(Credits: Far Out / Alamy)
Sun 17 August 2025 20:30, UK
In terms of inter-band frictions, Pink Floyd had a decent run throughout the 1970s, where things seemed to be going pretty smoothly.
They’d parted company with original vocalist Syd Barrett at the end of the previous decade, and as they began to expand upon their musical adventurousness and fleshed out more complex and conceptual records, stability seemed to be in order. However, by the end of the decade, things weren’t exactly as rosy as they had been when they ushered the new era in.
This was, of course, largely down to a clash of personalities, most notably Roger Waters versus the rest of the band. Richard Wright decided he’d had enough of the tension in 1981, leaving the band temporarily, and only returning once Waters was out of the equation and David Gilmour and Nick Mason had assumed complete creative control of the group.
Tensions had been rising since the recording sessions for The Wall, and the fact that they found themselves disputing various creative decisions got in the way of the larger creative process, creating a myriad of problems for the band. It’s fair to say that while this album essentially marked the beginning of the end for Pink Floyd’s second chapter, The Final Cut ended up being the final straw.
It can’t be easy to be in a band where every decision you make is disputed or questioned by another member, and you can see why the band began to fall apart when these frictions began to show. However, if there was one thing that Gilmour and Waters, the two primary creative minds in the band who wrote the majority of the material, could agree on, it’s where the bulk of their influence had come from. On separate occasions since the dissolution of the band, they’ve both expressed a love for one songwriter in particular, and have noted how he shaped their approach to lyricism, musicianship and composition.
Gilmour expressed a love for Leonard Cohen during a pandemic livestream, where he performed covers of ‘Marianne’, ‘If It Be Your Will’ and ‘So Long’, and would later address his decision to cover this trio of Cohen classics in a 2021 interview with Rolling Stone. Speaking about learning the songs for the performance, he noted: “One thing I did learn is how bloody good he is as a guitar player. You tend to think of singer-songwriters as people who are just using the guitar accompaniment to carry the words that they’re doing, but Leonard was an absolutely brilliantly accomplished guitar player in fingerstyle things that I just cannot do. And, of course, he’s about the best lyricist that I know of.”
On his appearance on Desert Island Discs, Waters similarly expressed a fondness for Cohen’s work, singling him out as one of his own greatest inspirations for writing lyrics. “Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan were the two men who allowed us to believe that there was an open door between poetry and song lyrics,” Waters proclaimed, before naming ‘Bird on the Wire’ as one of his favourite songs of all time.
“So simple, so moving, so brilliant.”
Sure, things might have been fractious in Pink Floyd at times, but it’s good that they can still find common ground on one thing now the band no longer need to have disputes in the studio. Them being united by a mutual love of Leonard Cohen might not have been what I might have predicted being their shared belief, but it’s one that I can certainly get behind.
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