ACTUALLY LET'S MOVE ON
So, after
A Momentary Lapse of Reason, there was a pause. Pink Floyd didn't do much, really. It was a break. Mason and Gilmour sat on their laurels for a bit before January 1993, where they, along with still not offically a Pink Floyd Member Richard Wright, started mucking about at Britannia Row Studios. Although the band were initially apprehensive about recording together, after the first day their confidence improved. Now enter Guy Pratt again, who had since got a thing going on with Richard Wright's daughter Gala Wright now. He wanted to help out. According to Mason, "an interesting phenomenon occurred, which was that Pratt's playing tended to change the mood of the music we had created on our own". Which I suppose is good? Gilmour, with no pressure from the law, would hit the record key of a two-track DAT recorder if he felt the band were really getting somewhere. He recorded so much from Wright that it became the basis of three tracks!
These improv sessions helped the creative juices of the band, and after two weeks, they had 65 piece of music! When they moved from Britannia to Gilmour's houseboat recording stuido,
Astoria, the band listened and voted on each track, eventually wittling it down to 27 pieces of music. After some combining and more eliminating the tracks, they were down to a nice basic 15. Four more went and they arrived at 11 tracks. Their voting way was based upon a system of points, whereby all three members would award marks out of ten to each. This got slightly skewered when Richard Wright awarded all of his songs 10 points and the others nothing. Wright was still not a full time member of the band at this point and it quite upset him. Wright later reflected: "It came very close to a point where I wasn't going to do the album, because I didn't feel that what we'd agreed was fair." Probably best for him to stay. He would receive his first songwriting credits on any Pink Floyd album since 1975's
Wish You Were Here.
There was another new player on the scene too! Gilmour's wife, Polly Samson, who also received song-writing credits. The way this started is that she was there for support, but eventually started to help write 'High Hopes', a song about Gilmour's early life in Cambridge. Her role expanded to co-writing a further six songs, and this did not please the producer, Bob Ezrin. Wuh-oh. But not much happened. Along with Keyboard player Jon Carin, Gary Wallis, some singers like Sam Brown, and Momentary Lapse tour singer Durga McBroom, there was more player in recording.
Dick Parry played saxophone on his first Pink Floyd album for almost 20 years, on "Wearing the Inside Out". Storm Thorgerson provided the album cover with the two metal sculptures the height of a double-decker bus, in a field near Ely. You can even see Ely Cathedral in the background for this 1994 release..
The Division Bell (1994)
1. "Cluster One" (Instrumental) N/A David Gilmour, Richard Wright 5:58
2. "What Do You Want from Me" Gilmour, Polly Samson Gilmour, Wright 4:21
3. "Poles Apart" Gilmour, Samson, Nick Laird-Clowes Gilmour 7:04
4. "Marooned" (Instrumental) N/A Gilmour, Wright 5:29
5. "A Great Day for Freedom" Gilmour, Samson Gilmour 4:17
6. "Wearing the Inside Out" (Lead vocals: Wright and Gilmour) Anthony Moore Wright 6:49
7. "Take It Back" Gilmour, Samson, Laird-Clowes Gilmour, Bob Ezrin 6:12
8. "Coming Back to Life" Gilmour Gilmour 6:19
9. "Keep Talking" Gilmour, Samson Gilmour, Wright 6:11
10. "Lost for Words" Gilmour, Samson Gilmour 5:14
11. "High Hopes" Gilmour, Samson Gilmour 8:31
Just like
A Momentary Lapse Of Reason, we start off with an instrumental. But
Cluster One is much better than that. It's a nice slow simple build in, with that keyboard, that piano and that guitar. It's something beautiful to open before we go into a track I find quite weak, to be honest,
What Do You Want From Me?. It's not that it's bad, it's just I prefer EVERYTHING on this album over it. It's got the Chicago Blues Style from Gilmour's guitar, certainly, but.. Eh.
Poles Apart with it's folksy style is pretty good. The lyrics speak to ex-bandmate Syd Barrett in the first verse, and Roger Waters in the second, which.. well, I like it. It's got the personal touch from Gilmour.
Then we go into one of the most beautiful tracks that Pink Floyd have ever done in
Marooned. Fan-frickin-tastic. It's my go to song for relaxation. It's got amazing work from Gilmour and Wright. It's the two coming together and making a real desert island feeling song. I used this song on one of my projects where I dug a pond. People thought the song was depressing.
A Great Day For Freedom is a pretty good track, though I swear it could of been written by Waters, with it's jaded look at what's happened since the Berlin Wall came down. Solid. Then comes the special track to me. My favourite.
Wearing The Inside Out. That saxophone adds a real atmosphere to it and it's amazing to hear Wright singing. This song would easily be in my top 5 of Pink Floyd songs, though is that surprising? It's got a slow.. jazzy feel to it. Something nice about it. The juxtaposition of Gilmour to Wright's voice is incredible too.
Take It Back is a nice breather after this. Nothing too wacky, just solid e-bow playing from Mr Gilmour.
Coming Back To Life is essentially a love song from Gilmour to Polly. It's a nice listen, certainly.
Keep Talking is rather cool sounding. The sample from Stephen Hawkins was used in a British television advert and Gilmour found it so moving that he had to have it on his album. This song is incredibly despairing. That's a good way to describe it. It's despair at the impossibility of communication.
Lost For Words, funnily enough, contains one of my all time favourite verses in music. "So I open my door to my enemies
And I ask could we wipe the slate clean
But they tell me to please go fuck myself
You know you just can't win."
Perfect. It also helps it a rather solid song too.
High Hopes is beautiful. If this HAD been the Swan Song of Pink Floyd, for so many years now has been considered to be the thought, it would have been god damn perfect. It's beautiful. That reference to See Emily Play at the end of it just helps make it more. Yet.
We're here. End of Pink Floyd albums. Or so we thought. 2014, 20 years since
The Division Bell, we're getting another Pink Floyd album.
(p.s. we will be doing On An Island)
How does this album work for you? Where do all the Pink Floyd albums rack up now for you?