{"id":809733,"date":"2026-10-21T23:16:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-21T23:16:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/809733\/"},"modified":"2026-10-21T23:16:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-21T23:16:12","slug":"in-1975-pink-floyd-released-an-album-that-sold-35000000-copies-david-gilmour-refused-to-sing-one-of-its-songs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/809733\/","title":{"rendered":"In 1975, Pink Floyd released an album that sold 35,000,000 copies. David Gilmour refused to sing one of its songs"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"David<\/p>\n

Credit: Far Out \/ Anton Corbjin<\/p>\n

October 21st, 2026 \u00b7 9:48pm BST <\/p>\n

Pink Floyd<\/a> were always awash with fractures and cracks, but to paraphrase Leonard Cohen, that also seemed to be exactly what let the light in. Tension gave birth to the exultancy that made them unique masters, but the strained recording of one classic began to hint that the cracked majesty was beginning to fall apart.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love singing,\u201d David Gilmour once proclaimed. \u201cI have spent as much of my life trying to improve my singing as I have practising guitar.\u201d <\/p>\n

In fact, one of the reasons behind Pink Floyd\u2019s unceremonious split was because<\/a>, in drummer Nick Mason\u2019s view, \u201cRoger doesn\u2019t really respect David. He feels that writing is everything and that guitar playing and singing are something that, I won\u2019t say anyone can do, but that everything should be judged on the writing rather than the playing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Obviously, that\u2019s somewhat of a problem when Gilmour takes great pride in his vocals, with the Cambridge chanter always aiming to channel the sincerity of his heroes like the aforementioned Leonard Cohen, the rough-shod sharpness of Bob Dylan, the grace of \u201ctrue great original Nina Simone, and the earthiness of Lead Belly. <\/p>\n

This issue even began to manifest way back when the band were seemingly in their pomp, too. While they were writing Wish You Were Here<\/a>, Waters\u2019 weaving lyrics were becoming increasingly verbose, creating problems for Gilmour, who preferred his vocals to be enunciated and measured.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He wanted to capture the directness of someone like Dylan, hoping to cut through the wail of this psychedelic sound, but things were falling out of his range. He was tripping over the beats in the bars and growing frustrated in the process.<\/p>\n

So, when it came time to cut \u2018Have a Cigar\u2019, and Waters\u2019 voice was already spent from recording \u2018Shine On You Crazy Diamond\u2019 earlier that day, Gilmour flat out refused to offer up what he felt would be a subpar performance if he got behind the microphone for the song. So, Roy Harper had to be drafted in to pave over the impasse.<\/p>\n

In some ways, this was indicative of the strange situation that Pink Floyd found themselves in. A rational mind might reasonably ask, \u2018Why did they have to record the two tracks on the same day?\u2019 But while the group might have been making solid commercial progress at the time, terrible business dealings also meant that they were under strain in the studio, and things had to be done on the fly. <\/p>\n

These business failures are all too often overlooked when considering the strained relationships of the band. In truth, money is usually mentioned in the capacity of the anti-capitalist song of the same name when it comes to the Floyd, but they were all understandably foaming that they had arduously toured and toiled for so long and frittered it away on failing manic ventures like a children\u2019s shoe factory, a computer game, and a car hire business.<\/p>\n

\"David<\/a>Credit: Alamy<\/p>\n

So, angered and exhausted, Gilmour gave up on the track <\/a>and arguably started to edge away from the band at that moment, too. Fortunately, the folk singing Harper had been recording in the same building. As he was mulling around, he just so happened to hear the commotion surrounding \u2018Have a Cigar\u2019 and inquired if they needed assistance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cRoger had a go at singing it, and one or two people were unkind about his singing. One or two people then asked me to have a go at it. I did, but I wasn\u2019t comfortable,\u201d Gilmour recalls. He later pulled his takes and refused to do any others.<\/p>\n

However, he clarifies: \u201cI had nothing against the lyrics. Maybe the range and intensity wasn\u2019t right for my voice. I can distinctly remember Roy leaning on the wall outside Abbey Road, while we were nattering away and (growls) \u2018Go on, lemme have a go, lemme have a go.\u2019 We all went, \u2018Shut up Roy\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Harper was a close friend of Gilmour\u2019s, so they hardly called security either. This bickering continued for some time, with Harper hovering around still. \u201cEventually we said, \u2018Go on then, Roy, have your bloody go\u2019,\u201d Gilmour told Mojo. \u201cMost of us enjoyed his version, though I don\u2019t think Roger ever liked it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whether he liked it or not was rather moot at this stage because it was clear that Gilmour wasn\u2019t going to sing it, Waters himself couldn\u2019t, and time was against them. In fact, this is a marvel that lingers behind many classic albums: happenstance always has a huge hand to play. <\/p>\n

We might think of classic records as masterpieces that have been sweated over endlessly, but more often than not, deadlines, debacles and quirks of destiny played their part. Wish You Were Here just happened to be one of the lucky ones.<\/p>\n

Lucky though it might have been, in retrospect, there were episodes in the making of the 35 million-selling album that felt like an early warning of the schism that would eventually consume Pink Floyd. No more so than the \u2018Have a Cigar\u2019 spat. It marked a growing inability to reconcile Waters\u2019 creative control with Gilmour\u2019s musical instincts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The irony was that \u2018Have a Cigar\u2019 satirised the music industry\u2019s appetite for profit and hollow celebrity at the very moment Pink Floyd were struggling with the consequences of their own commercial success as Dark Side of the Moon roared its way towards its current position among the ten best-selling albums of all time. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s a famous question \u2013 Which one\u2019s Pink? \u2013 captured the absurdity of an industry that barely understood the artists it sought to exploit. Behind the studio doors, however, the more troubling question was whether the musicians themselves still knew what Pink was. And that was more damning than being a colourblind snooker player when it came to the future of the ailing band.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

ADD AS A PREFERRED SOURCE ON GOOGLE \"\"\/ <\/a> The Far Out Classic Rock Newsletter<\/p>\n

All the latest Classic Rock content from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Credit: Far Out \/ Anton Corbjin October 21st, 2026 \u00b7 9:48pm BST Pink Floyd were always awash with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":809734,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[42201,193281,58176,32620,96,128,15742,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-809733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-1970s","tag-193281","tag-classic-rock","tag-david-gilmour","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-pink-floyd","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=809733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809733\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/809734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=809733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=809733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=809733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}