The Pink Floyd album David Gilmour doesn’t want to listen to: “It was a nightmare”
Every piece of Pink Floyd’s classic albums comes from some sort of tragedy. Whether it’s struggling with the loss of their friend, Syd Barrett, or dealing with the pressures of being one of the biggest rock stars in the world, there tends to be a lot of hurt surrounding every single record they have put out since the 1970s. David Gilmour may have been able to be the guiding light through everything, but in the aftermath of The Wall, even he had to admit that the band were entering one of their darkest periods.
Granted, after such a massive undertaking, the collective band mentality didn’t really seem to be anyone’s number-one priority anymore. Since Roger Waters took full creative control over most of the sessions, Gilmour put out a solo album around the same time to get out his own ideas while also working on albums with his recent discovery, Kate Bush.
Even though he couldn’t contribute nearly as much as he liked to massive rock opera, no one can make a song like ‘Comfortably Numb’ and not walk away proud of what they had done. In spite of all the headaches going into the recording, Gilmour turned in one of the greatest solos in rock and roll history and also a handful of great single cuts like ‘Young Lust’.
Once you give someone like Waters total control, he wasn’t suddenly going to fade into the background as a band member all over again. He now had a vision for what Pink Floyd was going to be, and The Final Cut was envisioned as The Wall: Part 2. When listening to the album, though, that title should really be The Wall: The Director’s Cut.
Instead of a fully-fleshed-out album, half of the songs feel like they were made up of outtakes from the rock opera, including the song ‘When the Tigers Broke Free’, which appeared in the film version but not on the album. So if you’re just getting into Pink Floyd and pick up this record, you’re missing half of the context behind the songs if you haven’t listened to The Wall first.
While Gilmour was proud of a few songs on the record, he admitted that it was one of the least creative times he’s ever had in the band, telling Mojo, “It dates from one of the worst periods of my life. It was a nightmare working with Roger at that time, and I’m heavily disinclined to listen to The Final Cut or anything to do with it. But ‘The Fletcher Memorial Home’ is a great song.”
That kind of strained relationship was ultimately what ended up tearing the band apart. As much as people may have liked the idea of seeing the band build on their own mythology, Waters ended up leaving Pink Floyd shortly after, leaving Gilmour to carry on with the band on his own on A Momentary Lapse of Reason.
While not every album after that is what many would call bad, there are still pieces missing that came from that internal tension between Gilmour and Waters. The Final Cut still stood as a strange addition to one of the greatest concept albums ever made, but it was also the first sign that the Pink Floyd we knew was about to crumble.
