I reasoned wrongly that Pink Floyd was pretty much finished after releasing The Final Cut four years after The Wall. The Wall had exceeded my expectations and was so unique that it succeeded in spite of itself. I "got" The Final Cut, both literally and figuratively, but the heavy hand of Roger Waters and the lack of subtlety or nuance made it a chore to listen to. Plus, I thought the album title was a signal that it was going to be the band's signoff. That was not to be.
In 1987, Pink Floyd released A Momentary Lapse of Reason, which seemed like a comeback album to me. Roger Waters had left the band, thereby relieving much of the tension between him and David Gilmour. With Gilmour, Richard Wright, and Nick Mason operating as a trio aided by 16 (!) contributing guests, Pink Floyd were a long way from their early days jamming as a quartet. The band had become a touring stadium-filler with all sorts of special effects flying into view and a sound loud and clear enough to reach the last row of the upper deck.
The live shows also included numerous guest musicians and did an amazing job of performing new material from Momentary Lapse while honoring fans' wishes to hear favorites from earlier classic albums, mostly Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, and The Wall. A 1994 concert was memorialized on the Pulse CD and DVD, which show how the new and old material were programmed.
Momentary Lapse included five great songs by Gilmour. "On the Turning Away" and "Sorrow" are my favorites, followed closely by "One Slip," "Terminal Frost, "and "Learning to Fly." "Turning Away" offers hope that people will not "turn away from the weak and the weary." The phrase "where the speechless unite in a silent accord" always gets me, as does the closing stanza:
Just a world that we all must share
It's not enough just to stand and stare
Is it only a dream that there'll be
No more turning away?
Anyone coming of age in the 60s, as Pink Floyd did, can relate to the hope of one world in harmony, even if it may only be a dream.
"Sorrow" is introduced by one of the most incredible instrumental moments since Dark Side of the Moon. Gilmour amps up his Steinberger GL guitar piped into the band's sound system inside the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena, yielding an extremely deep, cavernous sound. The closing verse offers little hope to the plight of the modern world:
There's an unceasing wind that blows through this night
And there's dust in my eyes that blinds my sight
And silence that speaks so much louder than words
Of promises broken
Obviously, lyrics like these make Momentary Lapse one of gravest albums produced by Pink Floyd. Gilmour knew that whatever he composed and placed onto an album would be heard by millions of people. The issues addressed are important ones that he chose to feature on his worldwide platform.
Steve:
The re-launch of Pink Floyd in 1987 following Roger Waters' departure came as something of a surprise, not least to Roger Waters himself. Having considered the band "over", he soldiered on with his solo career (his second album, Radio KAOS, was released the same year as Momentary Lapse), and David Gilmour had also made strong efforts to bolster his own solo career. Gilmour's About Face (1984) had been a moderate success and a very accessible album, but it didn't sell in Pink Floyd numbers by a long shot. Another Gilmour solo effort eventually gained enough momentum to justify the use of the Pink Floyd name once Nick Mason and Richard Wright offered their contributions. Many Floyd fans (including Waters himself) have argued vehemently online and in print that the Floyd without Waters was a sham, but I'll refrain from turning this post into yet another installment of The Pros and Cons of Bitching About Pink Floyd and focus on the music the new band gave us.
I was a freshman in college when Momentary Lapse was released, and as a confirmed Floyd fan, I was all too happy to scoop it up at my first opportunity. Although the booming production, prodigious use of outside musicians, and employment of modern synthesizers dates this album a bit, on the whole the songs are very good, and sound pretty great as well. "One Slip" (co-written by Gilmour and guitarist Phil Manzanera) has always been a favorite, with its techno-chug providing a lot of propulsion and its thoughtful lyric about a hasty marriage that is immediately recognized as a mistake. I see a sonic connection between "One Slip" and Gilmour's prior solo single "Blue Light", a rare but successful attempt to make the Floyd sound danceable.
"Sorrow", the closing track, is another highlight. It marches along at a medium tempo that imparts ennui and determination at the same time, and features strong lead guitar accents from Gilmour, including a wall-shaking (especially live) guitar intro that Dan refers to. Initiating a trend that would characterize every subsequent Floyd or solo Gilmour album, Momentary Lapse opens with a mood-setting instrumental, "Signs of Life". Such tracks were always effective, offering a quietly dramatic introduction to albums. Less typical is the album's other instrumental, "Terminal Frost", which offers a Floydian take on either soundtrack music or lite jazz, but actually reminds me of "The Working Hour" on Tears for Fears' Songs from the Big Chair.
The release of A Momentary Lapse of Reason precipitated a years-long legal battle between Roger Waters and the rest of the band, a sad chapter in the band's history. The parties have only occasionally been on speaking terms ever since. As much as I regret the tainting of the memorable story of my favorite band of all time, I'm glad to have this album and its follow-ups, as they contain some very good music and gave me an additional taste of Pink Floyd long after they'd been assumed dead and buried.
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