The song that pushed David Gilmour into performing
Like most forward-thinking people of his generation, a young David Gilmour was galvanised by the futuristic sounds of rock’ n’ roll. It pushed him toward becoming a musical icon like his heroes and provided him with a foundation to add new skills to as popular music developed. With every passing year, he became more deeply ensconced in his craft.
Whilst he was a fan of early rock ‘n’ roll pioneers such as Hank Marvin, Bill Haley and Leadbelly, there was another who impacted the future Pink Floyd guitarist with just one song that he credits with motivating him to want to perform. This was ‘The King of Rock and Roll’ himself, Elvis Presley, and his 1956 classic, ‘Heartbreak Hotel’.
Sitting down with Johnnie Walker on BBC Radio 2 in 2002, Gilmour was asked what motivation pushed him into performing. He explained that hearing ‘Hearbreak Hotel’ when it came out was the moment that “did it for me”.
Gilmour said: “When I was young? What made me want to do it? God knows. Mmh, exhibitionism? Mmh … God, I don’t know. I loved music; when ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ came out, that’s so really, did it for me. I vowed to get a guitar and learn it. But the first time I ever performed with a guitar was a scout thing when I strummed a guitar, open, with no chord at all, when I was about 12 or so… Got’ Heartbreak Hotel’ there on Elvis’s Number 1’s? It wasn’t a number one here!”
Walker responded: “Good excuse to whack that on. Listen, thanks very much indeed for coming in.” Gilmour then provided one of his most insightful takes when he posited that ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ is “quite minimalist,” saying: “That’s quite minimalist, ‘Heartbreak Hotel’, double bass, little bit of guitar, piano – that’s not an awful lot going on, tons of atmosphere.”
This was not the last time David Gilmour would discuss the brilliance of ‘Heartbreak Hotel’. Sitting down with BBC Radio 6’s Matt Everitt on The First Time With… in 2015, the Pink Floyd leader discussed his introduction to rock ‘n’ roll once more, with him revealing that the first record he ever bought was Billy Haley and The Comets’ ‘Rock Around The Clock’.
“The first record I bought and which turned me around a bit was ‘Rock Around The Clock’ by Bill Haley, when I was ten,” Gilmour told Everitt. Before that moment, the music on the radio had all sounded the same, but there was something different about Haley’s hit. “That was the first moment to me when I thought ‘this is something new and original!” enthused the guitarist.
Whilst Haley’s song enthralled Gilmour, this feeling wouldn’t last. In a testament to the transient nature of youth, it would be overtaken by ‘Heartbreak Hotel’. “It was superseded not very long after by ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ by Elvis Presley,” he recalled, “which was a step up again, but that first moment with ‘Rock Around The Clock’… It is very hard to describe how new and revolutionary that sounded to me at the time.”
