Who Was Pink Floyd's Chief Songwriter?

[Real Pink in the Inside]

If one of them wrote 50% more than the other two songwriters, how is it not fair/untrue to label him the chief songwriter?

If I do 50% more work than anybody else on my team or band, you can't tell me that all of the team's contributions were equal.

[Creek]

So what... Pink Floyd as a band were great I don't care who did what.
To downplay or diminish Gilmour, Mason, and Wright's rolls in the band is childish, IMOH.
And to question Water's roll is stupid.
Not giving Syd Barrett credit for being the founder just isn't right.

[ddebil]

So what... Pink Floyd as a band were great I don't care who did what.
To downplay or diminish Gilmour, Mason, and Wright's rolls in the band is childish, IMOH.
And to question Water's roll is stupid.
Not giving Syd Barrett credit for being the founder just isn't right.

I'm almost with you there, Creek. Although there is a need (for the anal amongst us), to be accurate with the finer detail, I feel that it is mostly centred on those that wish to score points from each other, rather than just be informative. Or a meringue?

[ddebil]

There's still injury time to play!

Hahaha! You deleted your post. Now I look stupid.

[Creek]

I'm almost with you there, Creek. Although there is a need (for the anal amongst us), to be accurate with the finer detail, I feel that it is mostly centred on those that wish to score points from each other, rather than just be informative. Or a meringue?

Ok then, Them 1,998,476,374,246, Me 0

Hey I understand, I've played those games before. I was just letting my feelings be known.

Oh no, that was not my intention.
Hey everyone this post should have been before ddebil's. I was in no way trying to make him look bad.

[Annoying Twit]

If one of them wrote 50% more than the other two songwriters, how is it not fair/untrue to label him the chief songwriter?

If I do 50% more work than anybody else on my team or band, you can't tell me that all of the team's contributions were equal.

Depends what you mean by "chief songwriter". I interpret that wording to mean that the overwhelming majority of the songwriting was done by one writer. Which was not the case from SoS until either Animals or The Wall, depending on how you count contributions (time or number of songs).

And you have a classic case of the fallacy of the excluded middle there. It's quite possible for there to be no one "chief songwriter" but the contributions not be equal.

[Annoying Twit]

So what... Pink Floyd as a band were great I don't care who did what.
To downplay or diminish Gilmour, Mason, and Wright's rolls in the band is childish, IMOH.
And to question Water's roll is stupid.
Not giving Syd Barrett credit for being the founder just isn't right.

What Creek said. The contributions are what they are, trying to exaggerate or diminish the roles and contributions of any member is silly.

[Annoying Twit]

1. Yeah...but I'M not leaving out those last two albums. In fact, I'm pointing out that even if you include those two, Waters-less albums...Waters STILL wrote more than anyone else.

But there's no reason to point this out, as noone disagrees with it. I'm simply saying that ignoring the last two albums when considering songwriting gives an misleading view as to the degree that Waters contributed the largest amount in songwriting terms.

2. Please elaborate on the difference. Because it seems to me that if the "most prolific" writer was getting more of his material on an album than anyone else, then that would make him the "chief songwriter."

I would consider someone to be the chief songwriter if they contribute the considerable majority of the songs. I gave an example of The Beatles where McCartney contributed more songs than Lennon during later years (they didn't write together), but that it would be inaccurate to call McCartney the chief songwriter of the Beatles.

3. Maybe you and I have different definitions...but, to me "most prolific" means "writing the vast majority of the material."

No, that's my definition. But Waters only really wrote the vast majority of the material for The Wall and The Final Cut, and not Animals by my definition due to Gilmour writing (nearly) the music for an entire side of the LP. And once you put the last two albums back into the numbers, and consider Piper, I don't think Waters wrote the vast majority of PF's songs.

4. What about Animals...where Gilmour only has one credit? Or WYWH, where Waters name appears on five out of five songs while Gilmour's appears on only three out of five?

I don't consider Shine On to be one song. Look at part IX which is solely written by Rick. This is somewhere where we do disagree, because I do not count a single song such as cigar or machine to count the same as the entirety of Shine On. So, if we're talking about WYWH, then I would agree that Waters did more songwriting than any other member, but I don't think he did the majority, and certainly not the vast majority. Gilmour and Wright contributed a lot to that album. Similarly, I don't think counting Gilmour's contribution to Animals as being music for "one song" is right, given that single song accounts for a fair proportion of the total running time of the album. Going back in time, the same thing applies to a "single song" such as Echoes. It's got to count for more than a short song.

Not to mention DSOTM where Waters name appears on every songwriting credit except three (and still has his name on more credits than anyone else in the band)...and has more songwriting credits by himself than anyone else does?

For DSOTM, I'd agree that the majority of the writing was done by Waters, given the three sole compositions. However, I wouldn't agree that it was the "vast majority". I believe that even Rog credits Wright with a sizeable contribution to that album.

And then there's Meddle...which is similarly distributed. Waters has his name on more songs than anyone else.

And OBC.

Same reasoning as above. Waters contributed more than anyone else, but not to the extent of contributing the "vast majority" of material that would make him "chief songwriter" for that period.

Face it...even if you break it down album by album, with the exception of PATGOD, Waters has his name on more songwriting credits PER ALBUM than anyone else does.

But, you used the term "vast majority" yourself. To then come back and tell me that Waters has his name on more songwriting credits PER ALBUM than anyone else does is irrelevant, as I do not dispute this at all. It's using (IMHO) misleading terms such as "vast majority", or "chief songwriter" that I dispute.

I'm not going to do a "gestalt" total here, because my point here is that even if you take each album all on it's own, with the exception of PATGOD and AHM (with UmmaGumma being able to go either way,) Waters was clearly writing more than anyone else...was writing more SONGS than anyone else...was the most prolific AND wrote most of the material (which I think of as being the same thing, but you see some sort of difference between the two designations, if I understand correctly.)

But you've gone off topic. I am not disputing that Waters wrote more than anyone else. I'm only disputing the "vast majority" and "chief songwriter" terms. So, apologies, but all the numbers you worked out are irrelevant. And I certainly do not agree with any measure of contribution that counts Echoes or SOYCD as a contribution equal to a single short song. This is PF we're talking about.

He was the most prolific AND he wrote the majority of the material.

Which part of this are you just blatanty, willingly trying to pretend isn't true?

Please read what I write. Your above statement is a straw man as I have never denied that Waters was the most prolific. I'm just saying that by your own definition of writing the vast majority of the material making someone the chief songwriter, Rog was only the chief songwriter for TFC, TW according to my counting method. And include Animals for your counting method.

5. If McCartney wrote the largest number of songs that people remember, then I'd say he WAS the chief songwriter. As time goes on and more and more people write memoirs, McCartney starts looking more like the "dominant" member of the Lennon/McCartney team, anyway.

Later on McCartney started to dominate Lennon in terms of outright numbers of songs. However, I wouldn't agree that McCartney was the chief songwriter at all. It implies a degree of dominance that simply isn't there. Your own definition of writing the vast majority of the material wouldn't make McCartney the chief songwriter.

6. But, I've just proven that except for two albums out of the first ten (PATGOD through Animals,) Waters DID dominate the songwriting.

Who was arguing this with you? Why did you go away and "prove" this when nobody was claiming anything differently? (*)

(*) Note, since tone can't be read in text, I will point out that I am in "friendly discussion" mode in case this looks a bit argumentative.

7. For being a side-long track, Echoes doesn't have that much variation in it. Most of the "Gilmour" and "Wright" credit, imo, comes from soloing.

[/quote]

Really? Who came up with the chord progressions? Who wrote the vocal melody? Is this known?

[Annoying Twit]

PS: I had a quick go at calculating how much each songwriter contributed to PF in terms of track time. As I believe that any system that considers "stop" to be as much of a contribution as "shine on you crazy diamond" is .... crazy.

I went through the wikipedia pages and recorded songwriting credits for each song and also its length. I've attached this raw file. I had to make some decisions, e.g. the songwriting credits for SOYCD are condensed in the page for WYWH, but given in more detail on the page for the "song" itself. Where I've made such decisions, they're listed in the raw data. What I've done is where there are multiple songwriters listed for each song, I've divided the seconds between them. So for a three minute song written by two people, I've given them 90 seconds each. I haven't counted compilation or live albums, and therefore haven't counted the live album of Ummagumma.

Both the numbers of seconds in total and the percentage contributions were calculated as floating point numbers, then rounded for printing.

The final result (note "overall" down the bottom) are as follows:

Code: Select all

CONTRIBUTIONS FOR : piper
==============================
	bar (1692 seconds) [67%]
	wat (397 seconds) [16%]
	mas (212 seconds) [8%]
	wri (212 seconds) [8%]

CONTRIBUTIONS FOR : saucer
==============================
	wat (1097 seconds) [46%]
	wri (727 seconds) [31%]
	bar (180 seconds) [8%]
	mas (178 seconds) [8%]
	gil (178 seconds) [8%]

CONTRIBUTIONS FOR : singles
==============================
	wat (265 seconds) [34%]
	wri (227 seconds) [29%]
	bar (173 seconds) [22%]
	gil (108 seconds) [14%]

CONTRIBUTIONS FOR : ummagumma
==============================
	wri (779 seconds) [28%]
	wat (745 seconds) [27%]
	gil (737 seconds) [26%]
	mas (524 seconds) [19%]

CONTRIBUTIONS FOR : atom heart mother
==============================
	wri (809 seconds) [26%]
	gil (804 seconds) [26%]
	wat (751 seconds) [24%]
	mas (480 seconds) [15%]
	gee (285 seconds) [9%]

CONTRIBUTIONS FOR : meddle
==============================
	wat (1038 seconds) [37%]
	gil (815 seconds) [29%]
	mas (476 seconds) [17%]
	wri (476 seconds) [17%]

CONTRIBUTIONS FOR : the committee
==============================

CONTRIBUTIONS FOR : more
==============================
	wat (1529 seconds) [57%]
	mas (390 seconds) [14%]
	wri (390 seconds) [14%]
	gil (389 seconds) [14%]

CONTRIBUTIONS FOR : tonight
==============================

CONTRIBUTIONS FOR : zabriskie point
==============================
	mas (483 seconds) [25%]
	wat (483 seconds) [25%]
	gil (483 seconds) [25%]
	wri (483 seconds) [25%]

CONTRIBUTIONS FOR : obscured
==============================
	wat (947 seconds) [39%]
	gil (866 seconds) [36%]
	wri (483 seconds) [20%]
	mas (126 seconds) [5%]

CONTRIBUTIONS FOR : dark side
==============================
	wat (1215 seconds) [48%]
	wri (580 seconds) [23%]
	gil (331 seconds) [13%]
	mas (261 seconds) [10%]
	tor (128 seconds) [5%]

CONTRIBUTIONS FOR : wish you were here
==============================
	wat (1441 seconds) [55%]
	gil (683 seconds) [26%]
	wri (520 seconds) [20%]

CONTRIBUTIONS FOR : animals
==============================
	wat (1996 seconds) [80%]
	gil (513 seconds) [20%]

CONTRIBUTIONS FOR : the wall
==============================
	wat (4273 seconds) [88%]
	gil (424 seconds) [9%]
	ezr (157 seconds) [3%]

CONTRIBUTIONS FOR : final cut
==============================
	wat (2557 seconds) [100%]

CONTRIBUTIONS FOR : momentary
==============================
	gil (2156 seconds) [64%]
	moo (598 seconds) [18%]
	leo (224 seconds) [7%]
	man (155 seconds) [5%]
	ezr (132 seconds) [4%]
	car (98 seconds) [3%]

CONTRIBUTIONS FOR : division
==============================
	gil (1709 seconds) [43%]
	sam (987 seconds) [25%]
	wri (759 seconds) [19%]
	lai (234 seconds) [6%]
	moo (205 seconds) [5%]
	ezr (93 seconds) [2%]

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%]

I haven't got a key for the three letter songwriter names, but feel that everyone can probably work them out.

Looking at this, Syd was only responsible for 67% of the time on piper, less than I expected. I think it's marginal whether or not he could be called the chief songwriter on this album but I'd tip to calling him so. Waters wrote 80% of Animals by my measure, so I'm happy to call him chief songwriter on that album based on my definition of someone who writes the "considerable majority" of the material, rather than moom's stronger definition of someone who writes the "vast majority" of the material. And hence the Waters "chief songwriter" period for me goes from Animals to The Final Cut.

Overall, Waters wrote 43% of the material, which is not a majority. Gilmour is second with 23%, Wright 15%, Mason 7%, and Barrett 5%. Clearly Waters is the most prolific songwriter in PF, helped by The Wall being a double album. But there isn't the clear majority of material there that would justify the appellation "Chief Songwriter".

It's also interesting to note that Waters is not the most prolific songwriter for these PF albums:

piper
ummagumma
atom heart mother
momentary lapse of reasaon
the division bell

Edit: I found a small error in the data and have updated. But it didn't change any of the final conclusions.

Edit: I haven't included the original tracks from La_Carrera_Panamericana as I don't know how long they are. (Must buy a copy if available for a reasonable price).

[Annoying Twit]

PS: Here's the same information for the period 1968-1975 inclusive.

Code: Select all

CONTRIBUTIONS FOR : saucer
==============================
	wat (1097 seconds) [46%]
	wri (727 seconds) [31%]
	bar (180 seconds) [8%]
	mas (178 seconds) [8%]
	gil (178 seconds) [8%]

CONTRIBUTIONS FOR : singles
==============================
	wat (265 seconds) [34%]
	wri (227 seconds) [29%]
	bar (173 seconds) [22%]
	gil (108 seconds) [14%]

CONTRIBUTIONS FOR : ummagumma
==============================
	wri (779 seconds) [28%]
	wat (745 seconds) [27%]
	gil (737 seconds) [26%]
	mas (524 seconds) [19%]

CONTRIBUTIONS FOR : atom heart mother
==============================
	wri (809 seconds) [26%]
	gil (804 seconds) [26%]
	wat (751 seconds) [24%]
	mas (480 seconds) [15%]
	gee (285 seconds) [9%]

CONTRIBUTIONS FOR : meddle
==============================
	wat (1038 seconds) [37%]
	gil (815 seconds) [29%]
	mas (476 seconds) [17%]
	wri (476 seconds) [17%]

CONTRIBUTIONS FOR : the committee
==============================

CONTRIBUTIONS FOR : more
==============================
	wat (1529 seconds) [57%]
	mas (390 seconds) [14%]
	wri (390 seconds) [14%]
	gil (389 seconds) [14%]

CONTRIBUTIONS FOR : tonight
==============================

CONTRIBUTIONS FOR : zabriskie point
==============================
	mas (483 seconds) [25%]
	wat (483 seconds) [25%]
	gil (483 seconds) [25%]
	wri (483 seconds) [25%]

CONTRIBUTIONS FOR : obscured
==============================
	wat (947 seconds) [39%]
	gil (866 seconds) [36%]
	wri (483 seconds) [20%]
	mas (126 seconds) [5%]

CONTRIBUTIONS FOR : dark side
==============================
	wat (1215 seconds) [48%]
	wri (580 seconds) [23%]
	gil (331 seconds) [13%]
	mas (261 seconds) [10%]
	tor (128 seconds) [5%]

CONTRIBUTIONS FOR : wish you were here
==============================
	wat (1441 seconds) [55%]
	gil (683 seconds) [26%]
	wri (520 seconds) [20%]

CONTRIBUTIONS FOR : overall
==============================
	wat (9508 seconds) [40%]
	wri (5472 seconds) [23%]
	gil (5391 seconds) [22%]
	mas (2917 seconds) [12%]
	bar (353 seconds) [1%]
	gee (285 seconds) [1%]
	tor (128 seconds) [1%]

So, 40% for Waters here.

[Hudini]

I haven't got a key for the three letter songwriter names, but feel that everyone can probably work them out.

The key:

wat - Roger Waters
gil - David Gilmour
wri - Richard Wright
mas - Nick Mason
bar - Syd Barrett
sam - Polly Samson
moo - Anthony Moore
ezr - Bob Ezrin
gee - Ron Geesin
lai - Nick Laird-Clowes
leo - Pat Leonard
man - Phil Manzanera
car - Jon Carin

However, I haven't got a clue who or what "tor" is and how on Earth they turned songwriter credits to seconds.

[Annoying Twit]

The key:

wat - Roger Waters
gil - David Gilmour
wri - Richard Wright
mas - Nick Mason
bar - Syd Barrett
sam - Polly Samson
moo - Anthony Moore
ezr - Bob Ezrin
gee - Ron Geesin
lai - Nick Laird-Clowes
leo - Pat Leonard
man - Phil Manzanera
car - Jon Carin

However, I haven't got a clue who or what "tor" is and how on Earth they turned songwriter credits to seconds.

Tor is Clare Torry, who is now given a co-writer credit for "The Great Gig in the Sky".

My post was a bit lengthy, so it's buried a bit. But I took the length of the tracks as given on Wikipedia. Then I distributed the seconds in that song equally among all listed writers. E.g. "Fearless" is 6:08, or 368 seconds long, and is written by Waters and Gilmour. So my program gives both Waters and Gilmour 184 seconds each.

PS: I wrote the original text file. When I said "I haven't got a key" I actually meant "I'm too lazy to write a key", rather than "I don't know what they key is".

[Hudini]

So, even when we include "The Piper", and the two Gilmour-era albums, Waters still holds 40% of overall songwriter credits. I think this means the case is closed.

[Annoying Twit]

So, even when we include "The Piper", and the two Gilmour-era albums, Waters still holds 40% of overall songwriter credits. I think this means the case is closed.

Which case is closed?

Given that it's only 43% or 40%, I think the conclusion is that none of them deserve the title "chief songwriter" for either of those two (1967-1994, 1968-1975) time periods.

[Hudini]

I don't think that a chief songwriter should write a vast majority of songs. It's enough to simply write more songs than anyone else. So when you consider two albums Waters didn't even play on he still has the majority of songwriter credits and to me it's enough to convince anyone he was Pink Floyd's chief songwriter.

I think it would be interesting to draw a songwriter credit statistic without including "The Wall", "The Final Cut" (which were written almost solely by Waters) and the two Gilmour-era albums (on which he has no songwriter credits). He would still have the majority of credits, I believe.