David Gilmour

Speaker 20:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 20:08

The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand and three, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:23

My castaway this week is a rock star. In his mid fifties, wearing jeans, a T shirt and an acoustic guitar, he can still pack out the Royal Festival Hall with an intimate, romantic performance. It's all part of the long, enjoyable, downhill run from the height of rock star popularity where he spent the last three decades. As the lead guitarist and vocal in Pink Floyd, he was an integral part of the albums which made the group so famous, Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall, which continued to sell millions of copies a year.

Presenter0:51

The son of Cambridge academics, he has never been a celebrity showman, but he says We made some music that was pretty damn wonderful. In our finest moments I think we were greater than the sum of our parts. He is David

Presenter1:04

Long, enjoyable downhill run. That's my phrase, my take on what you do. Is that how it feels?

David Gilmour1:08

Among it

David Gilmour1:10

It's fair enough. I'm trying to make life a little simpler. I don't lust after those huge audiences and that acclaim that I've had about enough of, I think.

Presenter1:20

Enough of.

David Gilmour1:21

Hmm.

Presenter1:21

But when you go out there, as you have done in the World Festival Hall, they still come.

David Gilmour1:25

They still come. It's very rewarding for people to still come and see me sort of enjoying myself in a slightly different way to the way I've been used to doing it.

Presenter1:32

Hmm.

Presenter1:34

In a totally different way, because when you get out there, you know, it's not the big light show, the big spectacular, not the inflatable pigs with enlarged testicles or not flying over the table. It's just, as I've said in the introduction, you standing there with quite often just an acoustic guitar, singing presumably the songs you want to sing.

David Gilmour1:55

Well, there's quite a few others there with me, a little gospel choir and a bassist, a cellist, and

David Gilmour2:00

A few other bits and pieces.

Presenter2:01

Yeah, but there are no flying pigs, you know.

David Gilmour2:03

No flying peaks, n nothing in the way of a light show, it's quite quiet and it's been a really lovely experience doing these concerts the way that I did them.

Presenter2:13

And I wonder if it's more or less nerve-wracking than when you used to go out there with Pink Floyd. Because the difference now is you can see the audience, can't you?

David Gilmour2:18

Because the difference now is you can

David Gilmour2:21

Yeah, it's definitely more nerve wracking by a considerable factor. You can see every face, you know, you see the whites of their eyes right there in front of you. It's much, much more nerve wracking.

Presenter2:32

Well, also you can't make any mistakes, can you?

David Gilmour2:35

Every sound that you make is very crystal clear. So every wrong'un that you do is just as crystal clear as wrong.

Presenter2:42

But therefore is it more pleasurable, because the achievement is that much greater, the test of yourself is that much greater?

David Gilmour2:49

I don't think I could honestly say that it was more pleasurable than some of the other things that I've done within Pink Floyd, but this is.

David Gilmour2:56

Just as enjoyable.

Presenter2:58

But what you're not doing, which a lot of forgive the phrase, inverted commas aging rock stars do do is try to recreate what you did before, what you originally became famous for. You don't get out that you can't mention the names, but I can, you know, sort of Mick Jagger, Rod Stewart are going out there doing the stuff they did before, and the market wants it, that's fair enough.

David Gilmour3:13

Yeah.

David Gilmour3:19

Whatever they want to do. I sometimes wonder about their motives with some of these people.

Presenter3:25

What what what what motives are you suspicious of?

David Gilmour3:26

Bad look.

David Gilmour3:28

Love is a drug, as they say, you know. Um the those massive audiences are a drug. And it's very nice to be loved that much. I think a lot of people.

David Gilmour3:38

They are kind of addicted.

Presenter3:39

Hooked on their own success.

David Gilmour3:40

Mm-hmm.

Presenter3:41

Can't let go.

David Gilmour3:42

Yeah.

Presenter3:42

But you've let go.

David Gilmour3:44

Let him go.

David Gilmour3:46

You know, the temptations are always still there.

Presenter3:48

The market's still there. I mean, that's the amazing thing, which I want to talk to you about. But let's, pause, tell me about your first record that you want to play on your desert island.

David Gilmour3:48

The fuck

David Gilmour3:51

Yeah.

David Gilmour3:55

The first record is a Waterloo Sunset by the Kinks, and on a lovely

David Gilmour4:00

Warm beach to listen to this in a somewhere else sunset and missing London would be a wonderful moment.

Speaker 44:09

As I gaze on waterless sunset, I am in paradise.

Speaker 44:23

I'm a door.

Speaker 44:28

Chilli chilly is evening time Waterless sunsets fine Waterloo sunsets fine

Presenter4:38

Waterloo Sunset by the Kinks. Um what you managed to avoid, David Gilmore, in Pink Floyd, if you like, is the personal. Unlike the Stones and the Beatles, we never really knew you as individuals, did we? You were you were Pink Floyd. Did you do that on purpose?

David Gilmour4:54

Um w it didn't really start off being on purpose. We just had a huge aversion to having our photographs taken.

David Gilmour5:00

Yeah.

Presenter5:00

Why?

David Gilmour5:01

Um it just seems silly, and we had the chance to put in inverted commas artistic sort of things on the fronts of our albums.

Presenter5:10

This is like the pig flying above Attersee Power Station or whatever.

David Gilmour5:10

This is like a pig.

David Gilmour5:13

Yes, but much, much earlier than that, the first one or two that came out like that, it seemed to work very well for us. I mean, we we got the best of both worlds.

Presenter5:21

Two. Yeah.

David Gilmour5:22

without affecting our own personal lives.

Presenter5:25

But the mood uh generally and the image that you conjured up were you know, they were pretty bleak, weren't they? I some someone once said you became rich by selling alienation, madness, misery and death.

David Gilmour5:37

Well, all all the great artistic themes are pretty hard, pretty.

David Gilmour5:42

Miserable.

Presenter5:43

But was that born of you? Did w were you p part of that in in the artistic sense? Or were you you know, that that mood itself? Or were you more interested in the music than than the lyrics that created that mood?

David Gilmour5:57

Well, I was more into the music, and Roger certainly got s well stuck into the alienation and the things, and he was our our lyricist, our best only lyricist really, after a while.

Presenter6:09

This was Roger Waters, yeah.

David Gilmour6:09

This was Roger Waters.

Presenter6:11

But I mean Dark Side of the Moon is very much about m madness and mental I mean the l the last three tracks are about paranoia and mental breakdown.

David Gilmour6:17

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 26:17

Uh

Presenter6:20

Is is that something that you said, oh yes, that's good, let's do that? Or did you just play it for the music? Or were you committed to the mood?

David Gilmour6:28

No, we were all committed to the mood, and we all found that melancholy or very down words about madness and alienation, coupled with uplifting music, made a very interesting mix.

Presenter6:42

And that's very much what

Presenter6:43

What you brought to the party, wasn't it, those guitar solos which, if you like, rose above melodically, that kind of backcloth of really quite heavy melancholy.

David Gilmour6:54

That has always seemed to me to be the idea behind it, that sort of counterpoint of.

David Gilmour7:00

different moods being complementary to each other.

Presenter7:03

Not a barrel of laughs being in Pink Floyd then. Oh, I'm.

David Gilmour7:06

Being in Pink Floyd, there were lots of laughs, but they're they're not overly evident on the records.

Presenter7:08

What?

Presenter7:09

Well it's

David Gilmour7:13

We had many, many years of artistic satisfaction, great joy, and a lot of pleasure in each other's company.

David Gilmour7:22

But, you know, there comes a time when things get a little sticky, differences of opinion become insurmountable.

David Gilmour7:30

And things change, but that's pretty common in all walks of life.

Presenter7:35

Record number two.

David Gilmour7:36

It's Bob Dylan and uh Ballad in Plain D. I had lived through a lot of his heavy protest stuff, but this was another side I'm very keen on this sort of love song approach.

Speaker 47:50

All is gone, all is gone, admit it, take flight.

Speaker 47:58

I gaged in contradiction, tears blinding my sight.

Speaker 48:06

My mind, it was mangled, I ran into the night.

Speaker 48:13

Leaving all of love's ashes behind

Presenter8:17

Yeah.

Speaker 48:17

Uh

Presenter8:18

And me.

Presenter8:20

Bob Dylan with Ballad in Plain D, who's also still performing, but not doing what he used to do so much.

David Gilmour8:26

No, he's he's on his never-ending tour. Fabulous.

Presenter8:32

But but he's got new art to give, that's the point, isn't it? That he's not just harking back.

David Gilmour8:37

He's wonderful.

Presenter8:39

So you were born and brought up in Cambridge, but I gather unlike both Sid Barrett and Roger Waters, two of the founding members of Pink Floyd, who also are from Cambridge, you went to the Posh School, huh?

David Gilmour8:49

I went to a posher school than them, yes. Um rather against my will, but um

Presenter8:54

The Posh School, the Purse Preparatory School for Boys. Perse School for Boys. Persecutor for Boys. Your father and mother were both academics, I said. What did they want you to be? What did they want for you?

David Gilmour8:57

School for boys.

David Gilmour9:03

My brothers and sisters, you know, all went on to universities and stuff. I'm sure that's what they wanted from me and um they pushed it fairly heavily when I was young until it became a fait accompli that it wasn't what I was going to do. And I was going to do my music and they'd uttered the eternal lines that every parent tells their children at these times. Why didn't you finish your education and have something to fall back on?

David Gilmour9:28

which I promptly ignored.

Presenter9:30

How early on did you get hooked on the guitar?

David Gilmour9:33

My next door neighbor was given a guitar when I was about thirteen or fourteen.

David Gilmour9:37

He really wasn't terribly interested in it and I borrowed it from him. Well, I don't think I ever gave it back.

Presenter9:44

What sort of guitar was it?

David Gilmour9:44

What sort of guitar was it? It was a Spanish sort of nylon strung guitar, a tate.

Presenter9:50

Uh

David Gilmour9:50

Yeah.

Presenter9:50

Yeah.

David Gilmour9:50

Still got it, I think.

Presenter9:51

And you taught yourself to play.

David Gilmour9:53

I taught myself to play with the help of a record my parents got for me, which was the Pete Seeger Guitar Tutor record, the first band of which is just tones played on a pitch pipe to tune your guitar with. So he taught you how to tune it first, and that is a major

Presenter9:58

For me.

David Gilmour10:09

An underestimated part of learning how to play the guitar.

Presenter10:12

Ugh.

Presenter10:13

And then on you went, and you went you were in numerous bands. And give me some of the titles of the band.

David Gilmour10:18

I was in a band called The Newcomers first, and then I started a band with some other g other guys called Joker's Wild.

David Gilmour10:25

And when that had run its natural course after a couple of years, I started spending time in London, where I met some people who wanted to help me with my career, so to speak, and uh they got me a gig in Marbella in Spain, then came back, then went off again to Sainte Etienne in France to a club residency for about three months.

Presenter10:45

So you were making some money, and you were paying your way.

David Gilmour10:48

Oh yeah.

Presenter10:49

But then suddenly you come back to this country, I think, in age twenty one, and these guys that you knew called Sid and Roger have got this group called Pink Floyd and they've released an album, Piper at the Gates of Dawn. You must have been incredibly impressed.

David Gilmour11:00

Yeah.

David Gilmour11:03

I was very impressed. I mean, to have a record contract in those days was really something. I mean, I my band, Joker's Wild, had played with the early incarnations of Pink Floyd a few times.

David Gilmour11:14

I think Nick Mason sidled up to me at a concert they were doing at the Royal College of Art in London and said Sid might be leaving one of these days or would I be interested in any way in coming in on it and um I sort of whispered well, obviously.

Presenter11:31

Yeah.

David Gilmour11:31

A couple of months after that they rang and asked if I would, so

Presenter11:35

And this was because, you know, the story is well known, Sid was really losing it, wasn't he? He was deeply into L S D.

David Gilmour11:42

He was losing his ability to function uh within that sort of pop group setup. Yeah, I

David Gilmour11:49

Concurrent, probably was too much drugs that helped to get him to that position.

Presenter11:53

The famous story of his thinking his face was melting on stage, but in fact he sort of O D'd on the brill cream. I think it was sort of melting under the line.

David Gilmour12:00

Yeah.

Presenter12:00

Yeah.

David Gilmour12:01

One of those stories, you never know quite how much truth there is in them.

Presenter12:02

You never knew quite how much truth there is in them. But he just couldn't cope, could he?

Speaker 412:08

There we go.

Presenter12:08

And I just wonder how sad that was for you, if you like, because he was a guy you'd admired and you thought was brilliant and creative and original. And at the end of the day, you know, it was his demise that meant that you got into the group and and began

David Gilmour12:22

Mm.

David Gilmour12:24

Well, you're young, cruel and ambitious, you know, th uh and the sort of depths of his problems and unhappiness became more apparent as the years rolled by and one realized that one have should have tried a little bit harder to help him. But uh I think these days things that can be done with the help of modern psychiatric help and medicine would have

Presenter12:49

Yeah.

David Gilmour12:51

Done him a lot of good, but it wasn't the prevailing fashion at the time.

Presenter12:56

Record number three.

David Gilmour12:58

This is I'm Still Here by Tom Waits. It's from a recent album called Alice.

David Gilmour13:04

Which I think was some songs he'd done for a theatrical production in Germany about ten years ago, but he's only recently recorded the music. Um I love this song.

Speaker 413:15

Haven't looked at me that way in years.

Speaker 413:22

You dream me of?

Speaker 413:24

Then left me here.

Speaker 413:29

How long was that dream?

Speaker 413:35

What was it you wanted me for?

Presenter13:39

Yeah.

Presenter13:41

Tom Waits and I'm still here. Your Pink Floyd success of 1975, Wish You Were Here, was unofficially dedicated to Sid, of course, and that Shine On New Crazy Diamond was about him, the track on it. You know, a lot has been said about him since, and people have said really he is well the aficionados have said he's the lost leader of British pop. Is there something in there?

David Gilmour14:04

Mm well.

David Gilmour14:06

He certainly had the ability, um great talent, wonderful way with words and and could write words just so easily that were always had a poetic sort of edge to them. We went off on holiday, um in it must have been sixty-five I think. We learnt songs from the Beatles' Help album and some Bob Dylan songs and stuff and we went off busking in Santrope and uh both promptly got arrested and we got chucked into a cell and grilled for a while before they let us go and told us to clear off and not come back again.

Presenter14:18

Hmm.

Presenter14:26

Mm-hmm.

Presenter14:40

And you did try to help him, lady,'cause you you tried to help him produce a couple of first solo albums, didn't you, in the early seventies? But

David Gilmour14:47

Yes, right after, you know, in the y the year after he actually left, we uh Roger and I produced one album with him and and Rick and I did another one shortly after that.

Presenter14:59

Proof.

Presenter14:59

But it wasn't to be, yeah, he w he just couldn't do it.

David Gilmour15:02

It was very, very hard work, and they're they were painful to make for him and for me, and uh I think that's fairly audible.

Presenter15:14

How much do you think, then uh because he was this very small piece of Pink Floyd history, but

Presenter15:20

You know, I I mentioned that Wish You Were Here was kind of unofficially dedicated to how much do you think he was the inspiration behind this kind of melancholy we were talking about earlier on, this dealing with madness?

David Gilmour15:30

He is in there, in the inspiration for a lot of things in those earlier years. It's bound to be a very good thing.

Presenter15:37

It's bound to be informed a bit by that, isn't it?

David Gilmour15:41

Yeah.

Presenter15:41

People do overstate these things in the end, they do. It's the guys who digest it.

David Gilmour15:46

It's one of those things that sometimes does become sort of irritating, that he casts this shadow that lasts so long and is so wide over us.

Presenter15:56

Makes a good story.

David Gilmour15:56

Good story.

Presenter15:59

You as a lover

David Gilmour15:59

He was a lovely he was a lovely guy.

Presenter16:02

Record number four.

David Gilmour16:04

I'm gonna need to. I don't do it very often, of course, at my hugely advanced age, but

David Gilmour16:09

I need a little bit of Tamla Motown sort of dance music to accompany me on this beach wherever I am.

David Gilmour16:16

So this is Martha and the Vandelas are dancing in the street, not dancing on the beach.

Speaker 416:29

Following out from around the world.

Speaker 416:33

Man it for a brand new beat!

Speaker 416:37

Summer's here and the time is right for dancing in the street. And dancing into parto

Presenter16:49

Martha and the vandillas and dancing in the street.

David Gilmour16:51

That's what I call dance music.

Presenter16:53

It is, it's real, Darling and that that you really can move to, huh?

Presenter16:57

Um we talked about Pink Floyd's aloofness and mystery and of course as I mentioned you did eventually build a wall. It was at Earl's Court or and in various places I think huge polystyrene wall between

David Gilmour16:58

Think about

David Gilmour17:07

Various places.

David Gilmour17:09

Cardboard it was originally. Great big cardboard blocks, yes.

Presenter17:14

Kind of like tiles that eventually got demolished. But I read it was sort of 200 feet or so wide and 35 feet high. Now, wait.

David Gilmour17:21

Come here, Matt.

Presenter17:22

It's a very peculiar thing to do, David. Where where did that come from?

David Gilmour17:27

Oh, this is our Rodge who came up with this idea and

Presenter17:27

Oh.

David Gilmour17:31

His original idea was to just build it and then leave it there, and with us having disappeared as a sort of modern art installation, I suppose.

Presenter17:39

But did you get it? I mean, did you think this is a good idea or were you just indulging, Roger?

David Gilmour17:39

Did you

David Gilmour17:44

I never felt that I suffered to the same degree the problem of alienation that he seemed to have, and this distance between him and his audience, or us and our audience supposedly. I didn't feel that I was that far distant from them as he did, so I think possibly it's a little self-indulgent.

Presenter17:59

Hmm.

Presenter18:05

Well What's that kind of, you know, rock concert about if you can't indulge yourselves a bit?

David Gilmour18:10

Absolutely. I mean the the blinkered vision is essential, an essential sort of element of artistic endeavour, I think.

Presenter18:18

But in the end the split came. It was kind of inevitable, wasn't it, between you and and Roger. He always says that it had happened a lot earlier, that you were kind of flogging on, but in fact you were growing apart.

David Gilmour18:29

Yes, it uh it became more difficult as we both sort of vehemently and passionately argued our corners for every little note, every little piece of music. It sort of just sort of tore apart eventually. But um still we worked very well and very effectively together, right through till the war album was completed.

Speaker 418:40

But

Presenter18:42

Hmm.

Presenter18:50

Hmm. So you've got the creative tension, as they say, isn't that?

Presenter18:54

A lot of that. But in the end, he he sued. What what and and he lost. And and and you got

David Gilmour19:02

It never went to court, you know. It was a lot of bluster, and a lot of lawyers made some money while they all argued, but in the end he sort of climbed down and we made a a deal.

Presenter19:15

And you went on, you and the other two went on as Pink Floyd and he didn't. But essentially, and this is what the interesting thing is, isn't it?

David Gilmour19:15

And you went on.

Presenter19:22

The argument was about, ultimately, once it had got to that point, was you know.

Presenter19:27

Where is the heart of a group? Where are the brains? Where's the soul?

Speaker 419:29

Where the

Speaker 419:31

Mm.

Presenter19:33

As I quoted you as saying in the very beginning, in a sense, a group, that's exactly what it is, it's greater than the sum of its parts.

David Gilmour19:40

No, but in the end it's just a pop group, isn't it? And the one person leaving

David Gilmour19:44

You know, it had happened before. Sid had left. Roger left. We carried on.

Presenter19:48

Yeah.

Presenter19:49

Yeah, didn't seem to be a

David Gilmour19:49

Didn't seem to be a major decision to make for me.

Presenter19:52

But that's an interesting point, isn't it? Because some people have said that that's like losing Mick Jagger from the Stones twice.

David Gilmour19:53

Some people have

David Gilmour19:59

Yeah.

Presenter19:59

Yukudan.

David Gilmour19:59

Uh

David Gilmour20:00

Mm. One could.

David Gilmour20:03

That's too long ago to remember.

Presenter20:04

Too long ago to remember. And as you say, only a pop group. But what comes out of it for me, reading about it now, is that.

Presenter20:11

You were kind of looking after everybody in this, not Roger. I mean, you and he were obviously deeply estranged. But the other two, um, Rick and Nick, you kind of nursed them this kind of parenting that you do, and you've parented a lot of things, and we'll talk about the others in a minute, but uh, you know, d is was that has that always been your role? Are you a kind of someone who brings people together, who kind of likes to keep it calm?

David Gilmour20:37

One of my friends calls me Big Daddy, but

Presenter20:39

Well, there you are, I see, and you nursed the other two round,'cause they were pretty bruised by all

David Gilmour20:43

I think they were both pretty bruised. It was a a you know, it was a

David Gilmour20:48

Not a very pleasant period in that sort of the early eighties, and they needed to be helped a little bit to regain their confidence and enthusiasm.

Presenter20:58

Record number five.

David Gilmour21:00

This is an anthem by Leonard Cohen. He's one of my favourite artists. This one's the anthem which I think has a slight the Islamic thing to it of the imperfection that all Islamic art has to have in it. Otherwise nothing can be seen to be perfect in the eyes of Allah.

Speaker 421:22

At the break of day.

Speaker 421:26

Start again.

Speaker 421:29

I heard them say.

Speaker 421:34

Don't dwell.

Speaker 421:37

On what has passed away.

Speaker 421:41

Or what is yet to be?

Presenter21:47

Leonard Cohen with the anthem. So let let's hear more about David Gilmore the parent. And as I said, there's a lot of parenting gone on. You nursed the boys in the band a bit. You tried to look after Sid for a while and in a way the Pink Floyd albums have been your babies, the bits of music. And what you and Waters tried to discuss there really was kind of custody of the kids, wasn't it?

David Gilmour22:08

Yeah.

Presenter22:08

Uh

David Gilmour22:08

Yeah.

Presenter22:09

And you've also got eight children, I understand, from two marriages. What what's the age range?

David Gilmour22:14

Come on, what?

David Gilmour22:15

Well, my oldest daughter is twenty six, Alice.

David Gilmour22:19

And then I've got a twenty three year old and a twenty one year old um and a boy of seventeen from my first marriage. And we've got um a thirteen year old lad, a seven year old lad, a five year old.

David Gilmour22:33

and an eleven month old baby.

Presenter22:35

This is with your second wife, Polly Sampson.

David Gilmour22:36

Okay, Samson.

Presenter22:37

Yeah. Um, and she helps you write the lyrics, I gather.

David Gilmour22:41

She helps me with everything, lyrics included, yes.

Presenter22:47

There's a track on your album, The Division Belle, called Coming Back to Life. I knew the moment had arrived for killing the past and coming back to life. That's um that's your tribute to Polly, isn't it?

David Gilmour22:58

I've dedicated to Polly, yes, definitely. She was a great help.

Presenter23:02

But it is it is, I suppose, kind of your Achilles' heel, isn't it, David, that your lyric writing isn't as strong as your music making, huh?

David Gilmour23:02

It is it is

David Gilmour23:09

Have to concur, yeah.

Presenter23:12

You don't mind.

David Gilmour23:12

I wish I was more of a raconteur, but um

Presenter23:15

But um

David Gilmour23:16

You get what you're given in life, I wouldn't swat.

Presenter23:19

Wouldn't you?

David Gilmour23:19

Mm.

Presenter23:20

You prefer to be the musician.

David Gilmour23:22

The ability to pluck emotions out of a musical instrument is something that I try to encourage all my children to learn how to do, because it is an incomparable feeling.

Presenter23:32

Good number six.

David Gilmour23:33

A Man Needs a Maid by Neil Young.

Presenter23:36

Mm.

David Gilmour23:39

Well, I'm being non-gender specific, of course, when I'm on my desert island.

David Gilmour23:44

It could be a Man Friday.

Presenter23:46

But this is just Neil Young and you know

David Gilmour23:46

But this is just Neil Young and you're not.

Speaker 424:07

Uh

Speaker 424:08

It's hard to make that change.

Speaker 424:14

When life and love turn strange and old

Presenter24:25

Neil Young and a man needs a maid. Now, the other recent thing that people know about you is that you gave away your house, your London house, which was sort of worth in excess of four million or so. You gave it away to a charity for the homeless. Was that a sort of sudden whim, or what made you do that?

David Gilmour24:43

We moved out of London a few years ago to a lovely house in the country.

David Gilmour24:48

and we'd clung on to, because of my affection for it, this huge house in the middle of London, and after a while it seemed rather daft.

David Gilmour24:57

coming back to this huge sort of empty cold.

David Gilmour25:00

house that we really didn't need and uh rather than trust sort of giving it as it was to a to a homeless charity and letting it be filled with homeless people, we thought we'd sell it and the money would do more good.

Presenter25:12

What's the feeling of giving that much money away? It's an extraordinary

David Gilmour25:16

Well, I have more than I need, quite frankly. It's one of those things one spends one's life struggling with, these strange inequalities that happen through chance. I guess I think it's a good idea for me to get rid of a little bit of the excess to causes that could use it.

Presenter25:35

Because I presume you've been through the kind of excesses of the rockstar. I mean, you've h owned the yacht in the med and the fleet of Ferraris, have you?

David Gilmour25:35

This is what I'm saying.

David Gilmour25:43

Mm, afraid so, yes.

David Gilmour25:45

Done a bit of all that. But I've simplified a little now.

Presenter25:47

I don't know.

Presenter25:48

You've offloaded all of that.

David Gilmour25:50

Mm. Yes.

Presenter25:51

So you you're living a simpler life, you've said

David Gilmour25:54

Not in theory, it doesn't feel much, I have to say.

Presenter25:56

Why not?

David Gilmour25:59

It's hard work bringing up children, getting them up in the morning, feeding them breakfast, taking them to school.

Presenter26:05

That's what you've chosen to do now, and that's what you want. You don't want to employ armies of people to do all of these things, you want to do it yourself. So you've sort of come full circle, really.

David Gilmour26:06

And that's what you when you don't

David Gilmour26:09

You do all of these things. You want to do

David Gilmour26:13

Yes, hopefully.

Presenter26:15

So, um we should hold our breath for a reunion of Pink Floyd in whatever form.

David Gilmour26:20

Mm, yeah. I wouldn't I wouldn't hold your graph, yeah.

Presenter26:22

Do not hold breath. Mark it's still there, as I said.

David Gilmour26:25

Hmm, they tell me that once in a while.

Presenter26:27

Yeah. Well, you get nagged, did you?

Presenter26:31

And do you always say a definitive no or do you kind of think about it sometimes?

David Gilmour26:36

I I don't really think about it. It's not something that's in the forefront of my mind, really.

Presenter26:41

But you haven't quite ruled it out, I hear.

David Gilmour26:44

No, you're right. I haven't quite. Somehow, maybe that's just a sort of um an attachment thing that uh another one of those attachment things I need to get stronger and deal with. But I haven't quite dealt with it yet.

Presenter26:55

Record number seven.

David Gilmour26:57

Ah yes, this is Jenny Mitchell with For Free.

David Gilmour27:00

Pooh

Presenter27:00

But

David Gilmour27:00

This is

David Gilmour27:02

You know, a song about the same sort of struggle that I've been talking about, this is Jenny Mitchell's struggle with her her wall, if you like, struggle with her conscience.

David Gilmour27:13

With being a rich person.

David Gilmour27:16

But still being an artist.

Speaker 427:19

I slept last night in a good hotel.

Speaker 427:26

I went shopping today for Jew.

Speaker 427:34

But the one man band By the quick lunch stand He was playing real Uh

Speaker 227:42

Uh

Speaker 427:42

Yeah.

Speaker 227:43

For free.

Presenter27:48

Joni Mitchell with for free. So off we send you now, David Gilmore, to this uncomplicated, simple life on a desert island. But I suppose you prefer to be where you are, really, weren't you? Part of Amelius in Sussex, all these kids, huh?

David Gilmour27:56

Sounds great.

David Gilmour28:01

Oh no, of course.

Presenter28:02

Do you make music there every day? Do you

David Gilmour28:06

Well, yes. I mean, there there's a piano and a guitar and a

David Gilmour28:11

I'm learning the saxophone with my boy Charlie.

David Gilmour28:14

and Joe's starting the piano and sings just divinely.

Presenter28:19

So you're making music as a family, Mrs.

David Gilmour28:22

You know, there's music all the time, yeah.

Presenter28:25

So there's lots of snippets and bits and pieces around presumably that you're writing or that you're playing. I mean, if you never appeared again, you could certainly make a record, couldn't you?

David Gilmour28:36

Oh yes, I I I have every intention of making a record again, but I haven't got round to it yet, to be frank.

Presenter28:44

By yourself, with the family, with whom?

David Gilmour28:47

Well, I I'm leaving that open. I'm sure that will present itself to me and become clear before too long. I've already made promises that I haven't kept on with when this record's going to be made and when it's going to be coming out.

Presenter28:59

But whatever it is, by the sound of it, it won't be kind of full of anguish and misery, will it?

Presenter29:05

Oh. Yeah.

David Gilmour29:06

I wouldn't rule out a bit of anguish and misery. Who knows?

Presenter29:06

Rule it.

Presenter29:08

Okay, who

Presenter29:09

Oh really? I thought we now are running to travel.

David Gilmour29:11

These these powerful emotions, you know, these powerful things that are

Presenter29:14

But I just get the impression as you sort of downsize and simplify life, what you're finding is a kind of happiness and a kind of

David Gilmour29:23

Happiness and contentment are there, absolutely. Which um but you can't put too much happiness and contentment into into music. It's you don't want to turn into John Denver, do you?

Presenter29:23

Contentment.

Presenter29:40

Last record which is not John Denver.

David Gilmour29:42

Uh last record's by The Lemonheads. It's called Rudy with a Flashlight. It's about sitting out in your garden round a nice camp fire and which is something we do at home in the summer a lot.

David Gilmour29:55

Pointing torches at the sky, just be a lovely thing. I don't know if I'd have a flashlight or a torch as we call them um on this desert island, but that's what I'd do with it if I had one.

Speaker 430:07

Uh Beauty with a flashlight

Speaker 430:12

Playing out in the yard

Speaker 430:16

Shining it straight up.

Speaker 430:20

Red at the stars.

Speaker 430:24

Right at the stars.

Presenter30:28

The Lemon Heads and Rudy with the flashlight. Well, now, if you could only take one of those eight records with you, David, which one would you take?

David Gilmour30:35

It's a tough choice, isn't it?

Presenter30:36

Mm.

David Gilmour30:38

I think I'll just have to take Martha and the Vandelas just for the dancing, really. Dancing.

Presenter30:42

Dancing on the beach. Yeah, yeah. Well, you'll need a bit of that. Um, what about your book? You've got the Bible, you've got the complete works of Shakespeare.

David Gilmour30:50

I think I'll take a translation of the Koran with me. Try to better my mind and

David Gilmour30:55

understand other peoples of the world better.

Presenter30:57

And your luxury.

David Gilmour30:59

Well, to me it's not a luxury, it's an essential. I'd need to take my guitar with me, an acoustic Martin D thirty five guitar.

David Gilmour31:08

Um,'cause life is impossible without a guitar.

Presenter31:14

David Gilmore, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

David Gilmour31:18

Thank you.

Speaker 231:25

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.