"Sorrow" is the final track from Pink Floyd's 1987 album, A Momentary Lapse of Reason.[1][2]
[edit] Overview
The piece was written and composed by guitarist David Gilmour. Gilmour has stated that although lyrics are not his strong point, the song is one of his strongest lyrical efforts[citation needed], even though the opening lines were appropriated from John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath.[3]
"Sorrow was a poem I'd written as a lyric before I wrote music to it, which is rare for me."
Drummer Nick Mason has since stated that the song was almost entirely written by David Gilmour alone over the space of one weekend on his houseboat, The Astoria. When he returned from the weekend, only "some spit and polish," according to Mason, was needed. David Gilmour has also mentioned that the solo at the end of Sorrow was done on the boat, his guitar going through a small Gallien-Krueger amp.[4] As on many tracks from the album, Gilmour played a Steinberger GL "headless" guitar on this song.[5] The guitar intro was recorded inside Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena and piped through Pink Floyd's large sound system, yielding an extremely deep, cavernous sound. The drum machine on the song was programmed by David Gilmour — no real drums were used.
[edit] Other versions
Live versions of the song are featured on 1988's Delicate Sound of Thunder album and 1995's P*U*L*S*E album, with running times of 9:27 and 10:49 respectively, mostly taken up by extended guitar solos by Gilmour and an additional outro. A slightly shortened version of the song appears on Pink Floyd's greatest hits collection, Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd, which is edited so that the song "Sheep" segues into Sorrow. David Gilmour played the song at the "Strat-pack" guitar concert, an event which commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Fender Stratocaster.
[edit] Personnel on studio version
[edit] Personnel on Delicate Sound of Thunder and P*U*L*S*E versions
[edit] References
