Visiting David Gilmour: “I always preferred to be a part of something”

David Gilmour smiles. He thinks for a moment. Then he doesn't answer the last question. "Thank you for the lovely interview," the 79-year-old guitarist and singer says instead. Thank you for the pleasant conversation. He declines to comment on whether he follows what Roger Waters, his former collaborator in Pink Floyd, has to say. When he speaks of Waters, he calls him "the person who left."

Waters left Pink Floyd in 1985 after a dispute. Gilmour, "A Fucking Legend," as he introduces himself in a documentary accompanying the new concert film "Live at the Circus Maximus, Rome," has now been making music without him for more than twice as long as he did with him. For him, the matter is closed—especially since the band sold their music rights to their record company, Sony Music, a year ago after lengthy negotiations, particularly between the two main songwriters. Reportedly, for around $400 million.

Pink Floyd aren't the only ones to have let go in this regard; Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, and Queen have also sold their catalogs. Why, exactly? Initially, in their younger years, many of today's superstars fought to maintain control over their music to avoid being exploited. And now, in their later years, some are relinquishing control for a lot of money.

"For me, the responsibility of preserving our legacy took up too much space, preventing me from focusing on being an artist," says Gilmour. Since Waters' departure, there has been "nothing but trouble" surrounding the earlier recordings. "Soon we'll all be dead, and then it won't be in our hands anyway. You could leave the rights to family members. But would they handle it better than a record company? I'm not sure."

Gilmour has clearly freed himself. "These burdens of history can stifle your creativity," he says. "Now, when I hear one of our songs in an ad, I don't give it a second thought."

The interview takes place in the garden house on Gilmour's property in southwest London. His houseboat, converted into a recording studio, is also moored there. The path from Hampton Court station to his retreat on the Thames is littered with fallen conkers. A symbol of the passing of time. Summer is already over.

Here, on the "Astoria," he also recorded "High Hopes" with the rest of Pink Floyd. "Running before time took our dreams away," the 1994 song goes. One must hurry before time steals our dreams. On his current solo album, the 79-year-old also sings about the relentless transience and the reality that sometimes turns great expectations into great disappointments.

"It's time for this mortal man to love the child who holds my hand and the woman who smiles when I embrace her," sings Gilmour on the title track, "Luck and Strange." "These eyes stay dry, but my... oh my guitar..." Gilmour lets his guitar weep for him. His music is deeply rooted in the blues. Is that what shapes his playing, his sorrow? "Well, it's the old story, isn't it? People have a lot of trouble creating art about happiness," Gilmour replies. Like many others, he finds it easiest to connect with his audience by singing about loneliness or loss, themes that affect everyone equally.

In Rome, he played the Pink Floyd anthem "Comfortably Numb" as an encore. His guitar solo seems like an escape vehicle. Some people, like Pink—the lonely, desperate protagonist of the concept album "The Wall"—need medication to feel "comfortably numb." Does Gilmour's own guitar playing provide comfort?

Gilmour sighs. "That's a pretty complicated question. I can't answer it." To put it another way: Is he an instinctive guitarist? "Polly says I speak through my guitar," he replies. He doesn't think about what he wants to achieve. He simply plays what feels right. According to his wife, author Polly Samson (63), he should always leave communication with others to his instrument, he says.

Since the falling out with Waters, Samson has written almost all of her husband's lyrics. She also seemed to be speaking for him when she condemned Waters, who supports BDS, a boycott campaign against Israel, on X, as, among other things, "thoroughly anti-Semitic," a "Putin sympathizer," and a "misogynistic, jealous megalomaniac." "Every word is demonstrably true," Gilmour tweeted afterward. He himself isn't usually one to make such bold statements.

On stage, the guitarist is taciturn, as the Rome recording underlines. For Gilmour, the sound is the star. He calls the musicians who accompanied him on his recent tour "the best band I've ever played in."

Better than Pink Floyd? Really? Because his 23-year-old daughter Romany sings background vocals? Because this band gives him "a sense of freedom," he says. The kind of security he's long lacked, it seems. He's never longed to be either the bandleader of Pink Floyd or a solo artist. "I've always preferred to be a part of something," he said before the release of "Luck and Strange," which he considers the best album he's made since 1973's worldwide bestseller "The Dark Side of the Moon" for the same reason. "I know not many people would agree."

Gilmour only plays Pink Floyd songs for the sake of his audience. He'd prefer to leave them out. Not because he doesn't love songs like "Wish You Were Here," he says, but because he's played them so many times. "I'd be happy if I didn't have to play them." But he's not that selfish. He knows that some songs have world-wonder status for his fans. And so, in his performances, he connects the times, for example, when the topic is aging and death.

In the intro to the 52-year-old "The Great Gig In The Sky," Gerry O'Driscoll, then the doorman at Abbey Road Studios, proclaimed: "Why should I be afraid of dying? There's no reason to be. Someday, you have to go."

Gilmour sees it similarly. "We'll all go through this. We'll all cease to exist," he says. Of course, he's afraid, as most people probably are. But lines like those in "Scattered" help him fight back. "I'm standing in a river, bracing myself against the current, time's a tide that doesn't obey," he describes the inevitable fading in the song from 2024.

Gilmour and Waters are not the Gallaghers. There won't be an Oasis-like reunion. Substitute satisfaction is offered by countless cover bands like The Australian Pink Floyd Show or Brit Floyd. They remind us that albums like "The Wall" or "Animals" are still relevant today, in an age of new simplifiers, agitators, and enemies of democracy.

What does Gilmour think of the copies? How does he explain their enormous success? "There are many people in the world who would like to see Pink Floyd. But Pink Floyd won't come to them," he says. "These cover bands fulfill a valuable function." However, he would specifically encourage guitarists not to copy him note for note. "Guitarists should play the first six notes like I do and then free themselves from all constraints."