It’s usually difficult for any artist to come back to some of their older songs. Fixing a few mistakes on a track is easy. But there are plenty of instances when you can’t even hear yourself. You’re trying to communicate your emotions through a little wooden piece with strings. In Pink Floyd’s 1970s era, Roger Waters began to express himself more freely. However, he acknowledged that his initial impression of “Comfortably Numb” was far from ideal.
Waters would see to it that the rock opera by the prog giants was executed flawlessly. They had previously developed broad theories regarding the perils of big business and the music industry, so The Wall would be Waters’ perfect model to tell the story of a jaded rock star losing his mind.
Although this song is easily comparable by many Floyd fans to the experiences the band had with Syd Barrett, there is a lot more biographical material about Waters on this album than even he is willing to acknowledge. Barrett was never able to experience the heights of celebrity like this. Roger Waters most likely used a lot of those lyric sheets as a way to escape the millions of fans.
At the cost of his fellow musicians, that is. The structure of the rock opera allows Waters to truly steal the show. He treats the other members of the band like supporting cast members on each song. However, David Gilmour continued to know what he wanted to hear. He shelved a song from his solo album that inspired the beginnings of “Comfortably Numb.”
Following its presentation as a potential concept, Waters blended his peculiar voice into the mix to narrate the tale of Pink abusing drugs to give him the energy to make it to the stage that evening. Despite the intended opulence and theatricality, Waters discovered an absolute mess just waiting to happen.
According to Waters, who told Uncut, “Dave said he thought the track was sloppy, or something, and he wanted to recut the drums, the bass, this, that, and the other,” he was forced to compromise his vision for what he considered a lifeless mix once the demo reached Gilmour. I detested it after listening to it. It had all of a sudden stopped moving and seemed wooden to me. “No, that was great the way it was,” I said. This is not good. “No, the way it was, was awful,” he said. This is fantastic. Consequently, the song’s final four bars are a combination of his and mine; this is how the entire track sounds.
Fans got lucky and got both versions of the track on the final disc, even though both sides have valid points. That unease essentially depicts someone barely hanging onto their nervous system. They come to their senses since the entire song is about someone going in and out of consciousness. They are experiencing a euphoric high from the drugs being pumped into them.
Though Waters felt that having 90% creative control wasn’t quite enough, this was the kind of drama that a good rock opera should have. The Final Cut ended up being the version of The Wall without any of the exciting parts because he needed to have a clearer vision the next time. Whatever your thoughts on the combination of “Comfortably Numb,” at least that kind of concession produced something truly extraordinary.
