Considered one of the greatest musicians of all time, David Gilmour helped take Pink Floyd to another level with his incredible ability to translate emotion through the notes that came out of his guitar. It was the perfect match for Roger Waters’ brilliant lyrics, Nick Mason’s drumming and Richard Wright’s fantastic keyboards and piano.
Over the decades, Gilmour didn’t speak much about other artists who began their careers around the same time as him, but one musician he did share his thoughts on was the legendary Neil Young.
What is David Gilmour’s opinion on Neil Young
Like his former bandmate Roger Waters, David Gilmour is also a big fan of Neil Young and praised him a couple of times. One of his favorite songs of the musician’s career is “A Man Needs a Maid” from the 1972 album “Harvest”. He mentioned that song when he was part of BBC’s Desert Island Discs in 2003. Show interviews musicians and asks them to pick songs they would take to a desert island.
“‘A Man Needs a Maid’ by Neil Young,” he said. Then the interviewer commented: “Which is a deeply politically incorrect (one)”. Gilmour replied: “Oh, I’m being non-gender specific of course when I’m on my desert island. It could be a man friday. It’s Neil Young, it’s very beautiful. It’s a particularly beautiful instrumental orchestral passage in the middle, which is the bit we’re leading into,” David Gilmour said.
The piano and vocals on that track were recorded by Young and the strings were performed by the London Symphony Orchestra. It’s interesting to see that David focused on the musical aspects of the song rather than the lyrics. Because he has always been more of a music writer than a lyricist. Roger Waters, on the other hand, was always more interested in what Young had to say in his lyrics.
David Gilmour thinks Young was important to Crosby, Stills & Nash
Neil first achieved fame as a member of Buffalo Springfield and then started his successful solo career. But he was also an important member of the supergroup Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. The Pink Floyd member is also a big fan of them and in an interview with BBC’s “Tracks Of My Years” in 2006, he listed their song “Ohio” as one of his favorites.
(Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage) “We were on tour in America when this came out. There was all this thing about the Kent State University. The four kids who got killed there in the rioting, the demonstrations against the Vietnam war. So it’s just a great song. They were always fantastic with that added to a little bit of Neil Young strength with the whole thing with Crosby, Stills & Nash great voices. Still a big fan,” David Gilmour said.
The song was written by Neil Young and released as a single in 1970. It became one of the most influential protest songs of all time. During his 2006 concert at the Royal Albert Hall, which later became the DVD “Remember That Night”, he had David Crosby and Graham Nash as special guests. They performed with Gilmour the tracks they were part of from the album “On an Island”, “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” and CSNY’s “Find The Cost of Freedom”, which was the short song on the other side of the “Ohio” single.
Another interesting Neil Young and Pink Floyd connection is that fans often points Young’s song “Down By The River” (From “Everybody Knows This is Nowhere – 1969) as an influence to “Breathe’, released on their 1973 album “Dark Side of The Moon”.
Gilmour continues to follow Neil Young’s career
The Pink Floyd singer and guitarist is still interested in what artists like Neil Young are doing nowadays. He was asked by Classic Rock what kind of music he was listening to at the moment and he said: “I always listen to a new Bob, Neil or Leonard record. But I don’t listen to much new music. When I have the radio on it all sounds dreadfully formularised to me, but I’m not its audience. When you get to sixty-nine you’re not spending every day seeking out new pop music.”
“Obviously there are whole layers of music away from what we get on the radio and telly. It’s like that thing they say about rats: ‘You’re never more than six feet away from a rat in London’. You’re probably never more than a hundred yards from someone doing a great gig somewhere. But I’m just not aware of it. If a new Pink Floyd came along now I wouldn’t know it had happened,” Neil Young said.
Born in Toronto, Canada in 1945, Neil Young is one year older than Gilmour and started his career in 1963. Since then he has released 45 solo studio albums, besides the ones with Crosby, Stills & Nash, Buffalo Springfield and the several other projects he had over the decades. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo act in 1995.
