Recorded 1987 Length 8:48 | Genre Progressive rock | |
Published Pink Floyd Music Publishers Ltd Released 7 September 1987 (UK)
8 September 1987 (U.S.) Label EMI (UK)
Columbia (U.S.) | ||
"Sorrow" is a song by the English progressive rock band Pink Floyd. Written by the band's singer and guitarist David Gilmour, it is the closing track on their thirteenth studio album, A Momentary Lapse of Reason, released in 1987.
Contents
Lyrics and music
The piece was written and composed by singer and guitarist David Gilmour. Gilmour has stated that although lyrics are not his strong point, the song is one of his strongest lyrical efforts, even though the opening lines were appropriated from John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath.
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 Astoria. When he returned from the weekend, only "some spit and polish", according to Mason, was needed. 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 amplifier. As on many tracks from the album, Gilmour played a Steinberger GL "headless" guitar on this song. 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.
Live
Live versions of the song are featured on 1988's Delicate Sound of Thunder album and 1995's Pulse 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" (also edited) 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. Gilmour played the song on the second set of his Rattle That Lock Tour 2015/16.
Personnel on studio version
Additional musicians: