true artistic statements.
And once Barrett left the fold, it wasn’t like the band were firing on all cylinders, either. Waters was still capable of writing decent tunes like ‘Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun’, but the more someone delves into an album like Ummagumma, the more they will start to hear brain cells rotting from all of the abject noise being shoved through their eardrums.
When the band finally got the right idea, though, no one could knock an album like Dark Side of the Moon. Not every piece of the record had the most mind-bending solos, but when produced to an absolute sheen, every piece of ‘Time’ and ‘Money’ seemed to be in the perfect place, also managing to serve as a bold commentary on what the future of society could look like if empathy were lost.
Still, Waters’s vision wasn’t about making grand spectacles. He was more about setting up a scene, and while that made for great moments on records like The Wall, it didn’t exactly make for the best single material, either, especially when he tries to act out having a mental breakdown on ‘Don’t Leave Me Now’ and sounds closer to an actor trying to go for an Oscar by crying onscreen and not being able to tear up.
Although Gilmour was still thankful for the work that he made alongside Waters, he still thought that his musical ability was severely lacking throughout his time with the group, saying, “He was our head. Roger is a great lyricist, but as a musician, he’s not so great. I think I am the better musician and I write better music. But Roger suddenly started to believe that he was the better musician.”
And it’s not like Waters’s solo career does anything to dissuade that opinion. Looking at where he went after Floyd, The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking seemed to want to do more than it was capable of at the time, and while Amused to Death was a fine idea for an album, the reason why it worked so well might be down to the fact that Jeff Beck was playing lead on a lot of the tunes.
If nothing else, the fact that Gilmour and Waters went their separate ways is a good indication of why the music ended up suffering. Gilmour may have been the more proficient musician, but Waters could frame his musical ideas into lyrical images that no one else could have done, whether in the 1970s or beyond.
