Pink Floyd has always been considered the brainchild of Roger Waters. Inspired by the whirlwind that comes with stardom, the album follows Pink and her struggles to navigate the world of rock and roll excess. Waters may have been the mastermind behind the songs, but David Gilmour was heart pounding.
Towards the climax of the album, Gilmour spins in one of the best guitar solos of his career on ‘Comfortably Numb’. Discussing when he created the lead guitar figure, Gilmour said, “I wrote the music that became this when I was making my first solo album. I was just getting to the end of recording my album, and I couldn’t be bothered to work on that single song.
Although he may not have had a home with Gilmour, producer Bob Ezrin saw something in the song. As Gilmour recalled, “It was getting rarer and rarer, and Bob Ezrin asked me to play it to the rest of the band with what would become ‘Run Like Hell’.”
Gilmour’s guitar playing on ‘Comfortably Numb’ was born from his discovery of a high-tuned guitar. While working on his solo project, Gilmour said, “One of the producers that worked with me said he wanted to use a treble string guitar. I had no idea what that meant. So I bought an Ovation acoustic guitar and strung it with all the strings unwound. I found that the higher the strings, the better the song started to sound. I later discovered that the traditional treble string guitar had nothing to do with what I was doing. So it was my own creation for this song.
Regardless of Waters’ involvement, each of Gilmour’s songs added a new dimension to the album’s central theme. When you listen to something like ‘Another Brick In The Wall’, Gilmour’s guitar almost seems to cry over the major changes in the song. When it comes to writing his guitar solos, Gilmour generally takes a different approach. To work on the solos, Gilmour explained, “Sometimes I plug my guitar in and play and see what comes out on the very first take. Sometimes I sing to it and then try to play what I sang.
From the sounds of The wall, you can hear exactly what Gilmour is talking about. With each guitar break, he approaches the solo almost like a singer trying to reach a high note, going deeper and deeper until he finally hits the right note. Of course, there has always been a human element to Gilmour’s game. Speaking about his take on his music, Gilmour was keen to add the organic element into things: “People want to feel that other people felt what they felt,” he said. . “Other people can describe it. It’s a way to be part of a shared experience.
In a song like “Mother,” the solo could be an emotional experience in itself, with a clear beginning, middle, and end that sounds like a child crying for its mother.
Going into the next tour, at the time, Gilmour also recalled how The wall also outgrew a traditional rock band, saying, “You had to have teams of people who knew exactly what they were doing. When you’re in rehearsal you have more of a role in that stuff, but when you’re on the road you don’t have to worry about that stuff.
Although Pink Floyd created the ultimate rock opera, the touring cycle became almost like rock and roll theater for Gilmour. He noted, “For the shows we did, for me, it was quite complicated, especially for the first shows. I had written the whole show on a long sheet of paper with all the notes that were to arrive throughout the night.
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