A member of the progressive rock band Pink Floyd has been dubbed a “genius” by Paul McCartney following their collaboration.
The Beatles songwriter was full of praise for the group, but one member stood out as he “really goes to town” during a collaboration with McCartney. The Wings frontman has worked with a staggering list of famous faces in the studio during his post-Beatles career, including Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, and most recently, Barbra Streisand. But a chance to work with one of prog-rock’s greatest assets came to be on No More Lonely Nights a song written for the film Give My Regards to Broad Street. While critics dismissed the film at the time, the song fared far better, and a Pink Floyd appearance appears to have contributed to its success.
Writing in his book, The Lyrics, McCartney thanked David Gilmour for his work on the song and said working with him in the studio is often a pleasure. The pair would go on to perform together live at The Cavern Club in 1999, performing covers of classic tracks, and a few from their discographies.
McCartney wrote: “‘Word dancing’ I call it. You begin with a thought, and then you start word dancing, and then it’s step, step, step. That was a straightforward love song, really, about a lonely person saying, ‘Can’t wait till we’re together.’
“David Gilmour plays the solo on the record. I’ve known him since the early days of Pink Floyd. Dave is a genius of sorts, so I was pulling out all the stops. I admired his playing so much, and I’d seen him around; I think he’d just done his solo About Face album. So I rang him up and said, ‘Would you play on this?’ It sounded like his kind of thing. I wrote this song specifically for a film that I also wrote: Give My Regards to Broad Street.”
McCartney then reflected on the success of his 1984 film, which did not fare as well as the songwriter believed it would. He wrote: “The song did better than the film. Originally, the opening of the film was me walking around Broad Street station with some sound effects played over the top.
“But I wanted to do a film tune, so I wrote this song to go with the music. I then later rearranged it as an up-tempo version so that when it played out at the end, there was a dance version.”
The Beatles member confirmed he wrote the film around the same time as recording Pipes of Peace, with screenplay work carried out while on the train between Sussex and London. He added: “We made it around the same time as my solo album Pipes of Peace and, I think, I wrote some of the screenplay on the train between Sussex and London.
“It was a lot of fun to make, and people like Ringo and his wife Barbara got involved. Linda was there too, plus George Martin and Tracey Ullman. Wrestler Giant Haystacks was also in it, and Bryan Brown.”
