Speaking with Absolute Radio back in 2011, Waters vividly recounted the fight that would provide us with a masterpiece of the highest calibre: “Dave and I, when we were in the South of France where we did most of the recording for The Wall, we had quite a serious disagreement about the recording of ‘Comfortably Numb’.”
The Wall is considered one of Waters’ ultimate masterpieces, but it would never have shone so brightly without Gilmour. However, the track really came to life once Waters had sprinkled his lyrics onto the instrumental take, which, incidentally, all came from a huge argument he had with his counterpart Gilmour. Or perhaps, more pertinently, that he wasn’t allowed to. Even having such a side-project suggested that he required another creative output for his music because he wasn’t feeling fulfilled from Floyd.
The song was initially created during the recording sessions for Gilmour’s self-titled debut solo album in 1978, a project that showed some insight into the relationship between the bandmates. In Mark Blake’s 2008 book Comfortably Numb: The Inside Story Of Pink Floyd, Gilmour confessed that the track arrived as “the last embers of mine and Roger’s ability to work collaboratively together.” We’re still very glad it did. Their creative differences looked ready to split the band irrevocably in two. The single ‘Comfortably Numb’ came at a time when the relationship between Waters and Gilmour had become fractured to almost a point of no return.