The 77-year-old British-born David Gilmour rose to fame and popularity in the 1970s with his psychedelic band Pink Floyd. Thanks to albums like The Dark Side of the Moon and Animals, Pink Floyd became one of the most important rock bands in music and has since become a classic rock essential.
While Gilmour plays solo these days, given all his time and experience in the seminal group, one might wonder what he has to say about the world around him, his craft and career, life and love.
Below, without further ado, these are the 15 best David Gilmour quotes.
1. “When you realize that you have a little germ of an idea that has—I suppose I can only say, has to me—a little taste of magic to it. You have this idea that there are millions, literally, of people listening to it at the same time as you and that little strange telepathy of a feeling that you’re sharing something live with all those people.
2. “I love singing. I have spent as much of my life trying to improve my singing as I have practicing guitar.”
3. “I’ve never had any religion. I’d prefer it if I did, really. Even as a boy I just couldn’t make myself believe.”
4. “I have moments of huge frustration because of my inability to express myself linguistically as clearly as I would like to.”
5. “It’s a magical thing, the guitar. It allows you to be the whole band in one, to play rhythm and melody, sing over the top. And as an instrument for solos, you can bend notes, draw emotional content out of tiny movements, vibratos, and tonal things which even a piano can’t do.”
6. “I think a guitar solo is how my emotion is most freely released because verbal articulation isn’t my strongest communication strength. My wife thinks that I should do interviews by listening to the questions and playing the answer on guitar.”
7. “It’s a very tempting thing to try and relive your glory days when you get a little older and you worry that people have forgotten all about you.”
8. “I don’t even think whether I play the blues or not, I just play whatever feels right at the moment. I also will use any gadget or device that I find that helps me achieve the sort of sound on the guitar that I want to get.”
9. “I don’t have a very disciplined approach to practicing or anything, but I do tend to have a guitar around most of the time, which I strum on most of the day.”
10. “If people would like to come to my concerts I’d love them to come. And if they like the music that I make, I love that too. But I do not make music for other people. I make it to please myself.”
11. “I don’t want to be a full-time member of Pink Floyd all my life.”
12. “Usually, in the studio, on this sort of thing… you just go out and have a play over it, and see what comes, and it’s usually—mostly—the first take that’s the best one, and you find yourself repeating yourself thereafter.”
13. “I don’t like to get too specific about lyrics. It places limitations on them, and spoils the listeners’ interpretation.”
14. “I just play intuitively and work the same way in the studio. I don’t have any magical effects or anything that helps me to get my particular sound.”
15. “I was never particularly gregarious. I was quite shy, and closed in. It’s a classic isn’t it, your psychiatrist will tell you, that’s how I release it, through music.”
