Talk:David Gilmour

Commented-out one quote about Roger Waters circa 1988 . . . .

1987, '88, maybe even '89 -- These were ugly times for those of us who loved Roger and David equally. They were ugly because Waters and Gilmour were saying ugly things about each other. I tend to think Roger did less quipping to the press, and concentrated on instigating vigorous lawsuits to end their careers as Pink Floyd. This is probably why I see Gilmour as the "winner" -- he understood that the court of public opinion mattered more, and that the only victory Waters could possibly attain in courts of law would be increased royalties for himself. For the life of me, I don't understand how a band can go out and play songs like "Money" or "Another Brick in the Wall" if the one man who wrote those songs, Waters, doesn't want them to, and asks the court to stop them. There's a lot about that time period and those issues that I still don't understand; I still find myself fuming, "Why couldn't Gilmour leave well enough alone, when he was making such great solo albums?!?" or "God, Roger, why did you release the two worst songs from Radio KAOS as singles? And then make such shitty videos for them, at a time when you actually needed attention from MTV?"

Here is my point: That was an era which is now over. Pink Floyd is finally laid to rest. They will not work again, even though Roger Waters now apparently wants to. It's history. Yes, history IS to be preserved, and yes, Wikipedia/Wikiquote is an appropriate place for such archiving of the past, but the David Gilmour quote I removed . . . Well, see for yourself:

• Roger doesn't have the right at present to tell me what to do with my life, although he believes that he does. And he'll not ruin my career, although lately he's been trying to.
  • Penthouse, September 1988; regarding Roger Waters

I felt this quote could and should be axed because, for one, it is a vast oversimplification of Waters's former position, an oversimplification nearly as idiotic and anti-intellectual as "The terrorists hate us for our freedom". Roger Waters was trying to force Pink Floyd to end with The Final Cut. Not to stop Gilmour from going out and playing "Comfortably Numb", "Run Like Hell", and "Money" every night as a solo artist. Not to stop Gilmour's career, but Pink Floyd's. This is a concept that can be understood, even if not agreed with. So Gilmour's Dubyaesque oversimplification doesn't make him look very good, much less Roger Waters. I felt it was ugly and stupid. Gilmour said much better things about these issues than that quotation. I like to think I'm making room for a better quote by removing this one.

The reason I only commented it out, instead of actually removing it, is this: If even only one person wants to restore this quote to this article, I wanted to make it as easy as possible for him/her to do so. I'm not going to argue about it. I'm not 100% certain the quote should have been removed, just certain enough to try it and see what everyone else thinks. I AM, however, 100% certain that David said much more intelligent, incisive things during the "Floyd Wars", and maybe I'll find one and put it in myself.

Something he said to Musician magazine at the time, about his playing bass on the record, when he was asked about "Hey You": "Roger playing a fretless bass? Please!" Now, see, that's mean-spirited, but it's funny. It gets its point across, for those of us prone to arguing about Pink Floyd. I have no doubt David also played the bass on "Pigs [Three Different Ones]", and not because such-and-such source said so, but because it is simply too difficult to be Roger's playing (and some of it, at least, is also fretless). That's a quote from the Floyd-Wars era I wouldn't mind being in this article. --Ben Culture (talk) 10:19, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

get shot

One quote currently says: "... that image hangs on and we can't seem to get shot of it." Now I think the correct spelling would have to be get shod, as in shedding onseself of sth., but I'm not about to change something which claims to be a direct quote... -- BjKa@

Unsourced

• "I like our music to feel three-dimensional. It's about trying to invoke emotions in people, I suppose. You feel larger than life in some sort of way. Let's face it — none of us in Pink Floyd are technically brilliant musicians, with great chops who can change rhythms, fifteen or sixteen bars here, there, and everywhere. And we're not terribly good at complicated chord structures. A lot of it is just very simple stuff dressed up. We stopped trying to make overtly 'spacey' music and trip people out in that way in the 60's. But that image hangs on and we can't seem to get shot of it."

• "There are people who say we [Pink Floyd] should make room for younger bands. That's not the way it works. They can make their own room."

• "It is the way that some of us express ourselves best"
  • During an interview conducted by the BBC; in response to the possibility that the guitar could have become part of his personality.

Two new problems

I don't think anyone reads the Talk pages of Wikiquote articles, but anyway . . . We have two problems:

1. We have virtually quoted the entire lyric to the song "Childhood's End". Is this not a copyright issue? Wikiquote is not an excuse to post lyrics, is it?

Worse, it's a song that Roger Waters stepped in on and finished the lyrics for David Gilmour, but gallantly (or otherwise) went uncredited. My source on that is Dave Thompson's Roger Waters: The Man Behind the Wall, which has its iffy moments, but I think he knows what he's talking about in making this bold assertion. (Then again, Nicholas Schaffner has us all believing Bob Ezrin composed "Is There Anybody Out There?", and that's clearly untrue, as Roger's home demos prove.)

2. We have a number of quotations cited as taking place during "The Dark Side of the Moon sessions", as seen in Pink Floyd Live in Pompeii. Well, those weren't real sessions. The album was completed, but for whatever reason, they staged some pretend sessions. That's why you have Gilmour playing riffs that never appear in "Brain Damage" and so on (They're also all one semitone too sharp). I don't know how to change this in keeping with Wikiquote style, but I may have a go at it.

--Ben Culture (talk) 23:32, 20 July 2014 (UTC)