“We lose the sense”: the era David Gilmour called the worst chapter of his career

Pink Floyd have never had the most stable of rises to the top of the musical food chain. As much as people love listening to their classics on the radio, so many of them were birthed from pain when knowing about the ins and outs of their story. Then again, David Gilmour knew the difference between when things were frustrating and when he would rather have been anywhere other than in the studio.

Then again, the studio environment was always where the band came to life. The live shows were bound to take a little bit of a dip in the transition between Syd Barrett and Gilmour, but once they did find their groove onstage, it coincided with them making some of the most eye-opening music that anyone had ever heard up until that point, like the masterful work on tracks like ‘Echoes’.

But right as the band started reaching one of their greatest pinnacles, there was already a bit of tension going on behind the scenes. Looking at some of the bonus features included in the footage from Live at Pompeii, Richard Wright had already been talking about the tension stemming from things left unsaid, and that lack of communication started to rear its head when deciding on the concept behind their records.

Although Gilmour normally knew how to compromise, Roger Waters was interested in making a grand vision rather than a collection of songs. That was reserved for every other rock and roll band, but listening to Wish You Were Here and Animals, there are definite themes running through every single track, whether it’s the need to connect with Barrett once again or rally against the pigs that sit on their throne of corrupt business practices.

But while Gilmour had a means of getting his voice heard in those tracks, The Wall was where things started to go off the rails. Despite the album itself being one of the band’s greatest triumphs, it’s clearly a Waters solo outfit in disguise. The band couldn’t add many new songs if they wanted to, but judging by the fact that Gilmour’s tunes were among the best on the album, perhaps they should have been given a more balanced distribution of power across the record.

And considering the gruelling tour that cost them a ton of money, Gilmour looked back on this era as one of the major low points in the band’s career, saying, “[Pink Floyd stood up] until Animals. Then, perhaps for that poison of corruption that I was talking about, we blew up. Indeed, everyone blew up in his own way, and the period spanning to and including The Wall was the worst of our story. We lose the sense of our job.”

Granted, it wasn’t smooth sailing once Waters was out the door, either. Gilmour may have been able to walk away with the use of the Pink Floyd name after Waters left on The Final Cut, but A Momentary Lapse of Reason never truly came alive in the studio, with The Division Bell standing as the one album that seemed to have the same kind of Floydian spirit from their old days.

Then again, it’s almost expected for Gilmour to have some of those dark chapters in his life as a musician. It might have been tragic to lose a friend in the process and be given a raw deal in the courts, but the fact that he could carry on afterwards was the true “phoenix from the ashes” moment that he sorely needed.