Roger Waters grew to such a prominent role within Pink Floyd as their chief songwriter and architect of their concept albums that many people felt that the band was over and done when he left them. Guitarist David Gilmour had other ideas, and he rallied the other members for the 1987 comeback record A Momentary Lapse of Reason.
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The album both solidified the Pink Floyd brand and alienated Waters even further from his former bandmates. Let’s take a look back at how it all went down.
A Not So Final Cut
Pink Floyd’s run as rock royalty, which began in 1967 with their debut album with former lead singer Syd Barrett, reached stratospheric levels with the 1973 masterpiece Dark Side of the Moon, and continued through the ’70s with major works like Wish You Were Here and The Wall, seemed to expire with the making of the 1983 album The Final Cut. It was essentially a Roger Waters solo project released under the Floyd banner. Fellow band members David Gilmour and Nick Mason had little input. (Keyboardist Rick Wright had been fired during the making of The Wall.)
On top of the fact that the album was essentially all Waters, all the time, it sold only a fraction of what previous Floyd records had achieved. Many critics had also jumped off the bandwagon. There was no tour behind the record. Both Waters and Gilmour released solo albums in 1984, which many fans thought was just a way of clearing the air before getting back together for the next Floyd project.
But it soon became clear that neither man had much interest in working with the other. A dispute about the band’s management led to Waters announcing that he was leaving. He also made a legal effort to prevent the other group members from performing under the Pink Floyd name, a move which ultimately proved futile.
Adding an Old Friend
When David Gilmour stared recording new material in 1986 with some chosen collaborators, he initially thought it might be for another solo album. But CBS records wanted more Pink Floyd, so Gilmour began tailoring his new work in that direction. Nick Mason soon began adding drums to Gilmour tracks once it was clear that a new Floyd record was going to be made.
Gilmour and Mason also made the decision to invite Rick Wright back into the fold. It should be noted that they were on board with the original decision to fire Wright (even if Waters’ animosity toward the keyboardist was the main catalyst.) Their decision to reach out proved doubly useful. Not only were they patching things up with their old friend, but the decision also made the subsequent album seem more legitimately like Pink Floyd.
In truth, A Momentary Lapse of Reason, as the album would be titled, was a Gilmour-centric project. One issue: Finding someone to help the guitarist with lyrics, since that had always been Waters’ arena. Several co-writers are listed on the album, with British musician Anthony Moore delivering the bulk of the lyrics to the album’s first two singles, “Learning to Fly” and “On the Turning Away.”
Reason Reaction
A Momentary Lapse of Reason was met with some skepticism when it was released. Critics looking for an overarching concept were disappointed. But the album certainly wasn’t the debacle that many expected. Indeed, “Learning to Fly,” “On the Turning Away,” and “One Slip” dominated rock radio, and the record has aged quite well as ambitious music with something on its mind.
More important than that, it established Pink Floyd as an entity that was bigger than any one member. It wasn’t long after the album’s release that the band was pushing forward with a tour. When they came back in 1994 with their next album (The Division Bell), Wright and Mason were much more a part of the writing and recording process.
For his part, Roger Waters has denigrated the work released by his former bandmates after his departure as being below the standard they had previously set. Regardless of that, A Momentary Lapse of Reason kept the Pink Floyd ship afloat, and it eventually sailed to quite lucrative waters with that album as its propelling force.
