This fine track comes from Roy Harper’s 1980 album, The Unknown Soldier, with Kate Bush also on vocals and David Gilmour on guitar:
Tag: David Gilmour
When Pink Floyd was a Classic(al) Band
Over the past several months, I’ve been rather taken with Pink Floyd. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always loved the band. . . as far back as I can remember, their music was a part of my life. Certainly, in my little town in central Kansas, I could hear someone or some station playing Floyd at any time. As I’ve had the chance to mention before, our local planetarium played lots of Laser Floyd. I heard them so much and so often that I started to take them for granted.
Several months ago, I picked The Wall up after years of not listening to it. There was a time I thought it was a masterful work of art. I still think it’s brilliant, but it’s way too depressing for me to pick up casually. If I’m in a good mood, I certainly don’t want to be brought down by the album. If I’m in a bad mood, I don’t need it to bring me down any further.
There’s no doubt, however, that its message of anti-fascism and anti-conformity influenced my own thinking on the world profoundly.
MOMENTARY LAPSE OF REASON at 30
Pink Floyd’s MOMENTARY LAPSE OF REASON turns 30 this year. Like so much of “prog” (yes, I put this in quotes) of the 1980s, it’s still controversial.
The same thing happened to Genesis, of course. Is ABACAB really a Genesis album? Or, how about ELP? Is EMERSON LAKE AND POWELL really an ELP album? Or Yes? Are 90125 or BIG GENERATOR really Yes albums? Ok, I won’t drag this idea into the ground. But, it’s fair to note, that the question regarding MOMENTARY LAPSE OF REASON is not unique.
At the time MOMENTARY LAPSE came out, I was living in Austria for my sophomore year of college. My great friend, Liz Ehret (now Bardwell), was visiting an American Army base in West German and picked up a copy of it as well as copies of Rush’s HOLD YOUR FIRE and Yes’s BIG GENERATOR for me. Of the three, the only one that floored me was HOLD YOUR FIRE. Still, I very much liked MOMENTARY.
