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The first reunion of Pink Floyd after Roger Waters' departure produced a mediocre album (A Momentary Lapse of Reason) but, most importantly, cash that went on to fill the pockets of the 2 surviving members of the group. And this seemed enough to explain why the band didn't die at the command of the resigning bassist and lyricist.
In 1994, the release of THE DIVISION BELL was fueled by new sentiments: pride, the desire to make their mark in the '90s as much as possible, and the wish to prove that Roger Waters was terribly wrong. The extraordinary success of the record implied that the audience sided with Gilmour Wright and Mason: in almost thirty years of career, it was one of Pink Floyd's most successful works.
"In this album, Nick and Rick played everything they had to play: for this reason, according to me, it's the most genuine Floyd album since the time of Wish You Were Here," explained David Gilmour during an interview.
In fact, THE DIVISION BELL appears to be a meticulous record, the result of more than a year and a half of recording and the full-time reintegration of Richard Wright, with the characteristic graphic design by Storm Thorgerson and production by Bob Ezrin. The lyrics, also more solid (thanks to the contribution of Laird Clowes and Anthony Moore, but especially from Gilmour's wife, Polly Samson) helped recreate the atmospheres of the albums from the '70s.
Very close to being a concept, in the best tradition of the Waters era, with the central theme of communication. The inevitable ghosts of the past that Gilmour faces in person: the recent separation from his wife and his personal recovery (Coming Back To Life); the breakup with Waters (Lost For Words); the irreversibility of Barrett's condition (Poles Apart).
The album addresses the difficulties of communication not only on a personal level but also on a collective level (A Great Day For Freedom, Keep Talking, Take It Back). The best proof is undoubtedly the poignant High Hopes, an anthem that represents Gilmour's nostalgic return to the Cambridge years and a reflection on the passing of time.
The orchestral passages are directed by Michael Kamen. The musicians accompanying the Floyd are the same from Delicate Sound Of Thunder, with the important exception of Dick Parry replacing Scott Page on sax.
Precisely the confirmation of a team and an already winning idea is a sign that the group intends to move in continuity with the past, without proposing anything truly new. Gilmour, Mason, Wright do nothing but indulge the Pink Floyd myth turned into a sad cliché, creating sound arcs with no destination, solos behind which there's emptiness, suggestive and enigmatic images but vain and superficial.
Surely a warmer and more appealing work than the previous one, even if nothing truly significant happens, it's a glorious and rhetorical déjà-heard, a well-restored re-edition of the 30-year career of Pink Floyd.
Almost as if trying to rid themselves of Roger Waters, they created a poor copy, a Frankenstein-like monster assembled as best they could. Technically, it turned out well. As for emotions, fans only need the old and reassuring habits of always. But it satisfies only up to a certain point.
Tracklist Lyrics Samples and Videos
03 Poles Apart (07:04)
Did you know...it was all going to go so wrong for you
And did you see it was all going to be so right for me
Why did we tell you then
You were always the golden boy then
And that you'd never lose that light in your eyes
Hey you...did you realize what you'd become
And did you see that it wasn't only me you were running from
Did you know all the time but it never bothered you anyway
Leading the blind while I stared out the steel in your eyes
The rain fell slow, down on all the roofs of uncertainty
I thought of you and the years and all the sadness fell away from me
And did you know...
I never thought that you'd lose the light in your eyes
06 Wearing the Inside Out (06:48)
From morning to night I stayed out of sight
Didn't recognize I'd become
No more than alive I'd barely survive
In a word...overrun
Won't hear a sound
From my mouth
I've spent too long
On the inside out
My skin is cold
To the human touch
This bleeding heart's
Not beating much
I murmured a vow of silence and now
I don't even hear when I think aloud
Extinguished by light I turn on the night
Wear its darkness with an empty smile
I'm creeping back to life
My nervous system all awry
I'm wearing the inside out
Look at him now
He's paler somehow
But he's coming round
He's starting to choke
It's been so long since he spoke
Well he can have the words right from my mouth
And with these words I can see
Clear through the clouds that covered me
Just give it time then speak my name
Now we can hear ourselves again
I'm holding out
For the day
When all the clouds
Have blown away
I'm with you now
Can speak your name
Now we can hear
Ourselves again
09 Keep Talking (06:11)
For millions of years mankind lived just like the animals
Then something happened which unleashed the power of our imagination
We learned to talk
There's a silence surrounding me
I can't seem to think straight
I'll sit in the corner
No one can bother me
I think I should speak now
I can't seem to speak now
My words won't come out right
I feel like I'm drowning
I'm feeling weak now
But I can't show my weakness
I sometimes wonder
Where do we go from here
It doesn't have to be like this
All we need to do is make sure we keep talking
Why won't you talk to me
You never talk to me
What are you thinking
What are you feeling
Why won't you talk to me
You never talk to me
What are you thinking
Where do we go from here
It doesn't have to be like this
All we need to do is make sure we keep talking
Why won't you talk to me
You never talk to me
What are you thinking
What are you feeling
Why won't you talk to me
You never talk to me
What are you thinking
What are you feeling
I feel like I'm drowning
You know I can't breathe now
We're going nowhere
We're going nowhere
10 Lost for Words (05:14)
I was spending my time in the doldrums
I was caught in the cauldron of hate
I felt persecuted and paralyzed
I thought that everything else would just wait
While you are wasting your time on your enemies
Engulfed in a fever of spite
Beyond your tunnel vision reality fades
Like shadows into the night
To martyr yourself to caution
Is not going to help at all
Because there'll be no safety in numbers
When the Right One walks out of the door
Can you see your days blighted by darkness?
Is it true you beat your fists on the floor?
Stuck in a world of isolation
While ivy grows over the door
So I open my door to my enemies
And I ask could we wipe the slate clean
But they tell me to please go fuck myself
You know you just can't win
11 High Hopes (08:31)
Beyond the horizon of the place
we lived when we were young
in a world of magnets and miracles.
Our thoughts strayed constantly
and without boundary
The ringing of the division bell had begun.
Along the long road and on down the causeway
Do they still meet there by the cut?
There was a ragged band
that followed in our footsteps
Running before time took our dreams away
Leaving the myriad small creatures
trying to tie us to the ground
to a life consumed by slow decay.
The grass was greener.
The light was brighter.
With friends surrounded.
The nights of wonder.
Looking beyond the embers
of bridges glowing behind us
to a glimpse of how green it
was on the other side
Steps taken forwards
but sleepwalking back again
Dragged by the force of some inner tide.
At a higher altitude
with flag unfurled
We reached the dizzy heights
of that dreamed of world.
Encumbered forever
by desire and ambition
There's a hunger
still unsatisfied
Our weary eyes still
stray to the horizon
Though down this road
we've been so many times.
The grass was greener.
The light was brighter.
The taste was sweeter.
The nights of wonder.
With friends surrounded.
The dawn mist glowing.
The water flowing.
The endless river.
Forever and ever.
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Other reviews
By Old King Cole
"The Division Bell presents music that is more spontaneous, more immediate, which doesn’t try forcibly to be experimental, but offers the listener beautiful melodies in their simplicity."
"The perfect 'High Hopes' closes the album fading on the notes of Gilmour’s superb solo. Isn’t that enough?"
By tristano
To understand and appreciate this album, one must set aside prejudices.
There are more than sixty minutes of music played splendidly, without a note out of place.
By Bert
Arguments. Despair. Incommunicability. Apathy. Intolerance. Regrets, remorse, cold wind.
And if indeed in an endless waiting countryside you feel tethered again to concreteness by a guitar solo, by an organ or whatever, then let this record be your beacon, in this immediate modernity.
