| "Comfortably Numb" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Japanese single cover | ||||
| Single byPink Floyd | ||||
| from the albumThe Wall | ||||
| B-side | "Hey You" | |||
| Released | 23 June 1980 (1980-6-23)[1][2] | |||
| Recorded | April–November 1979 | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length |
| |||
| Label | ||||
| Songwriter(s) | ||||
| Producer(s) |
| |||
| Pink Floyd singles chronology | ||||
| ||||
| Audio | ||||
| "Comfortably Numb" onYouTube | ||||
"Comfortably Numb" is a song by the English rock bandPink Floyd, released on their eleventh studio album,The Wall (1979). It was released as asingle in 1980, with "Hey You" as theB-side.
The music was composed by the band's guitarist,David Gilmour; the lyrics were written by the bassist,Roger Waters, who recalled his experience of being injected with tranquilisers before a performance in 1977. Waters and Gilmour argued during the recording, with Waters seeking anorchestralarrangement and Gilmour preferring a more stripped-down arrangement. They compromised by combining both versions, and Gilmour said the song was the last time he and Waters were able to work together constructively.
"Comfortably Numb" is one of Pink Floyd's most popular songs and is notable for its twoguitar solos.[3] In 2021, it was ranked number 179 onRolling Stone's list of "the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time".[4] In 2005, it became the last song ever performed by Waters, Gilmour, keyboardistRichard Wright and drummerNick Mason together. An early version was included on the Immersion Box Set of "The Wall", entitled "The Doctor". A cover byScissor Sisters in a radically different arrangement was a UK top ten hit in 2004. Gilmour contributed guitar to a cover byBody Count released in 2024.
The Wall is aconcept album about an embittered and alienated rock star named Pink. In "Comfortably Numb", Pink is medicated by a doctor so he can perform for a show.[5] The verses are inB minor, while the chorus has been described as using a modal interchange of that key'srelative major,D major, and DMixolydian.[6]
"Comfortably Numb" originated in a wordlessdemo recorded byDavid Gilmour while he was working on hisdebut solo album in 1978. He did not use the composition for that album, but kept it for future use.[7] Gilmour originally wrote the verses in thekey ofE minor, which Waters changed toB minor. Gilmour also addedbars for the “I have become comfortably numb" line. Waters' lyrics were inspired by his experience of being injected withtranquilizers forstomach cramps before a performance in 1977 during Pink Floyd'sIn the Flesh Tour.[8][9] He said, "That was the longest two hours of my life, trying to do a show when you can hardly lift your arm."[10] The song's working title was "The Doctor".[11] Producer Bob Ezrin looked at the completed lyrics and said they "just gave megoosebumps".[7]
For thechorus, Gilmour and thesession playerLee Ritenour used a pair of acoustic guitars strung in a similar manner toNashville tuning, but with the low E string replaced with a high E string, twooctaves higher thanstandard tuning. The sametuning was used for thearpeggios in another song fromThe Wall, "Hey You".[12] To compose the twoguitar solos, Gilmour pieced together elements from several other solos he had been working on, marking his preferred segments for the final take.[13] He used aBig Muffdistortion anddelay effects on the solos.[14]
The strings were recorded in New York by Ezrin and the American composerMichael Kamen.[7] According to Waters, although he and Ezrin were satisfied with the recording, Gilmour found it "sloppy" and spent a week rerecording it. Waters described Gilmour's version as "just awful ... stilted and stiff, and it lost all the passion and life the original had".[15] The disagreement became acrimonious.[16][7]
Eventually, the group compromised by using the orchestral elements for the main portion and using Gilmour's stripped-down mix for the final guitar solo.[7] Waters said: "That's all we could do without somebody 'winning' and somebody 'losing.' And of course, who lost, if you like, was the band, because it was clear at that point that we didn't [all] feel the same way about music."[16] Ezrin later said he was happy with the final mix as it provided a good contrast.[7] Gilmour said "Comfortably Numb" represented "the last embers" of his ability to work collaboratively with Waters.[7]
During theWall Tour, where a giant wall was constructed across the stage during the performance, the song was performed with Waters dressed as a doctor at the bottom of the wall, and 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 in which he was free toimprovise completely. Gilmour said:
It was a fantastic moment, I can tell, to be standing up on there, and Roger's just finished singing his thing, and I'm standing there, waiting. I'm in pitch darkness and no one knows I'm there yet. And Roger's down and he finishes his line, I start mine and the big back spots and everything go on and the audience, they're all looking straight ahead and down, and suddenly there's all this light up there and they all sort of—their heads all lift up and there's this thing up there and the sound's coming out and everything. Every night there's this sort of "[gasp!]" from about 15,000 people. And that's quite something, let me tell you.[17]
After Waters left the band, Gilmour revised the verses to suit his "grungier" preference for live performances. Verse vocals were arranged forthree-part harmony. In both theA Momentary Lapse of Reason andThe Division Bell tours, these were sung byRichard Wright,Guy Pratt andJon Carin.
In December 1988, a video of the live performance from theA Momentary Lapse of Reason Tour, released on the live albumDelicate Sound of Thunder, reached number 11 onMTV'sTop 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 30 June 1990 and it was published onCD asKnebworth: The Album, and on video asLive At Knebworth 1990.
A 10-minute version of "Comfortably Numb" was performed atEarls Court, London on 20 October 1994, as part of The Division Bell Tour. ThePulse 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 theLive 8 concert in Hyde Park, London in July 2005. The set consisted of four songs, of which "Comfortably Numb" was the last.[18][19]
After leaving Pink Floyd, Waters first performed "Comfortably Numb" at the 1990 concert staging ofThe Wall – Live in Berlin on 21 July 1990. The event's purpose was to commemorate the fall of theBerlin Wall. Waters sang lead,Van Morrison sang Gilmour's vocal parts backed byRick Danko andLevon Helm ofThe Band, with guitar solo by Rick Di Fonzo andSnowy White, and backup by theRundfunk Orchestra & Choir. This version was used in theAcademy Award-winning 2006 filmThe Departed, directed byMartin Scorsese. Van Morrison's 2007compilation album,Van Morrison at the Movies – Soundtrack Hits includes this version.
Waters subsequently performed the song at theGuitar Legends festival in Spain in 1991 with White on guitar solos, Waters playing acoustic guitar during the second solo, and guest vocals byBruce Hornsby; and later at the Walden Woods benefit concert in Los Angeles in 1992 with guest vocals byDon Henley.
During Waters'In the Flesh concert series,Doyle Bramhall II andSnowy White stood in for Gilmour's vocals and guitar solos; a role carried out byChester Kamen and White in 2002 with Andy Fairweather Low on bass. Waters played acoustic guitar in unison with Jon Carin, with Andy Fairweather Low on bass; his part was performed by Harry Waters in 2002. In his showThe Dark Side of the Moon Live, Gilmour's vocals were performed byJon Carin andAndy Fairweather-Low, while both playing acoustic guitar and Waters playing bass, withDave Kilminster and White performing the guitar solos.
During Waters'The Wall Live, Robbie Wyckoff sang Gilmour's vocals, and Dave Kilminster performed the guitar solos with G E Smith on bass, both of them standing on top of the wall as Gilmour had done 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 performances fromThe Wall Tour.[20] 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.[citation needed]
Waters performed the song withEddie Vedder singing Gilmour's vocals at12-12-12: The Concert for Sandy Relief.[citation needed]
DuringMexico City andDesert Trip shows, Waters performed with the same band setup as The Wall Live.[citation needed] During theUs + Them Tour, Gilmour's vocals were performed byJonathan Wilson with guitar solos by Kilminster and bass by Gus Seyffert.[citation needed] OnThis Is Not a Drill, Waters performed a new version of the song as an introduction to the concerts.
Gilmour has performed the song during each of his solo tours. In About Face, his 1984 tour to promotehis album of the same name, the set list referred to the song as "Come on Big Bum". The vocals during the verses were performed by band membersGregg Dechert and Mickey Feat (in harmony).
In 2001 and 2002, the verse vocals were performed on different dates by guest singersRobert Wyatt,Kate Bush,Durga McBroom, andBob Geldof, who had played Pink in thefilm version ofThe Wall. Geldof, who had not memorised the verses, read the lyrics as he sang.
On 29 May 2006, at theRoyal Albert Hall,David Bowie made a guest appearance and sang the verses, in his final live performance in the United Kingdom. The next day, 30 May, Richard Wright sang the verses by himself (as on the rest of the tour) at the same venue. Both performances were included on Gilmour'sRemember That Night concert video, compiled from all three of his shows there on 29, 30 and 31 May 2006, which were part of hisOn an Island concert series to promotehis album of the same name.
In 2006, Gilmour performed the song in a concert, with the PolishBaltic Philharmonic Orchestra providing the orchestral parts that had usually been created withbacking tapes or multiplesynthesizers. This version was released onLive in Gdańsk.
On the 2016Rattle That Lock Tour, the verses were sung byJon Carin (on legs 1–3),Chuck Leavell (on leg 4) (this version can be seen and heard onLive at Pompeii), and Bryan Chambers (leg 5).[21] They were also performed byBenedict Cumberbatch on 28 September 2016 at the Royal Albert Hall.[22]
During a performance at the Royal Albert Hall on 24 April 2016, Gilmour and his band incorporated the final refrain of thePrince song"Purple Rain" into the song as a tribute to Prince, who had died three days earlier.[23][24]
In both its original studio release and all subsequent live versions, Comfortably Numb has since received unanimous acclaim from music critics and many high-profile musicians following the release of its parent album, The Wall, at the end of November 1979, and has gone on to become universally recognized as one of the greatest songs of all time and as one of Pink Floyd’s definitive works, as a band.
David Gilmour’s performance on the track has been consistently lauded as being the crowning achievement of his career as a guitarist.Cash Box said that "Gilmour's guitar cries out eloquently."[25]Billboard said that "it displays the supergroup's lyrical strengths and passion for colorful, textured melody".[26]Record World said that "dreamy vocals float over a sea of thick synthesizer textures and solo guitar waves".[27] Author Mike Cormack wrote that the song "is perhaps the apex of rock music as an artform. No other song cuts deeper, says so much about the human condition, or hits such moments of beauty and horror"[28] and that Gilmour's second guitar solo "is an utter master at work, leaving space, repeating and building on licks to give a sense of structure, not overplaying, building to a shrieking climax, and then fading out while leaving the listener wanting more".[29]Alaa Abd El-Fattah said "there was a moment of almostSufi, exultation, when he heard 'Comfortably Numb'...that amazing, great solo ringing in my ears while the blood came back to my limbs."[30]
In 2011, the song was ranked fifth in theBBC Radio 4's listeners'Desert Island Discs[31] choices. Gilmour's solo was rated the fourth best guitar solo of all time byGuitar World, in a reader poll.[13] In August 2006, it was voted the greatest guitar solo of all time in a poll by listeners of the radio stationPlanet Rock.[32] Gilmour's guitar tone in the song was named best guitar sound byGuitarist in November 2010.[33] The two guitar solos were ranked as the greatest guitar solos of all time by Planet Rock listeners.[34][35] In 2017,Billboard andPaste both ranked the song number four on their lists of the greatest Pink Floyd songs.[36][37]
Ref:[38]
| Region | Certification | Certified units/sales |
|---|---|---|
| Denmark (IFPI Danmark)[39] | Gold | 45,000‡ |
| Italy (FIMI)[40] sales since 2009 | Platinum | 50,000‡ |
| New Zealand (RMNZ)[41] | 3× Platinum | 90,000‡ |
| Spain (PROMUSICAE)[42] | Gold | 30,000‡ |
| United Kingdom (BPI)[43] sales since 2004 | Platinum | 600,000‡ |
‡ Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone. | ||
| "Comfortably Numb" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single byScissor Sisters | ||||
| from the albumScissor Sisters | ||||
| B-side | "Rock My Spot (Crevice Canyon)" | |||
| Released | 19 January 2004 (2004-01-19) | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 4:25 | |||
| Label | Polydor | |||
| Songwriter(s) |
| |||
| Producer(s) | Scissor Sisters | |||
| Scissor Sisters singles chronology | ||||
| ||||
Americanpop rock bandScissor Sisters recorded a radically re-arrangeddisco-oriented version released in January 2004 onPolydor, with the B-side "Rock My Spot (Crevice Canyon)". This release reached number 10 on theUK Singles Chart. David Gilmour andNick Mason expressed a liking for the group's version,[46] 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".[47]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.[48] This cover received aGrammy nomination forBest Dance Recording but lost to "Toxic" byBritney Spears.[49]
Weekly charts[edit]
| Year-end charts[edit]
|
| Region | Date | Format(s) | Label(s) | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom | 19 January 2004 |
| Polydor | [68] |
| Australia | 15 March 2004 | CD | [69] |
 | This sectionneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.(June 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
| "Comfortably Numb 2022" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Single byRoger Waters | ||||
| from the albumThe Lockdown Sessions | ||||
| Released | 17 November 2022 | |||
| Recorded | 2022 | |||
| Length | 8:30 | |||
| Label | Legacy | |||
| Songwriter(s) |
| |||
| Producer(s) |
| |||
| Roger Waters singles chronology | ||||
| ||||
In November 2022, Waters released a new version, "Comfortably Numb 2022", recorded during theCOVID-19 lockdowns to use as an opener for hisThis Is Not a Drill concerts.[70] The song was later included on his albumThe Lockdown Sessions. A music video was produced and directed by Sean Evans.
The new version was recorded at variousstudios during the tour'sNorth American leg, including Bias Studios outside ofWashington D.C.,Electric Lady Studios inNew York City,Armoury Studios inVancouver, and Tree Sound Studios inAtlanta. It was produced by Waters and Gus Seyffert.
Waters lowered the key to A minor "to make it darker", and removed the solos but for a vocal solo from Shanay Johnson. He said he intended it as "a wakeup call, and a bridge towards a kinder future with more talking to strangers".[71]
The American metal bandBody Count released a cover of "Comfortably Numb" in September 2024. It features Gilmour on guitar and additional lyrics by the rapperIce-T. Gilmour offered to record guitar after Ice-T contacted him to request permission to cover the song. Ice-T said it was an "introspective song" that acknowledged his advancing age: "I'm telling the younger generation, you've got two choices: you can keep the fire burning or you can give up." Gilmour said he liked the additional lyrics, and that "It astonishes me that a tune I wrote almost 50 years ago is back with this great new approach. They've made it relevant again."[72]
...Pink Floyd Publishing told us the band was very pleased with our version. Roger Waters wants apicture disc.
| Songs |
| ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Outtakes | |||||||||
| Remix single | |||||||||
| Live albums | |||||||||
| Films | |||||||||
| Tours | |||||||||
| Tribute albums | |||||||||
| Miscellaneous | |||||||||
| Studio albums | |
|---|---|
| Singles | |
| Other songs | |
| Video albums | |
| Related articles | |
| Studio albums |
|
|---|---|
| Soundtracks |
|
| Live albums |
|
| Operas |
|
| Compilations | |
| Singles |
|
| Other songs | |
| Films | |
| Tours | |
| Related articles | |
