Pink Floyd was formed in 1965 in London, England and the singer/guitarist David Gilmour joined the band three years later, in 1968. In the 70s with the release of classic albums like “Dark Side of The Moon” (1973) and “The Wall” (1979), the band experienced a huge commercial success that continued in the following decades.
They are one of the best-selling bands of all time with an estimated amount of more than 250 million records sold worldwide. After many successful albums, the classic line-up came to an end after Roger Waters decided to leave the band in 1985. After that, they still recorded three studio albums: “A Momentary Lapse of Reason” (1987), “The Division Bell” and “The Endless River” (2014).
Although the final three records are not the most famous ones, they have many fans, including David Gilmour. The musician even revealed which are the 4 Pink Floyd songs that he thinks are new classics.
The 4 Pink Floyd songs that David Gilmour said are new classics
“On The Turning Away”
Featured on “A Momentary Lapse of Reason”, the band’s first studio album without the founding member Roger Waters, “On The Turning Away” is one of the most famous tracks of that record.
It is one of the songs that Gilmour mentioned in an interview made to promote Pink Floyd’s DVD “Pulse” in 2006 (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage). During the conversation he talked about the most recent songs from the band at the time. He admited that he felt like four of them were new classics.
One of them being “On The Turning Away”, that he wrote alongside the British experimental music composer Anthony Moore. “Some of the new songs went down extremely well. You know, obviously, every record that one makes, you look back to the early years. There are one or two great classic songs on each album.”
“‘Dark Side of The Moon’ maybe more, maybe three or four. But some of the songs that we wrote (on the last two albums – at time) have become for me Pink Floyd classics. From letters, from the stuff we get in, that seems to be a view shared by a lot of the audience,” David Gilmour said.
“Sorrow”
Another song also from “A Momentary Lapse of Reason” that was mentioned by Gilmour as new classic was “Sorrow”, that is the final track of that record. He talked about that album in an interview with Mojo Magazine in 2008.
“There are some lovely moments on it. ‘Sorrow’, ‘On The Turning Away’, ‘Learning To Fly’. But, like most people, we got trapped in this ’80s thing. We were a bit too thrilled with all the technology that was being thrown at us. Rick and Nick were both pretty ineffective.”
“The thing is, within a month of us starting the Laspse tour, Nick and Rick were back. But, of course, I’d got these other guys on board as well (Extra percussionisst Gary Wallis and second keyboard player Jon Carin. Yes, Jon is brilliant, but Jon is no Rick,” David Gilmour said.
As Gilmour said, the band was many additional personnel helping to make the record at the time. Some of them were Bob Ezrin, Jon Carin, Tony Levin, Carmine Appice, Tom Scott and Scott Page.
“High Hopes”
Seven years after a “A Momentary Lapse of Reason”, Pink Floyd released “The Division Bell” (1994) another praised album. It had two tracks that Gilmour said were new classics from the band, one of them being “High Hopes”.
The lyrics for that track were written by Gilmour and his wife Polly Samson, like almost all the songs from that album. “When I now hear something like ‘High Hopes” come on it does sound like one of our great classic songs. So did they go down extremely well in those concerts,” David Gilmour said in the interview in 2006 for the Pulse DVD.
Two years later, during a conversation with Mojo Magazine he had praised the track once more. “I cannot talk about anything past ‘The Division Bell’ without crediting Polly with her help. But, we still have to deal with criticism. The great Yoko Ono factor.”
“I guess, we made some of the Pink Floyd classics in out later incarnation. ‘High Hopes’ from the ‘Division Bell’ which I wrote with Polly, certainly falls into that category,” David Gilmour said.
“Keep Talking”
Another song that Gilmour thinks that is a new Pink Floyd classic is “Keep Talking”, that is credited to him, Polly Samson and Richard Wright.
The song also was part of the 1994 album “Division Bell”. At the time, the album received mixed reviews but reacher number 1 in more than 10 countries. Two of them were the United States and United Kingdom.
In the States, it was certified double platinum in 1994 and triple platinum in 1999. The tour made by the band to promote the record was a success. In the United States and Europe they sold more than 5 million tickets.