• AllMyVinyl #72
• Band: Pink Floyd
• Album Title: The Division Bell
• Release Date: 28 Mar 1994
• Date purchased: 25 Mar 2023
• Location purchased: Gift
• Color of vinyl: black
• Number of discs: 2
• Links: [ Wikipedia | Discogs | Band Website | Complete album on Youtube ]

This was an album I adored from the start, have always loved, and have one MAJOR regret over – but I’ll get to the regret later.

After the extremely lengthy tour for the prior album (Momentary Lapse of Reason), Floyd took some time off.  Like a bunch of time off, as that’s what they do.  ha.  Seriously though I bring up the prior one because the Division Bell had what I felt was a “proper” lineup.  Going further back before Momentary, Rick Wright was fired / forced to quit (I don’t see how, but never mind) from Floyd during the Wall sessions. After the tour he was gone, had no part in Final Cut, and when work got started on Momentary, Rick was not part of the band.  In fact, if you look at Momentary, the “band” photo is just David & Nick.  Rick is on the album, but it was mostly done when they engaged Rick, and even then he was just a hired hand (like all the others).  I think I read that had a lot to do with legal schenanigans relative to Rick’s exit from the band after 1980.  But when it came time to start work on Division Bell, he was restored as a proper member of the band, and as such was there from the genesis of this album and was part of the writing, which he was NOT on Momentary.  This shows on the final album as you can tell Rick’s influence was gone on both Final Cut & Momentary.  So much so, one of the songs has a lead vocal by Rick – which hadn’t been heard / done in bloody forever.  In many ways this album feels more like a full Pink Floyd album, and Rick’s inclusion has a lot to do with that.

Back in the day, I bought this on CD – This was 1994, and I was long past vinyl and a lot of places didn’t do cassette tapes anymore, so this was hard in the CD only era for me. I still have that in my archives somewhere, but these days I have it on vinyl.  When I started reacquiring vinyl in 2020 and onwards, I found out that a co-worker of mine and her husband owned a record store (not near me, or I’d be there all the time!).  Anyway, I had let them know about some oddballs I was looking for.  They’re also Floyd fans so we started discussion various releases and what we had.  Division Bell was on my list to get, but at the time I was looking for it, I couldn’t find it at reasonable price – was like $45 or north for a new copy.  So I mentioned it to my friend that I was looking for it if they ran across one at a decent price.  Well, jump forward in time to March 2023, and this was a few weeks after I was diagnosed with prostate cancer (doing well with that, btw).  On the 25th of March a new copy of Division Bell arrived at my door with a note from my friend and her husband basically saying “We’re sorry to hear your news, we hope you enjoy this”.  They had sent me a new copy of Division Bell on vinyl, which was mega cool, as I didn’t ask them for it, just to let me know if they saw a deal, I’d buy it through them.  So this makes my copy a little more special.  Just listening to it makes me feel that the entire world hasn’t gone to hell in a hand basket and has some non shitty people left in it.

When this album came out I was super eager to listen to it, and it came out in a good time in my life.  I was less than 2 years into a 17 year stint at the video game company I worked for – we were producing a game with one of my industry heroes who was working at my company at the time (he later ended up as an usher in my wedding).  Things were good, and I enjoyed this album from the start.  Which makes me puzzled to understand the kind of “eh” reception it got.  Now obviously it’s me reading about it – people I’ve spoken to have all said they loved it, but what I read about said people didn’t like it, which puzzled me.  Yeah, OK it doesn’t have Roger, but Pink Floyd isn’t JUST Roger.  It’s the other three guys too (plus Syd if you want to go back in time).  Mason, Wright, & Gilmour (along with Guy Pratt on bass) produced a damn awesome album.  Yeah, OK it’s not Dark Side or The Wall – nobody thinks that.  But this album is a pleasure to listen to, it’s got not a theme like the old Roger albums, but there is a sort of a theme about communication and “talking” at points of this album.

Enough intro, let’s get to the music.

Cluster One – The album starts off with an instrumental, which isn’t exactly a shocker.  It’s not as mellow as the instrumental for the album before, but it’s got a nice soft sound that’s mostly Dave’s Guitar and Rick’s piano/keys sound.  I’m not sure I hear Nick in this at all.  Never quite understood what the title meant, however (given there’s no lyrics to start).  It’s not quite that “super etherial” sound to the album.   It’s mostly an intro to the first (main) song on the album…..

What Do You Want From Me – A great start to the album.  Adore this song.  It’s not etherial, it’s not slow, and it’s not super fast either (hello Nile Song).  It’s a great opening salvo, right in the middle in terms of what a song is.  It was a great first song to get your attention and set the tone.  Nice guitar work from Dave scattered through, with some powerful vocals as well.   It’s not the first single, but it kind of sounds like it.

Poles Apart – This had some echoing of the vocals where it sounds like Dave is singing with himself.   It’s also got the first really noticeable stuff by Rick – he’s right up front in a lot of parts of this song (with the keys).  One of these songs that just kind of flows, you get into it, and then when it’s over you wish it kept going.  It’s happened to me a few times before, when I listen to these I try and think of things to write about but for this one I just enjoyed it and didn’t want to talk a ton.

Marooned – Another instrumental, this one credited to just Wright & Gilmour – but of note it has Rick’s name first on the album.  At times this reminds me of “Us & Them” from Dark Side.  I’m not pretending it’s a clone of that or anything, but it’s got parts that evoke memories of that track.  This has more guitar work than that track did, and that one had vocals, but I get the feeling they fit the same kind of place on the album they appear on.

A Great Day For Freedom – “Now life devalues day by day as friends and neighbors turn away and there’s a change that even with regret cannot be undone”.  Perhaps it’s the use of “turn away” that reminds me a little of “On the Turning Away” from the last album, but that’s the vibe I get listening today.  Song’s a bit on the more mellow side of things.  Once we get to the guitar solo, I really like that part.  It’s again one of those flowing tracks that I can quite easily lose myself in the sounds produced by his guitar.

Freedom was also used as the “B Side” for the “Hey Hey Rise Up” single that Floyd released in 2022 for Ukranian relief efforts.  Well a new recording of it was – it’s officially labeled “A Great Day For Freedom 2022”.

Wearing the Inside Out – The Rick Wright powerhouse.  It’s sung by Rick, the music was written by Rick.  Lyrics are credited to Anthony Moore, but the music and vocals are all Rick.  It’s the big etherial one for me.  The kind of track you close your eyes and “see” while listening to it – I don’t mean seeing Rick play keys, you “see” the music as colors and abstract images – that kind of thing.  LOVE THIS.  It’s for me the heart of the album – and comes right in the middle of the album too.  GREAT STUFF.

Take it Back – The actual first single for the album.  It’s right there as a song that would appeal to non hardcore Floyd fans – much in the way What Do You Want From Me does.  Or Learning to Fly from the last album – that kind of thing.   This one has a co write credit for music with Gilmour and Bob Ezrin.   The lyrics aren’t lengthy.  For a song that’s 6:13, there’s not a lot of lyrics.  It’s a song about “protecting Mother Earth” if I remember correctly.  It’s actually so Floyd, masking something like “nature reclaiming the planet” amongst rather poppy music is something old Floyd would have done easily.  :)

Coming Back to Life – A song solely credited to Gilmour.  Actually not a lot of those.  This song starts off slow, builds up to a good strong ending.  Love songs like that.  Features Dave’s vocals quite heavily at the start before the full band kicks in.  What’s interesting about is that Dave’s vocal style doesn’t change from the early part when it’s just him.  When the full band kicks in the vocal style remains the same which makes for an interesting juxtaposition of styles there.  You’d expect with a full band he’d use a similar style.  But the early one remains – I liked that.  The last thing in the song is a really cool sounding echo of Dave’s guitar.

Keep Talking – The song with Stephen Hawking.  Gilmour’s guitar was also run through the same machine Hawking used to “speak” with as well, making for a quite different guitar sound.  There was a lot of hawking’s stuff recorded here.  Some was used on the song “Talking Hawking” on the Endless River album some years later.  I always thought it cool that a man who can’t talk with his own natural speech ended up “singing/talking” on a song called “Keep Talking” was cool.  But I particularly love the odd Gilmour guitar sound on this one.

Lost for Words – The song that a lot of fans (and myself) feel that is about Roger Waters.  Gilmour denies that, but the lyrics really REALLY feel like it’s about his relationship (or lack thereof) with Roger Waters.  Also has a rare profanity on a Floyd album – an f bomb.  It’s probably not the strongest song on the album as music goes.  It’s not like it’s bad or anything, but most of the album is better than this one musically.  This one is about the lyrics for me which again Dave denies are about Roger, but come on….

“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”

High Hopes – Probably the best song on the album.  A majestic as hell track.  Has it all.  Atmosphere, vocals, lyrics, music.  There’s nothing about this song I don’t like.  The title of the album comes from here, although in a backwards way.  “The Division Bell” was just a line of lyric in here, and apparently Douglas Adams (yeah that one – “42”) suggested to David that they name the album after that, so they did.  The ringing of the bell in the background of this song works well.  Oddly something you don’t get to say much in the Waters-less era of Floyd, there’s some good bass work in this track too.  Guy Pratt has played bass for Floyd since Roger left and is technically still the incumbent there, but he’s rarely talked about.  He’s rather noticeable here, which I liked.  The next (final) album is named out of this song too – “The Endless River”.  The giant flags from the video are a visual that is always rolling in my head when I listen to this song.  Had to play this a second time when the album finished.  Damn great track.

The album came out, and Floyd went on tour.  This brings me back to the regret I mentioned earlier.  I’d moved to Dallas at this point, and was as I mentioned earlier in Year 2 of my career with the video game company I was with for ages.  So Floyd was playing Dallas, and a bunch of us talked about going.  The day of the concert someone offered me a ticket to go see Floyd that night on the Division Bell tour.  What did I do?  I said no – at that time I was more interested in staying at work and proving myself at my new job.  I regretted that – as should have gone to see Floyd, and didn’t.  In fact, I regretted it that night around the time the concert started. Bugger.

Speaking of the tour, like last time, this tour produced a live album called “Pulse” which I bought on CD, but the version I bought was a cool one that not only do I still have to this day but still keep out on my shelf, as it has one of the more unique packaging deals.  To tie into the fact that Pulse included a full live recording of Dark Side, they had a heartbeat in the advertising, and the CD case itself had a compartment where you can put AA batteries in it and a blinking, pulsing light would show out the side, which I always liked.  My copy still works after nearly 30 years – have had to change the batteries several times, but it still works – in fact here’s a short video I took today on 21 Nov 2024.  :)

As I wrote this piece, and was thinking of where it was recorded and all that it made me realize I’d love to visit Gilmour’s Astroia boat and recording studio. I’d first have to get to England, but even if I did, I’m sure it’s not open to the public, but that would be cool to see for sure.

Anyway, that brings an end to this album commentary.  It was a great album to listen to.  Very solid album.  Very much sounds like Pink Floyd to me – even without Roger.  If you’re never checked it out and are a fan of Floyd, please do so.  I think you’ll enjoy it.  I know I did.