The one band David Gilmour admitted Pink Floyd “ripped off”
When thinking about the mercurial musical maestros known as Pink Floyd, a myriad of adjectives come to mind: mystical, avant-garde, defiant, and transcendental. Yet, above all else, one word underpins everything the band did—uniqueness. The combined talent of Syd Barrett, David Gilmour, Roger Waters, Richard Wright, and Nick Mason was so immense that it seemed every note they produced came directly from their own minds. However, that wasn’t always the case.
David Gilmour famously noted of his guitar playing that he copied all of his favourite players when learning his craft. “I copied – don’t be afraid to copy – and eventually something that I suppose that I would call my own appeared,” he shared as a piece of crucial advice for young instrumentalists starting out. Even with that notion, it still feels odd that Gilmour would boldly claim to rip off one of his favourite bands.
Alongside Jimi Hendrix and Paul McCartney, David Gilmour is in total awe of Ray Davies’ songwriting and has nothing but superlatives to say about the Londoner. However, he accidentally took his appreciation too far on a Pink Floyd song, which he admits “ripped off” The Kinks.
On several occasions, Gilmour has praised The Kinks and their unique ability to bring the sounds of kitchen sink Britain to a mass international audience. He has a particularly soft place in his heart for ‘Waterloo Sunset’. If London were to have its own anthem, it would be this song, and it’s a track the Pink Floyd singer said he wishes he’d written.
In 2003, Gilmour appeared on the BBC Radio 4 programme Desert Island Discs. While on the show and picking out eight discs he would take with him to an inescapable island, he explained what ‘Waterloo Sunset’ meant to him and named it one of his favourite songs of all time. He said the perfect time to listen to the track would be while “on a lovely warm beach, to listen to this in ‘somewhere else’ sunset, and missing London would be a wonderful moment”.
‘Waterloo Sunset’ evokes intense memories of the place he’s called home for the majority of his life, and even if he’s on a beach on the other side of the world, if Gilmour closes his eyes, he’s back on the Thames. Additionally, during the premiere of his concert film, Remember That Night – Live At The Royal Albert Hall, Gilmour said: “For me, the perfect pop song is ‘Waterloo Sunset’ by the Kinks. I would have loved to have written that.” Given the breadth of music Gilmour has given the world with Pink Floyd, naming a track he would love to have penned is an indelible sense of his appreciation for the track.
In an interview with Uncut in 2015, Gilmour was reflecting upon his back catalogue and spoke about the influence The Kinks have had upon his songwriting. He highlighted ‘Fat Old Sun’ from Pink Floyd’s 1970 album Atom Heart Mother and admitted to subconsciously channelling his inner Ray Davies on the track.
“It’s one of those songs where the whole thing fell together very easily,” Gilmour explained. “I remember thinking at the time, ‘What have I ripped this off? I’m sure it’s by the Kinks or someone…’ But since whenever it was – 1968, ’69 – no one has ever yet said, ‘It’s exactly like this.’ it’s a nice lyric, I’m very happy with that.”
It’s a track Gilmour has a strong affinity for, even though his Pink Floyd bandmates don’t feel the same. In an interview with BBC Radio 2 in 2002, he described the track as “fantastically overlooked”. In the same interview, Gilmour revealed he “tried very hard” to convince his bandmates to put it on their greatest hits album, Echoes, but they “weren’t having it”.
Gilmour has never been afraid to incorporate his inspirations into his work. Like countless musicians before him, he channels the very best of the things he has loved in his life into his music. However, on this occasion, he may have overstepped the mark just a little—even if nobody noticed.
