Who Was Pink Floyd's Chief Songwriter?

[Annoying Twit]

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.

Well, that's a very different definition to mine. As I've said I think that a "chief songwriter" should write a considerable majority of the songs. Moom used the phrase "vast majority". But with your definition, you're prepared to use the title even when the person in question didn't write a majority of the material.

Taking a reductio ad absurdum, imagine there's a band that has three members, and has recorded 151 songs. One member wrote 50 of them, another wrote 50, and the last one wrote 51. I don't think you could call the last one the chief songwriter. And by the same reasoning, I wouldn't call Rog PF's chief songwriter over the lifetime of the band.

Edit: It's also important to think of how many members there are in the band. The more members actively contributing to the songwriting, lower the %age at which one member can write more songs than anyone else. E.g. if there are 15 contributing songwriters, then one member could have written only 7% of the songs, but have written more than any other member. Look at Queen with four members who all contributed songs. Freddie Mercury (I would guess) probably contributed the most, but I wouldn't think nearly enough to make him "chief songwriter".

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.

But only if they accept your definition of the term "chief songwriter". Which I don't.

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.

Here's that data. The percentage is quite similar to the 1968-1975 period.

CONTRIBUTIONS FOR : overall
==============================
wat (11901 seconds) [41%]
gil (5904 seconds) [20%]
wri (5684 seconds) [20%]
mas (3129 seconds) [11%]
bar (2045 seconds) [7%]
gee (285 seconds) [1%]
tor (128 seconds) [0%]

[Hudini]

1. I think that a "chief songwriter" should write a considerable majority of the songs.

2. Look at Queen with four members who all contributed songs. Freddie Mercury (I would guess) probably contributed the most, but I wouldn't think nearly enough to make him "chief songwriter".

1. Well, yes. But the problem is that "a considerable majority" doesn't really mean much. It doesn't define anything. If we take that Waters' songwriter credits take about 40% percent out of overall songwriter credits of Pink Floyd members, that is a "considerable" majority, isn't it? Not an absolute majority though, but it's still a significant part.

2. There is a difference between Queen and Pink Floyd.

In Pink Floyd, you had Waters writing songs on his own, the whole band working together, Gilmour and/or Wright co-writing with Waters and very occasionally writing on their own. Thus neither one of them could have had a more important role in writing than Waters.

In Queen, you had Mercury writing on his own, May writing on his own, Taylor writing on his own, Deacon writing on his own and very, very rare collaborations. You are right when you say Mercury contributed the most, but I'd say his total share in songwriter credits wasn't more than 30%. Now, that would still be a "considerable" majority, but in the structure of credits and with the fact that Queen's singles were pretty evenly distributed among members (which you couldn't possibly say for Pink Floyd), you couldn't call any Queen member "a chief songwriter".

[snifferdog]

The number of songs that Waters wrote is only half the story. There's also the matter of who arranged the songs, who wrote the guitar solos etc. To my ears anyway, none of Waters, Gilmour or Wright have ever managed to make solo albums which are a patch on what they did with Pink Floyd. When they collaborated, they made better music.

[Annoying Twit]

1. Well, yes. But the problem is that "a considerable majority" doesn't really mean much. It doesn't define anything. If we take that Waters' songwriter credits take about 40% percent out of overall songwriter credits of Pink Floyd members, that is a "considerable" majority, isn't it? Not an absolute majority though, but it's still a significant part.

By "considerable majority" I mean "much more than 50% of the total". As mentioned above, I think that Syd was the chief songwriter for Piper, though by my measure he only wrote 67% of that album. Thinking about it, I prefer to accept 67% as a "considerable majority" rather than say that Syd wasn't the "chief songwriter" on this album. But 40% is not a majority at all, let alone a "considerable majority". It's clearly a "significant part", but my understanding of the term "chief songwriter" requires more than that.

2. There is a difference between Queen and Pink Floyd.

In Pink Floyd, you had Waters writing songs on his own, the whole band working together, Gilmour and/or Wright co-writing with Waters and very occasionally writing on their own. Thus neither one of them could have had a more important role in writing than Waters.

In Queen, you had Mercury writing on his own, May writing on his own, Taylor writing on his own, Deacon writing on his own and very, very rare collaborations. You are right when you say Mercury contributed the most, but I'd say his total share in songwriter credits wasn't more than 30%. Now, that would still be a "considerable" majority, but in the structure of credits and with the fact that Queen's singles were pretty evenly distributed among members (which you couldn't possibly say for Pink Floyd), you couldn't call any Queen member "a chief songwriter".

Well, I wouldn't call 30% a majority, let alone a considerable majority. But that's already covered above.

[Keith Jordan]

What is person A wrote 90 % of the songs by themselves and each and every one of them were rubbish. Then person B wrote 10% and they were number one all over the world. Does the argument of quantity stand up? Does it need weighting with that people actually think of the songs? This fresh list of yours R.PITI is a load of nonsense. Absolute flaming nonsense. Absolute Curtains, if you like!

Roger Waters Is God though.

[snifferdog]

...Roger Waters Is God though.

Ah, but does God think he's Roger Waters?

[Annoying Twit]

The number of songs that Waters wrote is only half the story. There's also the matter of who arranged the songs, who wrote the guitar solos etc. To my ears anyway, none of Waters, Gilmour or Wright have ever managed to make solo albums which are a patch on what they did with Pink Floyd. When they collaborated, they made better music.

Yes, I'd agree that the whole was greater than the sum of the parts. I do think that a number of the solo albums are very good, and there are quite a few solo albums that I'd rate as better than a number of Pink Floyd albums. But no solo album, in my opinion, got anywhere near PF at their best.

[Annoying Twit]

What is person A wrote 90 % of the songs by themselves and each and every one of them were rubbish. Then person B wrote 10% and they were number one all over the world. Does the argument of quantity stand up? Does it need weighting with that people actually think of the songs? This fresh list of yours R.PITI is a load of nonsense. Absolute flaming nonsense. Absolute Curtains, if you like!

Roger Waters Is God though.

It would be interesting if there was a method of objectively rating the quality of each song. But, as far as I'm aware, there is no such method. You criticise my list, but surely the same criticism applies to the very first list posted at the start of this thread. Even more so in my opinion since frequently in PF it's the magnum opuses (Dogs, SOYCD, Echoes) which are the very high points.

But even if it were possible to rate quality, I don't think that would affect who is the "chief songwriter". It could happen that there's a band where one person (as you say) writes 90% of the songs but they're tosh, while the other one wrote 10% of excellent songs. I'd still say that the first person is the "chief songwriter". Simply because they're doing most of the writing. Which one writes the better quality songs is a largely independent question.

Something vaguely similar happened to XTC, where for a while Andy Partridge wrote most of the songs, but Colin Moulding wrote the hits. Though, IMHO that's a style rather than quality issue as I prefer Partridge's songs.

But returning to PF, if it were possible to consider the quality of the songs, I think that would even things out even more. PF reached their greatest heights, IMHO, when they were working together, in the full literal sense. In my opinion, Stay > Free Four, Wish You Were Here > Have a Cigar, Us and Them > Money, Comfortably Numb > In The Flesh, the list goes on.

[Keith Jordan]

I was on about R.PITI's list?

If everyone rated all of the songs, and you added up the score for each song and added to lists for Roger Waters and David Gilmour, that would be a better list as it shows quality not quantity. Quantity is not representative of quality.

What is the purposes of this thread? To show Roger Waters was the creative force behind Pink Floyd with his songwriting, or just that he got the writing credits on more songs than anyone else?

I could get people to rate each song in a stage of my Big Pink Floyd Survey thing.

[mosespa]

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.

It may be "only 43 or 40 percent," but that's still more than fifty percent greater than Gilmour's contribution.

(I see no need to "mossify" your points...you've made some good ones and I'd also like to say that I appreciate you taking the time to add the asterisked point about tone of voice not translating well in this format. You have no idea how many times I've had that bite me in the ass myself. )

Also...let's try this:

Since we're talking about the Chief Songwriter and not the Chief Composer, let's look at who wrote more SONGS.

That was Waters, right?

[Annoying Twit]

I was on about R.PITI's list?

Ah, R.PITI = Real Pink in the Inside. When you mentioned "new list", I presumed you meant mine, but I didn't understand what "R.PITI" meant. I thought it was an internet acronym I wasn't aware of.

If everyone rated all of the songs, and you added up the score for each song and added to lists for Roger Waters and David Gilmour, that would be a better list as it shows quality not quantity. Quantity is not representative of quality.

True. But quantity can be measured, and quality can't IMHO as it's too subjective.

What is the purposes of this thread? To show Roger Waters was the creative force behind Pink Floyd with his songwriting, or just that he got the writing credits on more songs than anyone else?

My participation in the thread is to try and measure the songwriting contribution of each member more accurately than the first post did.

I could get people to rate each song in a stage of my Big Pink Floyd Survey thing.

Except that all a poll would measure is popularity. And that's if the poll really worked. I'm sure there would be a significant proportion of people who would vote politically for/against their favourite member. I would find it difficult not to react against expected political voting myself.

So, number of songwriting contributions may not be the best thing to measure. But at least you can measure it.

[Annoying Twit]

It may be "only 43 or 40 percent," but that's still more than fifty percent greater than Gilmour's contribution.

Much more. Waters' songwriting contributions approach the sum of the other three members.

Also...let's try this:

Since we're talking about the Chief Songwriter and not the Chief Composer, let's look at who wrote more SONGS.

That was Waters, right?

Can you edit my pf.txt file, and add some sort of symbol for each song indicating whether it was an instrumental or not? Say, an asterisk on the start of the line. If you do that, then I can make my program split songs and instrumentals. But clearly it will boost Rog's proportion of the total for vocal songs. I don't give the titles of the songs, but I used track listings from Wikipedia and I don't think you'll have trouble working out which is which.

[mosespa]

1. Much more. Waters' songwriting contributions approach the sum of the other three members.

2. Can you edit my pf.txt file, and add some sort of symbol for each song indicating whether it was an instrumental or not? Say, an asterisk on the start of the line. If you do that, then I can make my program split songs and instrumentals. But clearly it will boost Rog's proportion of the total for vocal songs. I don't give the titles of the songs, but I used track listings from Wikipedia and I don't think you'll have trouble working out which is which.

1. And you still don't consider that a VAST majority?

2. You misunderstand. I don't mean "lyrics versus instrumentals." I'm talking about who, individually, wrote the greater number of SONGS...in which case "songs" = words AND music...or "individual songwriting credits."

[Annoying Twit]

1. And you still don't consider that a VAST majority?

I'd prefer to see the actual numbers before making any decisions. I'm very confident that Rog is PF's chief lyricist. I'd want to see the numbers before saying whether or not Rog wrote the vast majority of the "songs".

2. You misunderstand. I don't mean "lyrics versus instrumentals." I'm talking about who, individually, wrote the greater number of SONGS...in which case "songs" = words AND music...or "individual songwriting credits."

Yes, but I need to know the numbers first. If you marked up my pf.txt files to indicate which tracks are purely instrumental versus those that are songs with both music and lyrics, then I can get my program to do the calculations.

[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.

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.

Well, I believe "most prolific songwriter" sounds more lofty than "chief songwriter."