First, an observation. To hear music is not only to feel it, but to see the world, the artist and yourself. On the back cover of David Gilmour’s latest album Luck and Strange is a portrait of the artist.
There is no colour in the photograph. Indeed, there is no colour, front, back or inside. It is all black and white. Black on white, white on black. Gilmour on the back is depicted from neck up only, looking slightly down to one side. His face is studied, bewhiskered, the lines of age clear. It is classicism come to the present. It could be the face of a Roman or Greek philosopher or player of music of the spheres.
Gilmour is 78. He has been a musician for nigh-on 60 years. Half of that time was spent with one of the most successful bands in music history, Pink Floyd. The success that catapulted them into the stratosphere, and beyond, was Dark Side of the Moon, released in 1973. The album has sold more than 40 million copies, and been in the Billboard charts for nigh on 1000 weeks. It is one of the greatest-selling albums ever. A decade ago, it was nominated for preservation in the US National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.
Stratospheric success, of course, doesn’t bring everlasting band harmony. Indeed, the split between Roger Waters and David Gilmour is akin to a supernova creating a black hole of complete disengagement. There shall be no reunion, ever. They have gone their own ways.
Gilmour in recent interviews has said Luck and Strange, his first album in nine years, is the best thing he has done since Dark Side of the Moon. This places it, in his view, better than Wish You Were Here, The Wall, The Division Bell, A Momentary Lapse of Reason, and solo, David Gilmour, About Face, On an Island, to name a few.
He may well be right.
The grain in the music, the depth in the lyrics by his wife Polly Samson, for whom in the liner notes he writes ‘with love and heartfelt thanks, this is her record as much as it is mine’, goes deep into a place of magic. Not the magic of illusionists, but of conjurors, who can fuse art and the feeling of wonderment, under a wide-open sky of stars. It’s alchemy.
'Gilmour’s phrasing, his attack and receding in a solo is more than start, flurry, stop. His solo on the Floyd’s Comfortably Numb is a standout of incandescence, but here his work is all the rhythm of the river, the ebb and flow of time.'
After a short instrumental prelude, the title track opens the doors to this perception. It sets up the pulse, both musically and lyrically. Many guitarists are virtuosos, but not so many have a signature style. Gilmour does. Richard Thompson, for instance, does, Jeff Beck did.
In particular, Gilmour’s phrasing, his attack and receding in a solo is more than start, flurry, stop. His solo on the Floyd’s Comfortably Numb is a standout of incandescence, but here his work is all the rhythm of the river, the ebb and flow of time. This is in harmony with the overall theme of the album. Samson says of the lyrics, ‘It’s written from the point of view of being older; mortality is the constant.’
Lockdown during the pandemic also played a part in the coalescing of themes. Gilmour says, ‘We spent a load of time during and after lockdown talking about and thinking about those kind of things.’
Time, ghosts, paths taken and not taken, the past, present and future. Luck and Strange the song began 17 years ago as a jam between Gilmour and Floyd bandmate, keyboardist Richard Wright. Gilmour has bookended it here, with lyrics at the start of the album, and as the closing out instrumental.
Gilmour’s children Charlie, Gabriel and Romany also contribute, either in the writing of lyrics or in singing. The only cover is an exquisite, pensive version of the Montgolfier Brothers’ song Between Two Points sung by Romany. Other contributors are music legends Roger Eno and drummer Steve Gadd.
A second observation: the album’s cover image is, at first glance (indeed at subsequent glances) somewhat enigmatic and mysterious. A figure stands at the head of a rushing stream, arms outstretched as the water passes through his feet on its way. The image, by Anton Corbijn, was inspired by lyrics from the album’s last track (bar the two bonus tracks) Scattered. ‘I stand in a river, push against the stream/time is a tide that disobeys and it disobeys me/it never ends.’
And then his guitar sings to the universe.
Warwick McFadyen is an award-winning journalist. He has won two Walkley Awards and four Quill Awards. He has published several books of poetry. The latest is 21+4 Poems. His prose and poems have also appeared in Quadrant, Overland and Dissent.
Main image: Rear cover of Luck and Strange (Sony Music)