When Pink Floyd hit the road in June of 1974, they were debuting a substantially upgraded production including the circular video screen that quickly became a signature element of their concerts.
But a little more than a year after the release of The Dark Side of the Moon, they also had new music to share with fans. The British group aired out an early version of “Shine on You Crazy Diamond,” which previewed 1975’s Wish You Were Here album. “Raving and Drooling,” which became “Sheep,” was another fresh offering. It was joined later that year by “You’ve Got to Be Crazy,” a similar work-in-progress that evolved into “Dogs.” Both tracks were heard on stage years before listeners could buy them on 1977’s Animals album.
Listen to Pink Floyd Perform ‘Shine on You Crazy Diamond’ Live at Wembley
“Those songs came together in a tiny rehearsal room,” David Gilmour recalls now in a new interview with UCR that you can listen to below. “You know, Roger [Waters] wanted to divide ‘Shine on You Crazy Diamond’ into two and make it the centerpiece of that next album. “I was really slightly unwilling [to agree to that] at the beginning, but you know, these things are commonplace, these little arguments. But he was right, and we carried on with that. And the other two made it onto Animals in due course, a couple of years later.”
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Though it’s less common now within the industry, Gilmour continues to find himself taking the music that he writes through a similar process of evolution. The 2007 “Barn Jam” featuring his current touring band at the time, including longtime Pink Floyd bandmate Richard Wright, continues to bear fruit nearly two decades later. Music from that unconventional session helped to form the skeleton of the title track for 2024’s Luck and Strange album.
“I store everything like a magpie — I store it away somewhere and and forget about it,” he admits. “Sometimes I’m playing through old files and I find something that I’ve haven’t heard for years. These things always have a way of sparking you off and [get you] thinking again about something that you may not have quite managed to get finished yet. [It can] spark you into a new interest in finding out where they could go and how good they really can be. And, yeah, a lot of time is spent doing that.”
Now on the other side of the short run of tour dates for Luck and Strange, Gilmour is celebrating the outing with a new live set, The Luck and Strange Concerts, which is accompanied by a film as well, Live at the Circus Maximus. Both will be available Oct. 17 in a variety of packages via his official website.
Watch David Gilmour Perform ‘Sorrow’ at Circus Maximus in Rome
Listen to David Gilmour on the ‘UCR Podcast’
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Gallery Credit: Nick DeRiso
