What comes to your mind when you hear the name, Pink Floyd? certainly, many might think of one of the leading rock bands of the 60s, but some might think of their songs or music, and some may think of the feud between David Gilmour and Roger Waters. Well, we all may think various things about the band. And as a fan, we all agree that Pink Floyd is one of the first British rock bands to create or make psychedelic music.
And since you are here that means you know Pink Floyd and obviously the frontman and vocalist, although Gilmour is not the founding member of the band, he later became the frontman of the band. He joined the band back in 1967 and replaced the original vocalist of the band Syd Barrett. Several popular magazines have listed him as one of the greatest guitarists including Rolling Stone.
Growing up, Gilmour was inspired by many musicians of his time, and one of the musicians who is Gilmour’s favorite as well as inspiration is the late Canadian musician Leonard Cohen. In an interview, Gilmour even revealed one of Cohen’s songs that he just can’t live without and what he said about the song, what song is it, and what Gilmour thinks of Cohen, all these questions will be answered in this piece.
What Leonard Cohen’s song can David Gilmour can’t live without?
As mentioned, Gilmour replaced Syd Barrett and became the new vocalist of the band. Years later David and Roger’s creative differences started to get into their friendship which led Roger to quit the band in 1985. And we all know that Gilmour and Waters’ feud is one of the biggest feuds in the music scene.
Well, a few years after Waters left the band, Gilmour appeared, I believe in 2003 on BBC Radio 4’s program Desert Island Discs where he talked about various things about his band and other musicians. And one of the questions Gilmour was asked in the interview was what the eight tracks that he couldn’t live without are.
And certainly, he mentioned eight tracks however, we will only discuss the fifth track he mentioned and yes it was a track from Leonard Cohen. Gilmour mentioned Cohen’s track “Anthem” is one of the tracks he can’t live without. Furthermore, he also opened up and said that Cohen is one of his favorite music artists. Talking about the track he said, “slight Islamic thing to it; the imperfection that all Islamic art has to have in it.”
Moreover, Gilmour also mentioned Cohen as one of the underrated guitarists in his interview with Rolling Stone a few years past. He said that he learned from his live shows that he is a really good guitarist. He said, “One thing I did learn is how bloody good he is as a guitar player, you tend to think of singer-songwriters as people who are just using the guitar accompaniment to carry the words that they’re doing, but Leonard was an absolutely brilliantly accomplished guitar player in fingerstyle things that I just cannot do. And of course, he’s about the best lyricist that I know of.”
Cohen recorded the song Anthem in actress Rebecca De Mornay’s house, which later the actress revealed in 2014 in an interview with Uncut. It is really sad that the Canadian musician is no more with us, he died on November 7, 2016, and he died of leukemia. However, his manager told that it just contributed but the real reason why he died was that he fell at his home, and later after he went to sleep he never woke up. His death was announced a few days after he died on November 10 and his funeral was also held on the same day.
