Pink Floyd

1963–1965: Formation

Roger Waters and Nick Mason met in September 1962 while studying architecture at the London Polytechnic at Regent Street, London. They first played music together in a group formed by fellow students Keith Noble and Clive Metcalfe, with Noble's sister Sheilagh. Richard Wright, a fellow architecture student, joined later that year, and the group became a sextet, Sigma 6. Waters played lead guitar, Mason drums, and Wright rhythm guitar, later moving to keyboards. The band performed at private functions and rehearsed in a tearoom in the basement of the Regent Street Polytechnic. They performed songs by the Searchers and material written by their manager and songwriter, fellow student Ken Chapman.

Legacy and influence

Pink Floyd are one of the most commercially successful and influential rock bands of all time. They have sold more than 250 million records worldwide, including 75 million certified units in the United States, and 37.9 million albums sold in the US since 1993. The Sunday Times Rich List, Music Millionaires 2013 (UK), ranked Waters at number 12 with an estimated fortune of £150 million, Gilmour at number 27 with £85 million and Mason at number 37 with £50 million.

Wish You Were Here

"Wish You Were Here" is a song by English rock band Pink Floyd, released as the title track of their 1975 album of the same name. Guitarist/vocalist David Gilmour and bassist/vocalist Roger Waters collaborated in writing the music, with Gilmour singing lead vocals.

Composition

In the original album version, the song segues from "Have a Cigar" as if a radio had been tuned away from one station, through several others (including a radio play and one playing the opening of the finale of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony), and finally to a new station where "Wish You Were Here" is beginning. The radio was recorded from Gilmour's car radio. He performed the intro on a twelve-string guitar, processed to sound like it was playing through an AM radio, and then overdubbed a fuller-sounding acoustic guitar solo. This passage was mixed to sound as though a guitarist were listening to the radio and playing along. As the acoustic part becomes more complex, the "radio broadcast" fades away and Gilmour's voice enters,...

Recording

"Wish You Were Here" was recorded at Abbey Road Studios, as part of the sessions for the entire album.

Other cover versions

In 2001, American nu metal band Limp Bizkit and John Rzeznik of the American rock band Goo Goo Dolls covered the song at the America: A Tribute to Heroes 9/11 benefit concert.

Comfortably Numb

"Comfortably Numb" is a song by the English rock band Pink Floyd, released on their eleventh studio album, The Wall (1979). It was released as a single in 1980, with "Hey You" as the B-side.

Background and writing

The Wall is a concept album about an embittered and alienated rock star named Pink. In "Comfortably Numb", Pink is medicated by a doctor so he can perform for a show.

Recording

For the chorus, Gilmour and the session player Lee Ritenour used a pair of acoustic guitars strung in a similar manner to Nashville tuning, but with the low E string replaced with a high E string, two octaves higher than standard tuning. The same tuning was used for the arpeggios in another song from The Wall, "Hey You". To compose the two guitar solos, Gilmour recorded "five or six" solos, while Guthrie pieced together his preferred segments for the final take. He used a Big Muff distortion and delay effects on the solos.

Reception

In both its original studio release and all subsequent live versions, "Comfortably Numb" has since received unanimous acclaim from music critics and many high-profile musicians following the release of its parent album, The Wall, at the end of November 1979, and has gone on to become recognized as one of Pink Floyd’s definitive works, as a band.

Learning to Fly

"Learning to Fly" is a song by the English progressive rock band Pink Floyd, written by David Gilmour, Anthony Moore, Bob Ezrin, and Jon Carin. It was the first single from the band's thirteenth studio album A Momentary Lapse of Reason.

It reached number 70 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart and number one on the Billboard Album Rock Tracks chart in September 1987, remaining three consecutive weeks at the top position in the autumn of the same year.

Background

The song was primarily written by David Gilmour, who developed the music from a 1986 demo by Jon Carin, while the lyrics were written by Anthony Moore. The notable rhythm pattern at the beginning of the song was already present in the demo, and Carin stated that it was influenced by Steve Jansen or Yukihiro Takahashi. Moore's demo, titled "Earthbound Misfit", featuring his lyrics with a different tune, is included on his Home of the Demo compilation, released in October 2024.

Music video

The music video was directed by Storm Thorgerson, a long-time collaborator of Pink Floyd who had designed many of their album covers. It was filmed in a farm field just South of Black Diamond, Alberta, Canada and also on West Wind Ridge, a mountain in Kananaskis Country near Canmore, located some 50 to 75 kilometres (30 to 50 mi) west of the city of Calgary, Alberta during rehearsals for the band's A Momentary Lapse of Reason Tour. The video combined performances of the band with an Indigenous man (played by Canadian actor Lawrence Bayne), working in a field who then runs and jumps off a cliff to turn into a Harris's Hawk. The footage of the stage show shows the band performing "Learning to Fly" but features the more colourful light-show...

The Happiest Days of Our Lives

"The Happiest Days of Our Lives" is a song by the English rock band Pink Floyd. It appeared on their eleventh studio album The Wall (1979).

Composition

The song is approximately one minute, 46 seconds in length, beginning with 24 seconds of a helicopter sound effect, followed by the schoolmaster shouting, "You! Yes, you! Stand still, laddie!" performed by Roger Waters. Waters's lead vocal is treated with a reverse echo. The song features an electric guitar with an added delay effect and an electric bass guitar playing staccato punctuations of the chordal root notes. The bass and guitar figure heard during the verses, G to A, is similar to the one in "Waiting for the Worms", a song that appears much later in the album. During the transition to "Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2", the key shifts from D minor to the relative major, F major, with dramatic drum rolls and harmony vocals.

Time

"Time" is a song by the English rock band Pink Floyd. It is included as the fourth track on their eighth album The Dark Side of the Moon (1973) and was released as a single in the United States.

With lyrics written by bassist Roger Waters and music composed jointly by the band, guitarist David Gilmour shares lead vocals with keyboardist Richard Wright.

Composition

"Time" is in the key of F♯ minor. Each clock at the beginning of the song was recorded separately in an antiques store. These clock sounds are followed by a two-minute passage dominated by Nick Mason's drum solo, with rototoms and backgrounded by a tick-tock sound created by Roger Waters picking the muted second and third strings on his bass. David Gilmour sings lead on the verses, while Richard Wright sings lead on the bridges with female singers and Gilmour providing backup vocals. The lyrics deal with Roger Waters' realization that life was not about preparing yourself for what happens next, but about grabbing control of your own destiny. The recording was recorded quadraphonically by sound engineer Alan Parsons in an antique shop and...

Reception

In a contemporary review for The Dark Side of the Moon, Loyd Grossman of Rolling Stone gave "Time" a positive review, describing the track as "a fine country-tinged rocker with a powerful guitar solo by David Gilmour". Billboard and Louder Sound ranked the song number nine and number five, respectively, on their lists of the 50 greatest Pink Floyd songs.