Who wrote the most Pink Floyd songs?
When a band becomes universally recognised and widely beloved for its work, it’s common for people to assume that either the chemistry between members drives them along and that the songwriting process is highly collaborative or that members constantly bring their own ideas to the table and work largely separately.
The Beatles were a prime example of the latter, as despite many of their compositions being attributed to John Lennon and Paul McCartney, much of the time, it was either one or the other who was responsible for having penned a song. On the other hand, the output of bands like The Doors were entirely a collaborative process, and virtually all of the songs written in the classic line-up period before Jim Morrison’s death saw the four members share writing credits equally.
In the case of Pink Floyd, a band whose importance to progressive and psychedelic rock over the course of several decades is rarely understated, many have often questioned who was responsible for generating the bulk of the ideas, and given how much of their material was heavily built around extended instrumental passages that feel like jams, it might be reasonable to assume that the five members who were part of the band’s lineup over the course of their history were forever knocking their heads together to write their best work.
Having released 15 albums over their career, some of which are far more revered than others, the band have such a vast catalogue that saw them explore various sounds that one might think were coming from different angles, with each member adding their own personal flourishes to songs. In actual fact, the vast majority of the songwriting duties were left in the hands of bassist Roger Waters, especially when it came to writing lyrics.
There are tracks attributed to other members alone and several that were judged to have been collaborative efforts, but Waters was the root of many of the songs that would become fan favourites, such as ‘Money’ and ‘Another Brick in the Wall (Parts I-III)’. There are exceptions to this, as both Gilmour and Wright contributed songs by themselves, as did original vocalist and guitarist Syd Barrett before he departed the band in 1967. Still, Waters remains the most prolific songwriter within the ranks of Pink Floyd, having contributed 59 songs by himself during his time with the band.
How much of Pink Floyd’s material was collaborative?
The contents of Pink Floyd’s first two albums, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn and A Saucerful of Secrets, were largely written by Barrett, and the contents of the final three albums after Waters’ departure were mostly compositions by Gilmour alongside some external collaborators. On the final entry in the band’s discography, The Endless River, there are also a few moments where Nick Mason and Richard Wright were given their chance to shine, even though it was released after Wright had passed.
As we know, Waters wrote the most material by himself during his time with the band, with Gilmour only responsible for four songs on his own before Waters’ departure, Wright only having contributed six alone in the same time period and just two for Mason. However, this doesn’t cover everything the band ever released, so who came up with the rest of the songs?
While it would seem that the band were often most content penning songs alone or leaving the bulk of the work to Waters from these statistics, in actual fact there are still a number of tracks that are credited to all, or multiple members of the band.
There are 11 songs in total attributed to both Waters and Gilmour, including some of their best-known works such as ‘Wish You Were Here’ and ‘Comfortably Numb’. At the same time, there are three examples of Waters and Wright forging tracks in a collaborative effort, with ‘Us and Them’ being the most notable.
Furthermore, the band’s work on soundtracks such as More and a few songs from Obscured By Clouds, as well as numbers such as ‘Breathe’, ‘Time’ and ‘Shine on You Crazy Diamond’ have all four members’ names attached to them as writers, and in total there are 20 songs from during the period where Roger Waters was in the band that have either three or four credited writers.
This still means that he wrote the majority of the Waters era of Pink Floyd, or at least had contributions from him as a collaborator with one or more of the other members. But when the end result of his songwriting was as good as it was, you can hardly blame him for wanting to take the reins on a large portion of the band’s output.
