“I didn’t have anything to offer”: The 1977 Pink Floyd album Richard Wright never liked
The testament to any classic album only comes from its replay value. Even though a tune might hold up incredibly well for one summer, it’s another matter when people revisit it and either hold it up as a staple of their childhood or something that will be hidden in a box of shame for the rest of their lives.
Although Pink Floyd is the kind of group that has questionable patches throughout their work, Richard Wright admitted that he never bothered to come back to his work on this classic album.
In the grand story of Floyd, though, Wright always seemed to get the raw end of the deal. As much as Syd Barrett has been painted as the ultimate casualty of the band’s story, Wright didn’t leave the group without a few scars, either, especially when he toured for The Wall knowing that Roger Waters was never going to invite him back into the band once their run of dates wrapped up.
Although Waters increasingly positioned himself as the band’s creative architect during that era, Wright’s quiet musical presence remained essential to Floyd’s atmosphere. Even when tensions were at their worst, his absence was immediately noticeable.
When looking at how each of them interacted live, Wright was pivotal to their sound at every turn. His original compositions may not have been as numerous compared to David Gilmour and Waters, but listening to what he added to every song, he was the glue on every one of their classics, whether it was adding those trademark harmonies alongside Gilmour on ‘Echoes’ or managing to improve upon what Waters had already made when The Wall hit the arena circuit.
But The Wall already had a lot to live up to following Floyd’s post-Dark Side of the Moon run. Now that they had the world’s ear, every one of their albums was getting pored over the same way that classical music was back in the day, whether that was them talking about the human connection or trying to make sense of the loss of Barrett on Wish You Were Here. Among that insane run, though, Animals is a bit of a different beast.
Compared to the cosmic introspection of Dark Side of the Moon or the emotional melancholy of Wish You Were Here, Animals feels far harsher and more cynical. The album captures a band growing increasingly disillusioned with both society and each other.
While Waters had been known as the conceptual heavyweight behind every album, hearing him deconstruct George Orwell’s Animal Farm for the modern age is still the best parallel he ever made with Floyd. Then again, this was the time when Waters started to keep everyone at arm’s length, and that tension in the studio led to Richard Wright not wanting to pull Animals off the shelf that often.
Despite having some strong material, Wright figured that Animals wasn’t quite right for him, saying, “I didn’t like a lot of the writing on Animals, but unfortunately, I didn’t have anything to offer. I think I played well but I remember feeling not very happy or creative, partly because of problems with my marriage. This was the beginning of my writer’s block.”
That creative paralysis would become one of the defining struggles of Wright’s later years with the band. As Waters tightened his grip over the songwriting process, Wright seemed to retreat further into the background both musically and personally.
There’s no shame in suffering from bouts of writer’s block, but what Wright performed here is actually some of his best work. None of it is nearly as flashy as what he had done on earlier albums, but hearing the way that his keyboards sink into the background of songs like ‘Dogs’ and ‘Pigs’ is exactly what those songs needed to paint a picture of the darker aspects of big business.
But seeing it from Wright’s perspective, it didn’t matter if what he played contained some of his most inspired work. For him, this was the beginning of the end, and considering that The Wall comes directly after this album, things were only going to get worse before they got better.
