What is Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters opinion on The Beatles and Bob Dylan

One of the bands that helped to take the Progressive Rock music into another level, Pink Floyd became one of the best-selling bands of all time. The band’s ex-bassist and singer Roger Waters gave his opinion on many other bands and musicians over the years always giving his real opinion on them and two of those were Bob Dylan and The Beatles.

What is Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters opinion on The Beatles and Bob Dylan

In a conversation with Howard Stern back in 2012 (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage), the ex-Pink Floyd bassist and singer Roger Waters gave his opinion on Bob Dylan and The Beatles. “When I was at college I would listen to The Beatles. When they made Sgt. Pepper’s in 67 we were in the same studio making our first record. I remember when it came out, pulling the Zephyr Ford into a layby and listening to the whole thing, just sitting there with my mouth hanging open going ‘Wow, this is so complete and accomplished and whatever.”

“But it also was more than that. It had a ton of ideas and a ton of narrative in it. I feel more than any other record it was the record that gave me and my generation permission to branch out and do whatever we want to. If they can do it we can do it. We don’t need Tin Pan Alley anymore, we can write our own stuff, it changed everything. They instigated their own revolution, because obviously when they started over it was all ‘Please, Please Me’ and whatever.”

“They transcended all that and they transcended all the nonsense at Shea Stadium and you know, girls screaming and nobody being able to hear anything. Making songs that people really wanted to hear because they were really, really smart, clever, beautiful musical songs.”

In an interview in 2015 with radio station KLCS, Waters said that he learned from Lennon, McCartney and Harrison that it was ok to write about their lives and how they felt.

Waters’ opinion on Bob Dylan

In the same interview with Howard Stern, Waters talked about Bob Dylan and revealed that one song of the musician completely changed his life. When asked by Stern if he hated the “rule” that the record companies had when he was starting, that songs couldn’t be more long than 3 or 4 minutes, so that they could be played on the radio, Waters answered talking about Bob Dylan: “‘(Bob Dylan’s) ‘Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands’ changed my life.”

“When I heard that I thought ‘Worthy’, if Bob can do it I can do it. It’s 20 minutes long, it’s a whole hour and in no way gets dull or boring or anything. You just get more and more and more and grow. It becomes more and more hypnotic the longer it goes on.”

Over the years Roger Waters covered some Bob Dylan songs live during special concerts like “Forever Young” and even made a studio cover of  “Knocking On Heaven’s Door” for the compilation album “Flickering Flame”.

However, Waters criticized Dylan when he made the covers album “Shadows in the Night” in 2015, which consisted in tracks that were only recorded by Frank Sinatra.