David Gilmour sits quietly, the London rain tapping against the window, as he gazes at the guitar resting in his lap. At seventy-nine, the legendary Pink Floyd guitarist finds himself in a rare, contemplative mood. Years of touring, recording, and living under the weight of myth have left him with a treasure trove of memories—some bright, some shadowed. Today, he chooses to share something unexpected with the world: the five Pink Floyd songs he hated the most. It’s a confession decades in the making, and as the words spill out, the story behind each track unfolds—a journey through the heart of a band that changed music forever.

The tale begins in 1969, in the hallowed halls of Abbey Road Studios, where Pink Floyd was about to attempt something radical. The album “Ummagumma” demanded that each member compose an entire side of the record alone. For Gilmour, still reeling from the departure of Syd Barrett, this was a trial by fire. He was only twenty-three, untested as a songwriter, and the task felt monumental. “We decided to make that bloody album, each of us doing our own piece. I’d never written a song before. I just went into the studio, messed around, and then tidied it up a bit,” he would later admit, his voice tinged with self-effacing candor.

The result was “The Narrow Way,” a three-part odyssey that Gilmour constructed from scratch. He played every instrument—guitar, bass, drums, vocals—layering sounds in a solitary dance of trial and error. The first section is soft and acoustic, drifting between folk and psychedelia. The second builds with electric guitar and steady drums, creating a hazy, uncertain mood. The third closes with rare vocals, dense with overdubs and experimentation. There was no grand plan, no climactic payoff—just the sound of a young musician searching for his own voice. The critics saw it as bold, but also detached, a piece more technical than emotional. For Gilmour, “The Narrow Way” was less a song than a learning experience, a stepping stone to the mastery of sonic space that would define Pink Floyd’s future. It was never performed live, and Gilmour rarely spoke of it. In private, he admitted the track was born of desperation, not inspiration. Even now, the memory of those lonely studio hours lingers, a reminder that greatness sometimes emerges from the most uncertain beginnings.

The years rolled on, and Pink Floyd’s sound grew more confident, more adventurous. Yet even amid their creative peak, there were moments of pure whimsy—like “Seamus,” the brief blues number from 1971’s “Meddle.” The story behind “Seamus” is as unlikely as the song itself. One weekend, Gilmour brought an Irish setter named Seamus, belonging to his friend Steve Marriott, into the studio. “David walked in and said, ‘I want this dog to howl along with the guitar,’” recalled engineer John Leckie. The band laughed, played a simple blues riff, and let the dog’s howls join the chorus. Gilmour sang and played slide guitar, Rick Wright added piano, Roger Waters handled bass, and Nick Mason kept time—all while Seamus sang along. The session lasted only hours, and the result was a track that felt more like a joke than a statement.

“It wasn’t funny to anyone but us,” Gilmour later confessed. “Sheamus” was never meant to be essential; it was a playful break amid the intense sessions for “Meddle.” Critics were divided—some called it charming, others dismissed it as filler—but for the band, it was a moment of pure, unrestrained experimentation. The song was never performed live, except for a surreal version in the film “Live at Pompeii,” where another dog took Seamus’s place. Looking back, Gilmour feels no regret, only a quiet amusement at the freedom they once enjoyed. “Sheamus” stands as a reminder that even legends need to laugh, to play, to let go of expectation if only for a moment.

By 1975, Pink Floyd had ascended to the summit of rock music. “Wish You Were Here” followed the monumental success of “The Dark Side of the Moon,” but the band’s unity was splintering. Roger Waters wrote all the music and lyrics, while Gilmour focused on arrangement and guitar. From the start, Gilmour refused to sing “Have a Cigar.” He found the lyrics negative, cynical—a biting satire of the record industry that clashed with his own view of music. “I refused to sing ‘Have a Cigar.’ I felt the lyrics were negative,” he explained. Waters, intent on making a statement, saw it differently. When neither wanted to sing, Roy Harper, recording next door, was invited to try. Harper’s rough, raspy voice nailed the sarcasm Waters intended, and Pink Floyd had its only guest vocalist.

The song’s theme—a dialogue between band and executive, punctuated by the infamous line “Oh, by the way, which one’s Pink?”—was drawn from real-life industry absurdity. Musically, “Have a Cigar” blends funk, blues, and sharp guitar work, its heavy bass and slow rhythm supporting Harper’s biting delivery. Yet for Gilmour, the song deepened the rift within the group. He admired the music, but felt alienated by the message. “I liked the music, but I didn’t see myself in those words,” he later said. The track’s radio-fade ending, merging into “Wish You Were Here,” was hailed as a studio masterstroke—a symbol of the distance between artist and world. Critics praised “Have a Cigar” as a scathing critique, but Gilmour rarely performed it solo. At seventy-nine, he respects the song but prefers to leave it in the past, a relic of Waters’s narrative rather than his own.

Not every song Gilmour disliked was born of discord. Some, like “Echoes,” were products of rare collaboration. Featured on “Meddle,” “Echoes” is a twenty-three-minute epic, recorded over eight months in three studios. The band produced it themselves, layering sound with meticulous care. The song began as an accidental ping on Rick Wright’s keyboard, expanded by Gilmour into echoing guitar lines. From raw fragments, they built the longest, most ambitious Pink Floyd piece to date. Gilmour saw “Echoes” as proof of the band’s collective creativity, but he was never satisfied with the studio version. “The live performances were always stronger,” he told Mojo in 2001. Rick Wright agreed: “The live versions kept the spontaneity that the recording didn’t have.”

Engineer John Leckie described the process—tape loops stretched around the studio, effects manually manipulated to create swirling, wave-like sounds. The song opens with Wright’s famous ping, passed through a Leslie amplifier, reverberating into layers of guitar, organ, and vocals. The studio version runs for twenty-three minutes; the live performance at Pompeii extended to twenty-six, the music echoing through the empty amphitheater. “Echoes” marked the last true ensemble effort, Waters writing lyrics, Wright crafting organ motifs, Mason shaping drum patterns, Gilmour building structure. Though proud, Gilmour always felt the recording was unfinished, believing music lives in the moment, not in tape. “Echoes” became the precursor to “The Dark Side of the Moon,” ushering in Pink Floyd’s golden era. For Gilmour, it was not just a song but a rare moment when four individuals created something greater than themselves. Yet he remains haunted by the feeling that the studio version never captured the magic of the stage.

As the years passed, Pink Floyd’s music grew darker, more theatrical, reflecting the turmoil within and without. “Run Like Hell,” from 1979’s “The Wall,” is one of Gilmour’s most striking compositions. He wrote the music, Waters penned the lyrics, and recording spanned eight months across studios in London, France, and Los Angeles. Gilmour’s guitar—urgent, looping, relentless—became the song’s heartbeat, its delay effect pulling listeners into a frantic pulse. Producer Bob Ezrin called it “the sound of a man chasing himself.” On stage, Gilmour stood atop the massive wall, lights sweeping the arena as his guitar rang out like an alarm. The fusion of sound, imagery, and political commentary created a live experience unlike anything else.

But time changes even the fiercest spirits. In a 2024 interview, Gilmour confessed, “I love the music of ‘Run Like Hell.’ But the shouts of ‘You better run like hell’ now feel violent and frightening to me.” After more than forty years, he sees the song as part of a past that no longer fits. “Another Brick in the Wall and ‘Money’—I won’t sing them anymore. They’re not me now.” The words, published by Mojo and confirmed by NME, Clash, iHeart, and Music News, shocked fans. Gilmour chose to stop performing these tracks, unwilling to recreate the energy of his youth. “Run Like Hell” was born amid social unrest, Waters’s lyrics depicting extremism and moral decay. Gilmour’s music amplified the chaos, turning concerts into cathartic spectacles. But now, he prefers silence to reenactment, keeping only the music that reflects who he is.

Technically, “Run Like Hell” remains a benchmark. Gilmour used a Fender Stratocaster, Hiwatt amplifier, and Binson Echorec delay unit, fine-tuning timing to the thousandth of a second. The lyrics are threatening; the music is precise—a metaphor for humanity running under command. When asked how he feels today, Gilmour replied, “I love the music, but I’m not in that mood anymore.” For him, art must stay connected to genuine emotion; when the feeling fades, continuing means merely acting.

Gilmour’s story is not just that of a veteran artist—it’s a reminder that true courage sometimes lies in stopping, not continuing. Only in silence can one truly hear the sound of one’s own soul. The five songs he hated—“The Narrow Way,” “Seamus,” “Have a Cigar,” “Echoes,” and “Run Like Hell”—have not vanished. They have simply changed places, moving from the bright stage lights to the quiet memory of a seventy-nine-year-old artist.

As Gilmour sets down his guitar, the rain outside grows softer. He knows that every note played, every lyric sung, every song loved or hated, has shaped the man he has become. The legend of Pink Floyd endures not because of perfection, but because of honesty—the willingness to admit regret, to let go of what no longer fits, and to embrace the music that still speaks to the heart. The boundary between past and present blurs, leaving only the sound, honest and eternal.

Share your thoughts in the comments. Do you think Gilmour’s decision was an act of courage or of regret? Should an artist ever leave behind the works that made them famous? Don’t forget to subscribe and turn on the notification bell to follow the next episode, where we’ll explore the songs he chose to keep—the notes that still live in every performance today.