Comfortably Numb


"Comfortably Numb" is a song by the English rock band Pink Floyd, released on their eleventh album, The Wall. It was released as a single in 1980 with "Hey You" as the B-side. The chorus progression and guitar solos were written by guitarist David Gilmour, while the lyrics and verse progression were written by bassist Roger Waters.
"Comfortably Numb" is one of Pink Floyd's most famous songs, renowned for its two guitar solos. In 2004, it was ranked number 314 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. In 2005, it became the last song ever performed by Waters, Gilmour, keyboardist Richard Wright, and drummer Nick Mason together. An early version was included on the 2012 Wall "Immersion Box Set".

Composition

The Wall is a concept album about Pink, an embittered and alienated rock star. In "Comfortably Numb", Pink is medicated by a doctor so he can perform for a show.
The verses are composed in the key of B minor, while the chorus is in that key's relative major, D major. The song, together with "Mother", is one of two tracks on The Wall which are free-standing and do not fade into or out of an adjacent track. It is also the longest song on the album at 6:21, followed by "Mother", which is 5:32.

Writing

The chorus progression was written by guitarist David Gilmour, who recorded a wordless demo. The verse and lyrics were written by bassist Roger Waters. The lyrics were inspired by Waters's experience of being injected with tranquillisers for stomach cramps before a Pink Floyd show in Philadelphia on the 1977 In the Flesh Tour. "That was the longest two hours of my life," Waters said, "trying to do a show when you can hardly lift your arm." The song had the working title "The Doctor".
For the chorus, Gilmour and session player Lee Ritenour used a pair of acoustic guitars strung similarly to Nashville tuning, but with the low E string replaced with a high E string, two octaves higher than standard tuning. This tuning was also used for the arpeggios in "Hey You".
Waters and Gilmour disagreed about how to record the song; Gilmour preferred a more grungy style for the verses. Gilmour said: "We argued over 'Comfortably Numb' like mad. Really had a big fight, went on for ages." In the end, Waters' preferred opening and Gilmour's final solo were used.
To write the two guitar solos, Gilmour pieced together elements from several other solos he had been working on, marking his preferred segments for the final take. He used a Big Muff distortion and delay effects on the solos.

Live performances

Pink Floyd

During the 1980/81 The Wall tour, where a giant wall was constructed across the stage during the performance, the song was performed with Roger Waters dressed as a doctor at the bottom of the wall, and David Gilmour singing and playing guitar from the top of the wall on a raised platform with spotlights shining from behind him. It was the first time the audience's attention was drawn to the top of the completed wall. According to Gilmour, the final solo was one of the few opportunities during those concerts that he was free to improvise completely. Gilmour said:
After Waters had left the band, Gilmour also revised the verses to his preferred grungier approach during live performances. The verse vocals were arranged for three-part harmonies. In both 1987–88 and 1994, the verses were sung by Richard Wright, Guy Pratt and Jon Carin.
In December 1988, a video of the live performance from Delicate Sound of Thunder reached number 11 on MTV's Top 20 Video Countdown. The video was two minutes shorter than the album version and the video clip had different camera angles from the home video version.
Pink Floyd performed the song at Knebworth Park on June 30, 1990, published on Knebworth: The Album and on Live At Knebworth 1990.
A 10-minute version of "Comfortably Numb" was performed at Earls Court, London on 20 October 1994, as part of The Division Bell tour. The Pulse video release edited out approximately 1:20 minutes of the ending solo, whereas the original pay-per-view video showed the unedited version.
Pink Floyd, complete with Waters, reunited briefly to perform at the Live 8 concert in Hyde Park, London in July 2005. The set consisted of four songs, of which "Comfortably Numb" was the last.

Roger Waters

After leaving Pink Floyd, Waters first performed "Comfortably Numb" at the 1990 concert staging of The Wall – Live in Berlin on 21 July 1990. The event's purpose was to commemorate the fall of the Berlin Wall. Waters sang lead, Van Morrison sang Gilmour's vocal parts backed by Rick Danko and Levon Helm of The Band, with guitar solo by Rick Di Fonzo and Snowy White, and backup by the Rundfunk Orchestra & Choir. This version was used in the Academy Award-winning 2006 film The Departed, directed by Martin Scorsese. It is also heard in the TV show episode of The Sopranos, titled "Kennedy and Heidi", when Christopher Moltisanti plays The Departed soundtrack on his car stereo before a serious accident. Van Morrison's 2007 compilation album, Van Morrison at the Movies – Soundtrack Hits includes this version.
Waters subsequently performed the song at the "Guitar Legends" festival in Spain in 1991, and at the Walden Woods benefit concert in Los Angeles in 1992 with guest vocals by Don Henley.
During 1999–2000, Doyle Bramhall II and Snowy White stood in for Gilmour's vocals and guitar solos; a role carried out by Chester Kamen and White in 2002. In 2006–2007 Gilmour's vocals were performed by Jon Carin and Andy Fairweather-Low with Dave Kilminster and White performing the guitar solos.
During Waters' The Wall Live tour, Robbie Wyckoff sang Gilmour's vocals, and Dave Kilminster performed the guitar solos, both of them atop the wall, as Gilmour had been in the original tour. During the performance of 12 May 2011 at the London O2 Arena, David Gilmour appeared as a guest during this song, and both sang the choruses and played guitar from the top of the wall, echoing the original Earls Court performances. The song contains one of the show's most memorable moments, when, at a specific point of the final guitar solo, Waters steps toward the wall and pounds it with his fists, triggering both an explosion of colours on the previously dark-grey screen projections and a collapsing wall.
Waters performed the song with Eddie Vedder singing Gilmour's vocals at.

David Gilmour

Gilmour has performed the song during each of his solo tours. In his 1984 tour to promote his album About Face, the set list referred to the song as "Come on Big Bum". The vocals during the verses were performed by band members Gregg Dechert and Mickey Feat.
In 2001 and 2002, the verse vocals were performed on different dates by guest singers: Robert Wyatt, Kate Bush, Durga McBroom, and Bob Geldof, who had played Pink in the film version of The Wall. Geldof, who had not memorized the verses, read the lyrics as he sang.
On 29 May 2006, at the Royal Albert Hall, David Bowie, in a guest appearance, sang the verses. The next day, 30 May, Richard Wright sang the verses, by himself, at the same venue. Both performances were immortalised on Gilmour's Remember That Night concert video, compiled from all three of his shows there on 28, 29 and 30 May 2006, which were part of his "On an Island" Tour to promote his new album of the same name.
In 2006, Gilmour performed the song in a concert, with the Polish Baltic Philharmonic Orchestra providing the orchestral parts that had usually been done with backing tapes or multiple synthesizers. This version would be released on Live in Gdańsk.
On the 2016 Rattle That Lock tour, the verses were sung by band member Chuck Leavell. This version can be seen and heard on Live at Pompeii.
During a performance at the Royal Albert Hall on 24 April 2016, Gilmour and his band incorporated the final refrain of the Prince song "Purple Rain" into the song as a tribute to the artist, who had died three days earlier.

Personnel

Pink Floyd
with:
Personnel per Fitch/Mahon

Reception

In 2011, the song was ranked 5th in the BBC Radio 4's listeners' Desert Island Discs choices. Gilmour's solo was rated the 4th best guitar solo of all-time by Guitar World magazine, in a reader poll. In August 2006, it was voted the greatest guitar solo of all time in a poll by listeners of digital radio station Planet Rock. Gilmour's guitar tone in the song was named best guitar sound by Guitarist magazine in November 2010. The two guitar solos were ranked as the greatest guitar solos of all time by Planet Rock listeners.

Certifications

Scissor Sisters version

The Scissor Sisters recorded a radically re-arranged disco-oriented version released in January 2004 on Polydor, with the B-side "Rock My Spot ". This release reached number 10 on the UK Singles Chart. David Gilmour and Nick Mason expressed a liking for the group's version, and Roger Waters is said to have congratulated the Scissor Sisters on the version, although a lyric was changed, from "a distant ship's smoke on the horizon" to "a distant ship floats on the horizon". Jake Shears, the band's lead singer, was invited by Gilmour to sing "Comfortably Numb" with him in some 2006 shows, but the idea was dropped at the last moment to Shears' public disappointment. This cover received a Grammy nomination for Best Dance Recording, but lost to "Toxic" by Britney Spears.

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts