Who Was Pink Floyd's Chief Songwriter?

[Hudini]

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.

Here's Iron Maiden as an interesting example.

Clearly, their chief songwriter is the bass guitar player Steve Harris, who alone wrote almost half of their songs, but they don't really seem to have a leader/coordinator. In numerous occasions the journalists would point him out as the leader of the band simply because of the fact he wrote the majority of songs, but he himself would then point out that there isn't such a thing as the leader of Iron Maiden. In fact, both singer Bruce Dickinson and drummer Nicko McBrain have always drawn more media attention, plus McBrain had been the main person for contact with the fans worldwide for decades, although he has no songwriting role in the band: he co-wrote only one song in his entire career with the band.

So I think that a band really doesn't have the need for a leader, just like it doesn't have the need for a chief songwriter, but the position of a chief songwriter is simply a matter of statistics and not choice or need. Most of all you shouldn't draw an equation mark between a chief songwriter and a leader because those positions are not the same by default.

One of my older bands had a strict leader, and that was our drummer. Although I wrote the "vast majority" of the material we played (and by that I mean about 8 out of 10 songs), I was not the leader in no way. I was simply the chief songwriter.

But the fact that Roger Waters took the leading role in Pink Floyd in the second half of the 70s doesn't change the fact that he was their chief songwriter. If David Gilmour or Rick Wright took the lead, Waters would have probably still been the author of the majority of songs by statistics, and that would leave him in the position of a chief songwriter.

[David Smith]

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

Should put that quote on the homepage

[Stilgar]

oh my...

dejavu!!!



haven't been around this place for... 4 years, almost 5... and what do I find re-posted??... that same old list, posted by the same user... damn!! some things don't change

hmmm well, some do: in those old days that list created a huge fight... now it seems to be a nice discussion

so... *gasp*... to the issue: IMHO, the main creative force, driving force, of the 72-83 Pink Floyd was clearly Mr. Waters. He created songs, created all the lyrics for his songs and for the songs of the other guys, and conceived the concepts that glued all those things together. Conceptually, and of course lyrically, PF albums from DSOTM to TFC would never, ever, have been as good as they are without good old Rog (in fact, The Wall and TFC woudn't even exist without him). But, to me, that doesn't make him the "chief" of all the Floyd story (after Syd left, of course)...

I tend to see these things as more than a simple numerical listing. A deeper analysis of a list always shows things that were hidden at first view. Of the list, half of the "Waters alone" songs belong to 2 albums: The Wall and The Final Cut. We all know that, in the days those albums were created, there was no band collaboration at all. There was a little dictator and, worse than that, 3 lazy folks. Waters came up with his demos, the rest of the band (those 3 lazy folks) accepted to work on them, and there was The Wall. For TFC Gilmour and Mason had no power to do or say anything about the creative process. So, to my analysis, if we talk of the period between 1978 and 1983, the answer is "YES, Waters was the chief"... but if we go a little back in time, i'm not that sure...

Backwards, from "Animals" to "Dark side", things look a little different to me. Let's take "Animals". 5 songs. 4 of them credited to Waters alone, 1 credited to the goold old Gilmour/Waters tandem. Of the 4 songs credited to Waters, two ("Pigs on the wing" 1 & 2) sum, together, only 3 minutes (1:24 each) so are not comparable to the other, longer, ones. More important when comparing are Sheep and Pigs (10 and 11 minutes long respectively), that are only Waters, and Dogs, Waters/Gilmour (17 minutes long). Dogs is Gilmour music and Waters lyrics, and without Dogs, Animals would be half the lenght it is. So, to me, it's unfair to say that Waters was the "chief" in Animals. Was he more prevalent? of course, driving force?, sure, "chief?, nah, but it was the beggining of that ego-thing.

Now let's take WYWH. 5 songs. 2 of them (Welcome to the Machine and Have a Cigar, around 12 minutes total) credited to Waters alone. The other 3 (Shine On I-V, Wish you were here and Shine on VI-IX, around 30 minutes total) credited to Waters and someone else. "Wish" was Gilmour's music and Waters' lyrics. The whole "Shine On" thing, to me, it's Gilmour/Wright music, Waters lyrics. "Chief Roger"?, sorry, no way... without Dave or Rick WYWH would not exist as a record. Without Roger it could have existed, but shorter and with different (and worse, probably) lyrics.

DSOTM? 10 songs (9 in some editions). 1 credited to Mason (0 in the 9-track editions), 3 to Waters, 1 to Wright. Roger's name also appears in 4 songs, accompanied by someone else. Again: except in his 3 songs, he provided the lyrics for music written by Wright and/or Gilmour. He created the concept, yeah, but "chief"?...

Finally, we can say that good old Rog had a hand in writing over the vast majority of the songs of the Pink Floyd catalog. His 93 songs sum more than Gilmour and Wright together (even if we consider AMLOR and TDB), but those simple numbers are biased. To consider "The Wall" (lot of songs) and TFC is a bias by itself. In 2 albums, songs only written by Roger were duplicated, coincidentally in a period where he was the ruler of those other lazy guys. It would also be a bias towards Gilmour if you had considered AMLOR and TDB (Pink Floyd albums, whether you like it or not), where Gilmour dominated all. However, in the times when Pink Floyd acted as a proper band, Waters-alone songs were 24, not 58. And his participation in most of the "Someone else/Waters" credited stuff (from 1973 to 1983) was mostly reduced to the lyrics, and those songs could exist without lyrics, or with different ones, but not without music.

After all, it depends in how you look at it, and what's more important to you (music, lyrics, sound, whatever). Anyways, never, ever, settle only in a list of names and numbers. There's always more than meets the eye...

[mosespa]

I think it's rather funny that people think it's somehow easier to write "shorter" songs (such as POTW) than it is to stick a bunch of randomly generated fragments together and just leave Gilmour or Wright to solo over them.

I have a much harder time writing short, concise songs than I do writing long, sprawling pieces.

Maybe it's just me...........

[Stilgar]

I think it's rather funny that people think it's somehow easier to write "shorter" songs (such as POTW) than it is to stick a bunch of randomly generated fragments together and just leave Gilmour or Wright to solo over them.

I have a much harder time writing short, concise songs than I do writing long, sprawling pieces.

Maybe it's just me...........

yeah, maybe

[snifferdog]

I've never written a song in my life but I'm led to believe it's harder to write a short catchy song.

[Hudini]

I have a much harder time writing short, concise songs than I do writing long, sprawling pieces.

Maybe it's just me...........

It's not just you, it's anyone who ever wrote a song. But people who just listen to music can't understand that.

[Real Pink in the Inside]

Anybody get the feeling that Howard Stern was influenced by this thread? I certainly got the impression that Stern knows who was the chief songwriter of Pink Floyd...