The Pink Floyd songs David Gilmour hated
When you can boast a catalogue as dense and extensive as a band like Pink Floyd, the likelihood of all members loving every song written as a group is pretty slim.
Given how, towards the end of the band’s existence, there were plenty of disputes that led to members departing the band and starting decades-long feuds with one another, it’s hardly surprising that some of the material produced for records like The Final Cut isn’t widely admired by the group.
However, that doesn’t make their earlier material exempt from scorn and criticism, courtesy of those who were involved in their creation, and even though records like The Wall went on to be huge successes, you might be hard-pressed to find a member of the band who actually likes the material on that album who isn’t called Roger Waters.
Guitarist David Gilmour once took a swipe at the contents of the album in the past, calling it “too depressing” and deriding it for being unlistenable in places, but this is far from the only thing that Gilmour disliked in the Pink Floyd catalogue.
Despite being a vital part of the group for all but one album, not appearing on the debut, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, there were times when Gilmour wasn’t afraid to show his discontent with the end product of a song included on their records. Of course, members of a band are always free to voice their concerns about how their work sounds, and disagreements are bound to arise from situations like this, but many of Gilmour’s biggest gripes with certain Floyd tracks weren’t shared until long after the songs were released.
Firstly, he was left unsatisfied with one of his main contributions to the band’s 1969 album, Ummagumma, which saw each member submit songs they’d written by themselves to cover the entire second half of the double album. The track, ‘The Narrow Way’, was one that Gilmour painstakingly worked on to get right, but upon reflection, he concluded that his method of overdubbing multiple parts was totally unnecessary, claiming that he “started waffling about, tacking bits and pieces together” in an act of desperation.
He is also not the biggest fan of how the studio version of one of their most beloved live tracks turned out. ‘Echoes’, which is the final song on their 1971 album, Meddle, is seen as significant in the band’s repertoire for its inclusion in their Live at Pompeii performance and recording, and is considered by most as a masterpiece. However, Gilmour doesn’t think that their dynamic approach to letting the song evolve in a live capacity was particularly impressive in the context of a studio album.
“We were very good at jamming,” Gilmour told Mojo in 2001, “but we couldn’t translate that to a record”.
Even though Wish You Were Here is regularly cited as one of Pink Floyd’s best albums, sitting in the middle of its five-song tracklist is perhaps the weakest moment of the record, at least according to Gilmour. While ‘Have a Cigar’ was written by Waters, he initially asked Gilmour to sing lead vocals on the track, which the guitarist vehemently refused due to how the lyrics reflected an anti-music industry sentiment, which he disagreed with. The role would eventually be given to an outsider in Roy Harper to deliver, which, as it happens, Waters was none too impressed with either.
It’s understandable that Gilmour may have favourites and lesser-admired songs in the band’s output, but for him to hold such grudges against some of their work, not least his own songs, is surprising considering just how much notoriety they’ve brought to him and the band over the years.
