Why David Gilmour-led Pink Floyd avoided playing songs Roger Waters had sung

Some of the all-time greatest Pink Floyd songs were not played during the band’s final years, and there was one reason why, says guitarist David Gilmour.

Roger Waters, who wrote much of the material which still defines the band to this day, left the group after The Final Cut. He went on to have success as a solo artist, while Pink Floyd continued on with Gilmour as the new lead. The guitarist went on to confirm there was a financial incentive for not playing the new songs, and that there was just one song the group would consistently play during tours promoting A Momentary Lapse of Reason. Though fans of the group may have been disappointed to see Pink Floyd avoid performing songs from The Wall, it was due to a licensing agreement with BMI and a royalties problem, according to Gilmour.

Speaking to Q Magazine in 1990, Gilmour suggested the band had avoided performing songs Waters featured on because of how heavily involved the former bass player was with the tracks. Gilmour said: “That’s the way it goes. Every time we’d go into a town, there’d be a Pink Floyd Day, tons of records would be played, the Performing Rights Society or the BMI in America would pick up some royalties, which would be distributed to the people who wrote those songs – perfectly right.

“And when Roger plays The Wall in Berlin, money for some of those songs will be paid to me. I do think it’s slightly funny at times, but it’s not a subject one would want to dwell on overlong.

“We do only one, Shine On You Crazy Diamond, though there’s part of Comfortably Numb which Roger sang, which I got Rick and Guy (Pratt) and Jon (Carin) to sing. I sang Money on the record. Live, we pick songs we liked and did tend to move towards songs that I had sung or had a greater involvement in.

“A lot of people think that Shine On sounds very similar to the way I sing it, but it’s not really conscious, though I’ve always been good at imitations.” The group would reform at Live 8, marking the final time Pink Floyd performed together. It marked the first live performance with Waters since 1981, and featured some of his Pink Floyd classics.

The group performed Breathe (In the Air), Breathe (Reprise), Money, Wish You Were Here, and Comfortably Numb at the show. Before that, though, the Gilmour-fronted group performed little of Waters’ work. A final full show was performed at Earls Court in London on October 29, 1994. A full setlist can be found below.

• Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts I-V)
• Learning to fly
• High Hopes
• Take it Back
• Coming Back to Life
• Sorrow
• Keep Talking
• Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2
• One of These Days
• Breathe (In the Air)
• On the Run
• Time
• Breathe (Reprise)
• The Great Gig in the Sky
• Money
• Us and Them
• Any Colour You Like
• Brain Damage
• Eclipse
• Wish You Were Here
• Comfortably Numb
• Run Like Hell