The truth is Waters and Gilmour (really all the band) came from what would have been considered the middle upper crust, privileged part of society in post WWII England. Many others Brits were in poverty in a very depressed economic time. Musically you can compare what was produced by the poor, blue color (heavy metal) industrial Birmingham area (Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, etc.) vs. Pink Floyd and the “progressive bands” of the time. As a guitar player who has been heavily influenced by Gilmour I tended to side with Gilmour over Waters, but as time has gone on in the last 10 to 20 years I realized Gilmour as much as Waters were both stubborn egotists with nasty dispositions if their feathers got ruffled. Gilmour is more passive aggressive while Waters lays it all out there. I guess his literary side can’t help itself. So Gilmour seemed to always come off as the nice guy especially among younger folks who didn’t realize there was a whole life (arguably the most important) of the band prior to The Wall. Politically they’re both typical elite types with ridiculous opinions.
Having said this I will always be a huge fan and love the Waters, Gilmour, Wright, Mason Pink Floyd as one of the best bands ever. As far as Waters artistic credibility, I remember him saying that “many people can write a single verse that might be of some interest, but try writing a second just as good or better and then another and even another having them all connect in some way and come together to form a story…”Not many can do that”!
P.S.
And for those who think Gilmour was such a nice guy and was all about the band and music…
“In 1986, Gilmour began recruiting musicians for what would become Pink Floyd's first album without Waters, A Momentary Lapse of Reason. There were legal obstacles to Wright's re-admittance to the band, but after a meeting in Hampstead, Pink Floyd invited Wright to participate in the coming sessions. Gilmour later stated that Wright's presence "would make us stronger legally and musically", and Pink Floyd employed him as a musician with weekly earnings of $11,000.“
Just a hired hand…sounds like he didn’t really care much for Wright just like Waters during the last stages. I think Richard Wright was a critical part of the band. It was his Jazz influenced chords and turn arounds on DSOTM that make many parts of that all time great recording. Also Gilmour’s PF pt.2 took many other outsiders (Engineers, Producers) to make it what it was. Lyrically Gilmour just can’t write a good song. The Division Bell lyrics are almost 100% his wife’s.
One more thing we should never forget is a guy named Alan Parsons that was key in PF’s best material. Although I do think Animals is on par with the previous.
…Edited for silly spelling and grammatical errors
To be fair, Rick wasn’t exactly eager to jump back into the band and ultimately, Rick’s ex-wife had more to do with that than Rick or Dave. She figured him getting back in the band would help clean him up, if I remember right, he wasn’t even aware she contacted Gilmour. Him and Nick weren’t even playing well enough by the time the album was done, so the first half that tour you only heard Jon Carin and Gary Wallis coming through the PA.
The other part of that was that Gilmour and Mason put up all the money for the legal issues, album and oncoming tour, so to invite Rick back in as a full time member or to allow him to enjoy the spoils of their efforts when he seemingly had zero interest in doing so, I can understand the reasoning behind that.
That said, Jon Carin seems to have jumped the Gilmour ship as of late and is starting to mirror his current paycheck signer. He’s been talking a lot about how he‘s the reason MLOR and Division Bell even got completed and was taking a lot of credit for some of those songs, in some cases, taking all the credit for them only to find out he was wrong. He did it with “Yet Another Movie”, claiming the song didn’t exist until he joined and started recording it, which is why a previously unreleased demo of the song made it’s way onto the internet shortly after, proving the basis for the song was already in existence before he showed up.
If you check his FB page, he really hasn’t said anything good about Gilmour in a long time, it’s mostly due to songwriting credits and “ensuring the fans have the proper history”, the last one being when Gilmour put out “A Great Day For Freedom” as the B-side to the “Hey Hey” , it was very stripped down and gave Wright the credit for the piano, which lit up Carin who immediately came out and said “Rick never played on that. That’s a different piano part than what’s on the original, I recorded the original part and Rick was never even the studio for that song.” I’m a massive Floyd fan and LOVE knowing the little details over stuff that won’t make a matter of difference in my life, but his posts seem to be more divisive than educational.
And while I’m a Gilmour fanboy, I’ve certainly realized the bit of ego floating around him throughout the years. Mainly the whole “I don’t want to plan these big elaborate tours, I’m ready to move on from Floyd”…..and then he books two massive solo tours and goes out and does mostly Floyd tunes.
I think he finds some joy in not allowing Roger to use the Floyd name and at his age, well, I hope I don’t have any long grudges like that when I’m that old.
Trying to completely understand the history all the way from meeting in school to Syd days until today in an interesting part of R&R history.
