(Credits: Far Out / Anton_Corbijn)
It sometimes feels juvenile to think that one musical act can end up changing the world. They may write some decent songs and be able to be the soundtrack of a few summers, but when Bono talks about the healing power of music, it’s easy for a lot of people to roll their eyes and move on with the rest of their day. David Gilmour has always believed in the power of music in those terms, and he thought that two legends came the closest to shaping the modern world.
Then again, it’s easy to say that Gilmour did the same thing with Pink Floyd. When working with Roger Waters, albums like Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here were breathtaking works of art that helped people understand what progressive music can be. But, really, Gilmour was just copying the sensibilities that he heard in the Fab Four.
If the 1960s started in black and white, The Beatles was the moment the world transitioned into colour, bringing with them an excitement that no one else could touch. Despite many people placing them in the realm of dad-rock a lot of the time now, albums like Abbey Road and Sgt Peppers are still some of the most off-the-wall records that anyone ever pulled out.
While The Beatles warped people’s minds on the musical front, Bob Dylan did the same thing with his lyrics. Even though the basic idea of one of his songs could easily be plonked out on an acoustic guitar on someone’s first day of learning chords, Dylan was focused on telling a story every time he sang, like talking about the problems with the world on ‘The Times They Are A-Changin’’ or urging people to wake the hell up on ‘Like A Rolling Stone’.
In fact, right around the time that Sgt Pepper was being made, Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde became a turning point in the way a lot of people looked at lyrics. A song like ‘Sad Eyed Lady of Lowlands’ doesn’t really scream ‘lead single’ at over ten minutes long, but every one of his verses feels like being taken on a wild journey through the darkest parts of a relationship.
Whereas Gilmour thinks that changing the world is different now, he knows that those two artists are virtually untouchable, saying, “I don’t know what you wanna describe as Rock ‘n’ Roll, but I certainly thought that ’60s stuff, Bob Dylan and the Beatles, changed the world a little bit. But the effect seems to have retreated. I think it’s harder than we think to change the world. These things go in cycles.”
But rock and roll didn’t just stop evolving after Dylan and the Fab Four called it a day. As Pink Floyd started going through their shakeups in the early 1990s, Nirvana turned everything on its head and shaped the landscape by being nothing less than genuine whenever they played.
And if you look at the idea of the concept album these days, any record that has interconnective tissue with everything else is usually taking pages out of what Gilmour helped build with Waters, Richard Wright, and Nick Mason on those classic albums. Music doesn’t need to change, but it does grow into different mutations, and The Beatles and Dylan helped kickstart everyone’s need to dream of something bigger.
