R J Dent says: ‘I was inspired to write The Pink Floyd Story Considered as a NASA Space Flight Report after reading J G Ballard’s The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered as a Downhill Motor Race and Princess Margaret’s Facelift, both from Ballard’s classic, The Atrocity Exhibition.’
Although On An island is a great David Gilmour solo album, his best solo album is his first album, simply entitled David Gilmour.
David Gilmour was released in May 1978 in the UK and on June 17, 1978 in the US. The album reached #17 in the UK and #29 on the Billboard US album charts and was certified Gold in the US by the RIAA. The album was produced by Gilmour himself, and consists mostly of bluesy, guitar oriented rock songs.
David Gilmour was recorded at Super Bear Studios in France between December 1977 and early January 1978 with engineer John Etchells. It was mixed at the same studio in March 1978 by Nick Griffiths. The cover was designed by Hipgnosis and David Gilmour.
The tracks are:
Mihalis – 6.00
There’s No Way Out of Here (Ken Baker) – 5:24
Cry from the Street (David Gilmour/Eric Stuart) – 5:18
So Far Away – 6:12
Short and Sweet (David Gilmour/Roy Harper) – 5:33
Raise My Rent – 5:49)
No Way – 6:14)
It’s Deafinitely – 4:29)
I Can’t Breathe Anymore – 3:40)
All songs by David Gilmour except as noted.
A five song promotional film was made to promote the album. The band comprised Gilmour himself on guitars and vocals plus the two musicians on the album (bass player Rick Wills and drummer Willie Wilson) plus David Gilmour’s brother Mark on rhythm guitar and Ian McLagen on keyboards and performed “Mihalis”, “There’s No Way Out of Here”, “So Far Away”, “No Way” and “I Can’t Breathe Anymore”. There were additional female backing singers on “There’s No Way Out of Here” and “So Far Away”. The performances of the tracks in the promotional film differed to the album versions.
“Mihalis” had an extended ending guitar solo.
“There’s No Way Out of Here” was slightly shorter as one of the verses was deleted but the ending guitar solo was different from that on the album and had a clean ending instead of fading out like on album version.
The track “So Far Away” had an extended ending guitar solo on this performance and ended in a faster tempo than the album version.
The performance of the song “No Way” had Gilmour playing regular lead guitar solos at the end of the track on his Fender Esquire (with distortion) instead of the lap steel guitar solos (with distortion) that had appeared on the album version and had a clean ending instead of fading out like on the album (the remastered CD version of the album had Gilmour’s lap steel solo extended this time to feature a duel between himself playing high notes on his lap steel and lower notes on his trademark Stratocaster during the fadeout on the remaster). The middle part of the album version, for where the first of two lap steel guitar solos were on the album version, was deleted.
“I Can’t Breathe Anymore” had Gilmour playing a regular guitar solo at the end of this song’s performance whilst on the album version (and on the remastered CD in an extended coda), a distorted lap steel guitar countered the ending guitar solo. The ending of the promo performance of “I Can’t Breathe Anymore” was longer than on the album.
And that’s David Gilmour for you. Arguably, it’s David Gilmour’s best solo album.
David Gilmour doesn’t need my help selling his music, but I enjoyed this collection of songs so much and was so impressed by their quality – for very often live albums tend to have a poor sound – that I wanted to encourage everyone interested in Gilmour’s music to listen to it.
Give Live in Gdánsk a listen – it’s a great album – you won’t regret it.
It starts with David Gilmour saying: “Christ! Where would rock and roll be without feedback?” which is a sound-bite from the Brain Damage section of Pink Floyd Live at Pompeii.
This segues into Careful With That Axe, Eugene, which is followed by the live version of A Saucerful of Secrets. Both tracks are taken from Ummagumma, although a slightly different version of Careful With That Axe, Eugene could just have easily been taken from Relics – or even from the Zabriskie Point soundtrack.
Following these is Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun from A Saucerful of Secrets, after which, as a tribute to Rick Wright, is Remember a Day from Relics. After these are Julia Dream from Relics, Cirrus Minor from More and then One of These Days from Meddle.
Grantchester Meadows from Ummagumma follows these and paves the way for the instrumental Mudmen from Obscured by Clouds, which serves as a prelude to Atom Heart Mother (Parts 1-6) from Atom Heart Mother.
After that it’s time for Echoes, which is taken from Meddle, rather than the much shorter version which is on Echoes.
Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Part One) and Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Part Two) are followed (yes, followed, not separated) by Wish You Were Here, all from Wish You Were Here.
There’s nothing from Dark Side of the Moon, as that particular album is best listened to in its entirety on its own.
The Back Catalogue by Storm Thorgerson
Wish You Were Here is followed by Dogs from Animals. This is followed by Another Brick in the Wall (Part 1), Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2), and Another Brick in the Wall (Part 3) from The Wall.
The final track is, of course, the glorious Comfortably Numb, also from The Wall.
And that’s it, Eclipse, the perfect, definitive, classic Pink Floyd album. It’s what I have on my computer, what I’m listening to right now as I write this. If you want a copy of Eclipse, you’ll have to make your own.
Note: Apologies to completists for not including any of Syd’s songs, but that would have changed the mood of Eclipse completely. I like Syd’s music very much, but there’s so much good stuff it would have to be an entire album, perhaps one called Mad-recap.
