The Pink Floyd song that David Gilmour heartbreakingly refuses to play live
Ever since prog-rock heroes Pink Floyd officially split, the opportunity for the individual members to perform songs from the band’s impressive canon has never disappeared, with their audiences always looking to be taken back in time. After all, why wouldn’t ardent fans enjoy a trip in a time machine back to when David Gilmour, Roger Waters, Richard Wright and Nick Mason all happily shared the same stage?
Following Waters’ departure from the group, as a trio performing under the band’s moniker, it was never a problem for Gilmour, Wright or Mason to provide a searing setlist of their finest prog-rock tracks. Whether it be their defining anthems ‘Comfortably Numb’, ‘Great Gig in the Sky’ or ‘Wish You Were Here’ or any other notable song from their back catalogue. Even performing, as they often did, in solo ventures, the band members were all happy to dip into the previous work of The Floyd.
However, there remains one song that has now become too painful for David Gilmour to even think of performing: Pink Floyd’s masterpiece, ‘Echoes’. Shared on the band’s 1971 album Meddle, it comes from a moment in time when the band were starting to discover their talents. Often seen as the start of their glory years, as Pink Floyd moved away from acid rock into something more singularly substantial, the record can be considered the first footstep towards their domination.
‘Echoes’ should be a top contender for the number one slot when discussing the finest Pink Floyd tracks ever made and should certainly be considered some of Gilmour’s best work on the guitar for the group. It is the ultimate in progressive rock, providing a song structure that is so intricately dense yet inspiringly sprawling it would put some operatic composers to shame.
The song was the first real step the group made towards their eventual domination of prog rock, and Gilmour’s solo on the track is perhaps the most crystalline vision of that future. Gilmour combines aggression and fluidity to make a solo worthy of the Pulitzer Prize. Following the lead line, Gilmour gets a bit tech-happy and creates an atmospheric tone that you’re unlikely to hear from any other band in the world. For that reason alone, ‘Echoes’ should be a shoo-in for any of Gilmour’s setlists.
The track becomes anthemic with so many compounding moments of archetypal Floyd fragments formed together. The delicacy with which these sonic layers fall upon each other provides us with a sincere picture of a band in full pomp. All in all, the song is a sincere reflection of the enigma that is Pink Floyd. It makes it even more unusual for Gilmour to shun the track in his solo sets.
However, it would seem that the track now holds too many painful memories for the guitarist to include in his setlists. Following the tragic death of Richard Wright, Pink Floyd’s composer extraordinaire and the man usually charged with providing the keyboards for the track, Gilmour has avoided the song because of its connection to him.
Like most bandmates, he and Wright shared a rare connection. However, theirs was perhaps more pertinent than most. Working with one another in a band famous for its turmoil, the two sought each other’s company as a safe refuge from the feuds that seemed to follow Pink Floyd around.
The revelation arose when Gilmour was about to perform at the Amphitheatre of Pompeii back in 2016. A replica of Pink Floyd’s famous show, where the group performed a truly awe-inspiring version of ‘Echoes’, the stage was seemingly set for the song to be wheeled out for the audience. However, Gilmour was forthright in his reason for the track’s exclusion: “Yes, it would be lovely to play ‘Echoes’ here. But I wouldn’t do that without Rick,” he said.
It wasn’t just the memories of their playing together that would trouble Gilmour if he were to play the song, but the track itself feels inextricably linked to Wright. “There’s something that’s specifically so individual about the way that Rick and I play in that that you can’t get someone to learn it and do it just like that. That’s not what music’s about.”
For Gilmour, refusing to play one of Pink Floyd’s greatest songs isn’t only for the preservation of his own sensibilities but an act that ratifies the connection he shared with his friend, Richard Wright, and the shared link we all have with music as a whole. In refusing to play the song, Gilmour is confirming just how special it is. Considering the song has rarely featured in Roger Waters or Nick Mason solo sets, one can assume that this track will likely spend the rest of its legacy on record.
Below, watch the final time David Gilmour and Richard Wright performed Pink Floyd’s ‘Echoes’ together.