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"Sorrow" is the final track from Pink Floyd's 1987 album, A Momentary Lapse of Reason although it was the seventh song from the album performed in the Momentary Lapse set of the 1987/88/89/90 tours. It was written and composed by guitarist David Gilmour. Gilmour has stated about the song that though lyrics aren't his strong point that "Sorrow" is one of his strongest lyrical efforts [1], even though the opening lines were appropriated from John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. Drummer Nick Mason has since stated that Sorrow was almost entirely crafted by David Gilmour alone over the space of one weekend on his houseboat, The Astoria. When he returned from the weekend, only "some spit and polish," according to Mason, was needed. As with many tracks from the album, Gilmour played a Steinberger GL "headless" guitar on this song [2], contributing to the overall cold, "sad" feel of the music. The guitar intro was recorded inside a sports arena in L.A, piped through Pink Floyd's massive sound system, thus giving the tone an extremely deep, cavernous sound. The drum machine on the song was programmed by David Gilmour - for the studio recording, no real drums were used.
[edit] Other versions
Live versions of the song are featured on 1988's Delicate Sound of Thunder album and 1995's P*U*L*S*E album, with running times of 9:27 and 10:49 respectively, mostly taken up by extended 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" 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.
[edit] Personnel
