David Gilmour has responded to Roger Waters and his accusations that Gilmour is to blame for the delay in the release of the reissue of Pink Floyd’s Animals. Shockingly (note sarcasm), Gilmour insists that Waters is the reason the Animals reissue has not yet been released.
Gilmour and his wife/collaborator Polly Samson recently gave an interview to Rolling Stone where this topic was brought up and Gilmour said, “Well, a very lovely ‘Animals’ remix has been done, but *someone* has tried to force some liner notes on it that I haven’t approved and, um, *someone* is digging his heels and not allowing it to be released.”
Samson chimed in asking if Gilmour had any liner notes written, to which he responded “No.” She then asked why there are liner notes now, and Gilmour responded, “Because *someone* wants them, and they got a journalist to write some, and I didn’t approve them. And he’s just getting a bit shirty. You know how he is, poor boy.”
Last week, Waters said in a post to his website regarding the Animal liner notes issue, “These mixes have languished unreleased because of a dispute over some sleeve notes that Mark Blake has written for this new release. [David] Gilmour has vetoed the release of the album unless these liner notes are removed. He does not dispute the veracity of the history described in Mark’s notes, but he wants that history to remain secret.”
Waters added, “This is a small part of an ongoing campaign by the Gilmour [and his wife, Polly] Samson camp to claim more credit for Dave on the work he did in Pink Floyd, 1967-1985, than is his due. Yes he was, and is, a jolly good guitarist and singer. But, he has for the last 35 years told a lot of whopping porky pies about who did what in Pink Floyd when I was still in charge. There’s a lot of ‘we did this’ and ‘we did that,’ and ‘I did this’ and ‘I did that.’”
When asked by Rolling Stone whether there was “anything you’d like to clear up,” Samson chimed in first saying, “How long you got?” followed by both she and Gilmour laughing. Gilmour then said, “ There are packs of lies and information I’ve allowed to sit out there but my general view is to swallow and … it’ll all come right one day in one way or another.”
In other words: This spat between Gilmour and Waters is far from over.
