SAD NEWS: After not playing for long pink Floyd finally decided to announce…..
David Gilmour Might Not Play Roger Waters-Era Pink Floyd Songs at Future Shows
David Gilmour is full of news lately, especially after announcing his first new album in nine years last week.
To begin with, the guitar icon announced six upcoming shows at London’s Royal Albert Hall. According to his website, these shows are his first live gigs in London in eight years. They will take place October 9, 10, 11, 12, 14 and 15 and will go on sale to the general public on Friday, May 10 at 10 AM BST via Ticketmaster.
However, it appears these shows may not feature Gilmour playing some of Pink Floyd’s biggest songs. He told Uncut (h/t Neptune Pink Floyd) in a new interview that he has “an unwillingness to revisit the Pink Floyd of the ‘70s.”
Furthermore, Gilmour expressed he’s more likely to revisit Pink Floyd material from the ’60s, 1987’s A Momentary Lapse of Reason and 1994’s The Division Bell. Gilmour particularly singled out the later album’s closing track, “High Hopes,” which he called “as good as anything we ever did at any time.”
Of course, Gilmour’s resistance to playing ’70s-era Pink Floyd songs may have to do with his ongoing feud with Roger Waters, who was Floyd’s primary creative force during that time. This war of words has also included Gilmour’s wife and longtime collaborator, Polly Sampson.
Details on David Gilmour’s New Album
Gilmour’s new album, Luck and Strange, comes out on September 6. A full tracklist is below, and the album is available for pre-order in a variety of formats at DavidGilmour.com.
The album announcement states Luck and Strange was recorded during a five-month period and produced by Gilmour and Charlie Andrew. Gilmour said of working with Andrew, “He’s very direct and not in any way overawed, and I love that. That is just so good for me because the last thing you want is people just deferring to you.”
As expected, lyrics were written by Polly Samson, Gilmour’s wife and collaborator for the past three decades. The overall theme of the album addresses growing older and how mortality is often top of mind as someone ages.
A number of musicians are featured on Luck and Strange, but Pink Floyd fans will be thrilled to find out the late keyboardist Richard Wright can be heard on the album’s title track. Wright’s recording is from a jam session in a barn on Gilmour’s residential property back in 2007.
The album’s first video for “The Piper’s Call” can be seen below.
David Gilmour – Luck and Strange – Tracklisting
Black Cat
Luck and Strange
The Piper’s Call
A Single Spark
Vita Brevis
Between Two Points (With Romany Gilmour)
Dark and Velvet Nights
Sings
Scattered
40. “Southampton Dock” from ‘The Final Cut’ (1983)
Like much of ‘The Final Cut,’ it’s effectively a Roger Waters solo piece: Roger sings, plays acoustic guitar and bass on this song, and is accompanied by Michael Kamen on piano and “orchestrations.” Waters was obsessed with the human cost of war on this album (and many that preceded it, and on his subsequent solo albums). His lyrics here are heartbreaking: “She stands upon Southampton dock /With her handkerchief /And her summer frock clings /To her wet body in the rain /In quiet desperation knuckles /White upon the slippery reins /She bravely waves the boys ‘goodbye’ again.”
39. “On The Turning Away” from ‘A Momentary Lapse Of Reason’ (1987)
38. “Outside The Wall” from ‘The Wall’ (1979)
37. “Sheep” from ‘Animals’ (1977)
36. “The Trial” from ‘The Wall’ (1979)
Co-written by Waters with Michael Kamen, who conducted the orchestra on the track, it’s not just a “rock opera” – it sounds like an actual opera piece. The epic composition concludes Pink’s story in ‘The Wall.” At the trial, Waters plays five different roles: the prosecutor, the schoolmaster, Pink’s wife, Pink’s mother, and the judge (who was comically grotesque – if you’ve seen the film, you know what we mean).
35. “Lucifer Sam” from ‘The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn’ (1967)
From the band’s debut album, it was written by their original leader, Syd Barrett. Who is “Lucifer Sam?” Barrett’s cat! The song starts with the singer introducing him: “Lucifer Sam, siam cat.” While Floyd’s later era is their most popular one, the Barrett era is beloved by many as well: the Black Crowes, the Flaming Lips and Bauhaus covered this song. And these days, you can see Floyd drummer Nick Mason’s band Saucerful of Secrets playing it live.
34. “Run Like Hell” from ‘The Wall’ (1979)
One of the last songs on ‘The Wall,’ it sees Pink, the rock star hallucinating about becoming a fascist leader and turning the audience at his concert into an angry mob. The segment in the film is incredibly disturbing. Musically, the song, like “Another Brick In The Wall, Part 2” is influenced by some of the contemporary disco of the era.
33. “Arnold Layne” (single release, 1967)
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The band’s first single, it was written by Syd Barrett. It was about a transvestite who enjoyed stealing women’s clothing – specifically, lingerie. Waters has said that it was based on a real person.
32. “Is There Anybody Out There?” from ‘The Wall’ (1979)
A simple and devastating song. It starts out with Waters pleading, “Is there anybody out there?” over a synthesizer drone and sound effects. The second half of the song is a plaintive classical guitar piece backed by an orchestra. Five words, less than three minutes and it somehow perfectly describes loneliness.31. “If” from ‘Atom Heart Mother’ (1970)
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Written and sung by Waters, it sees him exploring isolation and loneliness nearly a decade before ‘The Wall.’ Back then, he was introspective. “If I were a good man, I’d talk to you more often than I do,” is a hell of a line. So is “If I were a good man, I’d understand the spaces between friends.” He might have been thinking of Barrett here (the memory of Barrett haunted ‘Wish You Were Here’ as well). “If I go insane, please don’t put your wires in my brain” is haunting, in retrospect. As is “If I go insane, will you still let me join in with the game?” Waters was allegedly the guy who decided to push Barrett out of the band a few years earlier.
30. “Goodbye Blue Sky” from ‘The Wall’ (1979)
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A quick song that encapsulates the horrors and effects of war, even for those too young to remember it. Gilmour sings, “Did you see the frightened ones? Did you hear the falling bombs? The flames are all long gone/But the pain lingers on.” It’s something that Waters addressed often on ‘The Wall.’ Waters’ father died in World War II when Roger was just a few months old; you can see this influence throughout the storyline of ‘The Wall.’ David Gilmour plays acoustic guitar, bass and sings over Waters and Richard Wright’s synths to haunting and mournful effect.
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29. “Dogs” from ‘Animals’ (1977)
A 17-minute epic that likens the behavior of modern business to the way that wild dogs act. Gilmour sings the first half of the song, detailing an existence that is all about winning and devoid of any sense of honor: “After a while, you can work on points for style/Like the club tie, and the firm handshake/A certain look in the eye and an easy smile/You have to be trusted by the people that you lie to/So that when they turn their backs on you,/You’ll get the chance to put the knife in.” Of course, eventually “You gotta keep one eye looking over your shoulder.” That’s because “It’s going to get harder, and harder, and harder as you get older.” Finally, “you’ll pack up and fly down south/Hide your head in the sand/Just another sad old man/All alone and dying of cancer.” In the second half of the song, Waters takes the mic and the narrator seems to timeshift back to when he was in the thick of the business world (“I gotta admit that I’m a little bit confused/Sometimes it seems to me as if I’m just being used.”) He concludes with an origin story of sorts: describing the type of person who would end up being drawn into such a cut-throat world: “Who was told what to do by the man/Who was broken by trained personnel/Who was fitted with collar and chain/Who was given a pat on the back/Who was breaking away from the pack/Who was only a stranger at home.” In a catalog of dark songs, this is surely one of the darkest.
28. “Empty Spaces”/”Young Lust” from ‘The Wall’ (1979)
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There are a lot of rock songs about the loneliness of a rock star, but “Empty Spaces” really nails it in just over two minutes and in less than thirty words. Even if you’re not rich and famous, this is a devastating line: “What shall we use to fill the empty spaces where we used to talk?” The song then goes into “Young Lust,” the closest Pink Floyd ever got to AC/DC territory. The narrator is looking for a female companion for the night. But there’s a cost: at the end of the night, the narrator Pink (“Mr. Floyd”) calls his wife and she doesn’t take the call.
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27. “Careful With That Axe, Eugene (live)” from ‘Ummagumma’ (1969)
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Co-written by Roger Waters, Richard Wright, David Gilmour and Nick Mason, it was originally released as the b-side to “Point Me At The Sky” and later included on the ‘Relics’ collection. But this live version, which adds three minutes of jamming, is more fearsome.
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26. “Hey You” from ‘The Wall’ (1979)
Co-written by Waters and Gilmour, the latter played guitar and the fretless bass on the song, as well as singing most of it. Like much of ‘The Wall,’ the song plays into the album and subsequent film’s narrative but also stands on its own. Here, Pink has shut himself off from most of the world and is craving connection again, but can’t seem to get it. It’s sadly relatable even if you’re not a big rock star.
25. “Pigs On The Wing 1”/”Pigs On The Wing 2” from ‘Animals’ (1977)
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Part 1 opens ‘Animals,’ and Part 2 closes it. Each version features just Roger Waters singing and playing acoustic guitar. Part 1 asks what would happen “If you didn’t care what happened to me, and I didn’t care for you.” Thankfully, Part 2 ends the very dark album on an optimistic note: “You know that I care what happens to you/and I know that you care for me too,” which is about as romantic as Waters ever gets. And he realizes that even in a heartless world, if you have someone to love, you “don’t feel alone.” Because “any fool knows a dog needs a home… a shelter from pigs on the wing.”
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