Who Was Pink Floyd's Chief Songwriter?

[Keith Jordan]

Syd Barrett is The Pink Floyd Sound. He came up with the name after thumbing through his record collection. So neither Waters or the others are The, Pink, Floyd or even sound! So there.

[mosespa]

Well...if you want to get THAT technical about it, that's not even a true statement about Syd, given that Mr. Anderson is "Pink" and Mr. Council is "Floyd."

[Keith Jordan]

Well none of them exist then! The music is just there for everyone to enojoy and it doesn't really matter who did what. I mean, what difference does it make to the albums??

[Annoying Twit]

So...since no one in Pink Floyd wrote more than half of the material, there was no Chief Songwriter in the band?

Since there was no Chief Songwriter, then everyone was subservient...but since there was no Chief Songwriter, then there was no one to be subservient to.

How does THAT work?

OK, that is a reasonably new point, so you'll drag me back in again.

Pink Floyd as a whole had no chief songwriter. They were a cooperative. You don't need a chief in a cooperative. And the members of a cooperative don't need to be subservient to other individuals, though they could all be subservient to the will of the majority. Though, this overview ignores the fact that "songwriting" in PF was undertaken in entirely different ways at different times in their history.

But this conversation risks muddling the waters even more, as you seem to now be using the word "chief" to mean "in control", mentioning "subservient" etc. This is yet another factor, even less related to the numbers of songwriting contributions than previous definitions of "chief songwriter".

Particularly since people are now interpreting the meaning of "chief songwriter" every which way by loose, it seems to me to be even more useful and productive to return to the numbers and consider them the reference standard for describing songwriting contributions in PF.

So, my current stance is "asking who is PF's chief songwriter" is a damn silly question, as everyone interprets the compound noun "chief songwriter" in different ways, sometimes with the same person interpreting it to mean different things at different times. So the best way of describing songwriting contributions to PF is:

Code: Select all

CONTRIBUTIONS FOR : overall
==============================
        wat (18731 seconds) [43%]
        gil (10193 seconds) [23%]
        wri (6443 seconds) [15%]
        mas (3129 seconds) [7%]
        bar (2045 seconds) [5%]
        sam (987 seconds) [2%]
        moo (802 seconds) [2%]
        ezr (382 seconds) [1%]
        gee (285 seconds) [1%]
        lai (234 seconds) [1%]
        leo (224 seconds) [1%]
        man (155 seconds) [0%]
        tor (128 seconds) [0%]
        car (98 seconds) [0%]

[mosespa]

1. OK, that is a reasonably new point, so you'll drag me back in again.

2. Pink Floyd as a whole had no chief songwriter. They were a cooperative. You don't need a chief in a cooperative. And the members of a cooperative don't need to be subservient to other individuals, though they could all be subservient to the will of the majority. Though, this overview ignores the fact that "songwriting" in PF was undertaken in entirely different ways at different times in their history.

1. I have that effect. Sorry about that.

2. Yeah...but even a collective still has someone who announces that the meetings have come to order, or have ended...who brings up the topics of discussion, etc. etc. etc.

Every group still has a "head," a "chief," a "leader."

Otherwise, it's just chaos.

Roger Waters is pretty much universally accepted as the guy who stepped up to the plate when Syd was thrown out.

Now...Gilmour was the guy who stepped up after Waters left and for two albums COULD be said to have been the head of the group, the chief songwriter, etc. etc. etc.

But the WHOLE of Pink Floyd goes back well before those two albums.

In the overall, grand scheme of things, Roger Waters was the chief songwriter. His canon exceeds that of anyone else's...thus, if only by default, he was the Chief Songwriter. The fact that he left the band and they did two albums without him doesn't change that fact in the overall, grand scheme of things.

Particularly considering that those two albums STILL don't bring Gilmour's numbers up to those of Waters.

[Annoying Twit]

2. Yeah...but even a collective still has someone who announces that the meetings have come to order, or have ended...who brings up the topics of discussion, etc. etc. etc.

But that's a different role from being a songwriter. It could be someone in the band who doesn't write songs such as a Manfred Mann character. Or a non-musician manager.

Every group still has a "head," a "chief," a "leader."

Otherwise, it's just chaos.

Disagreed. Small groups can work as a cooperative with no leader, without descending into chaos. It helps to have a coordinator, but that's not necessarily a leader. It's said that Andrew Fletcher is the coordinator in Depeche Mode, and without him not much would ever happen. But that doesn't make him the leader. And even if he was the leader in some sense, it could hardly make him chief songwriter as he's the only member of DM who has never contributed a song to the band ever.

Roger Waters is pretty much universally accepted as the guy who stepped up to the plate when Syd was thrown out.

But what role does that put him in, and how directly is it related to the "chief songwriter" we originally were talking about?

In the overall, grand scheme of things, Roger Waters was the chief songwriter. His canon exceeds that of anyone else's...thus, if only by default, he was the Chief Songwriter. The fact that he left the band and they did two albums without him doesn't change that fact in the overall, grand scheme of things.

You've already mentioned your own definition of "chief songwriter", and I've already pointed out problems that definition causes with examples, reductum ad absurdum, etc. You're now trying to say that there must be a chief songwriter, and therefore it must be Rog. I don't agree with your argument as I don't believe that there has to be a chief songwriter. Whether the band needs someone who fills a leader and/or coordinator role is another question.

[mosespa]

But what about when that "leader" also happens to write more songs than anyone else does?

[Keith Jordan]

By "Chief" songwriter, do you mean an Indian Chief?

[Annoying Twit]

But what about when that "leader" also happens to write more songs than anyone else does?

Then they're both a coordinator/leader and a songwriter. It's quite possible to have all combinations of leader/not leader, songwriter/not songwriter, and all shades of grey for both roles.

What if someone happens to write more songs than anyone else does and also makes the tea? What then?

[mosespa]

Then they're the Chief Songwriter/Tea Bitch.

[Real Pink in the Inside]

Clearly the question this thread answers is who wrote the most material in Pink Floyd. I think we can all agree on that now.

Now my definition of chief songwriter, and the only way I have ever seen it used prior to Annoying Twit posts, is who wrote the most material in a band (Synonyms: Top songwriter, main songwriter, leading songwriter, etc.). By definition, every band must have at least one chief songwriter and there can be chief songwriterS only if two or more individuals each wrote about the same amount of material in a band with their contributions constituting a plurality of the overall material. That is clearly not the case with Pink Floyd as we have demonstrated that Roger Waters wrote approximately twice as much as David Gilmour and three times as much as Richard Wright. Therefore, if you consider the entire catalog as a whole there is only one chief songwriter of Pink Floyd and that is Roger Waters. In addition, Syd Barrett was the chief songwriter on PATGOD, David Gilmour was the chief songwriter on MLOR and TDB, and Roger Waters was the chief songwriter in between those two bookends.

If anybody feels that I should change the title of the thread from "Who Was Pink Floyd's Chief Songwriter" to "Who Was Pink Floyd's Top Songwriter?," please let me know.

[Keith Jordan]

Clearly the question this thread answers is who wrote the most material in Pink Floyd. I think we can all agree on that now.

This thread has become a spent force! Will it continue?? Wont it??

[Real Pink in the Inside]

Clearly the question this thread answers is who wrote the most material in Pink Floyd. I think we can all agree on that now.

This thread has become a spent force! Will it continue?? Wont it??

I love your sense of humor, Keith. You definitely have the best place for Floyd fans on the net. And you put up with the whole insane lot of us. It's quite impressive.

[Keith Jordan]

I love your sense of humor, Keith. You definitely have the best place for Floyd fans on the net. And you put up with the whole insane lot of us. It's quite impressive.

I think you are right! It is the insane ones that give it that extra added spice. We cant all be the same and hold the same opinions now can we?

[mosespa]

I've been here almost as long as my longest marriage.

As if that's not bad enough...I feel more guilty for visiting other webboards than I did for visiting other...well...you get the picture.

*shrug*