‘Lost for Words’: Pink Floyd’s parting shot at Roger Waters
In the realm of good dynamics gone bad, Pink Floyd is probably the torchbearer. From the very beginning, the band members experienced ongoing disagreements, leading to fallouts, firings, and long-standing feuds that were impossible to resolve. Even today, Roger Waters and David Gilmour remain at odds, showing that despite the enduring appeal of their music, their partnership was far from a match made in heaven.
Somewhat frustratingly, the root of the issue differs for each band member. For Gilmore, it began when he realised Waters didn’t respect his ideas and vision, but for Waters, Gilmore has always been a nit-picky collaborator who is more concerned with sparking fights than getting things done. Whatever the truth may be, their refusal to bury the hatchet ignited a career-long tiff that significantly impacted the creative process.
While recording The Final Cut, for instance, Waters refused to allow Gilmour any contributions, perpetuating their estrangement and resulting in an album that was arguably their worst effort yet. Even as soloists and away from Pink Floyd, the pair can’t seem to move past their mutual distaste for one another. In fact, Gilmour has fired various shots at his ex-bandmate on various occasions, like implying “you always have to disagree” in his emotionally charged track ‘You Know I’m Right’.
Even The Division Bell, which came almost a decade after Waters left the band, contains various grievances aimed at the former frontman, showing that no matter the circumstance, any opportunity to dismiss Waters was Gilmour’s for the taking. On the track ‘Lost For Words’, Gilmour took a shot at Waters’ decision to decline a chance to rejoin the band for what he assumed would be their final record together.
Looking at the lyrics, it seems as though Gilmour had unexpectedly experienced a moment of softness and decided he wanted Waters to return to mark the band’s final curtain call, but instead of responding in a similarly open-minded fashion, Waters rejected the offer, which Gilmour interpreted as another trigger for their unrelenting mutual hatred. “So I open my door to my enemies and I ask, could we wipe the slate clean?” Gilmour sings, “But they tell me to please go fuck k myself. You know, you just can’t win.”
To take this a step further, the band decided to include an image of boxing gloves in the album’s liner notes and a boxing commentator announcing, “Winner! By a knockout” in the interlude to ‘Lost For Words’. While there could be various potential interpretations of this, it’s clear that the choice to include such a suggestive line reflected the band’s desire to get to Waters and remind him who, after everything, is the real “winner”.
Many feuds between former band members are often resolved after a few months or years when both parties decide they no longer have to waste energy on keeping up their stern faces. However, others, like Waters and Gilmour, seem to be fixated on dragging the other to the bitter end, no matter what it takes to get there. In their case, therefore, it seems reconciliation is never on the table, given their inherent musically and politically undisputable disagreements.
