David Gilmour, Polly Samson / 8:32
Musicians
David Gilmour: vocals, vocal harmonies, classical guitar, lap steel guitar, programming
Rick Wright: keyboards, piano (?)
Nick Mason: drums
Bob Ezrin: keyboards (?), programming (?)
Jon Carin: keyboards (?) piano (?)
Guy Pratt: bass
Gary Wallis: percussion
Michael Kamen: arrangements, orchestral conducting
Charlie Gilmour, Steve O’Rourke: voices on the telephone
Unidentified Musicians: orchestra
Recorded
Britannia Row Studios, Islington, London: January 1993
Astoria, Hampton: February–May, September–December 1993
Metropolis Studios, Chiswick, London: September–December 1993
The Creek Recording Studios, London: September–December 1993
Technical Team
Producers: David Gilmour, Bob Ezrin
Sound Engineers: Andy Jackson, Keith Grant (The Creek), Chris Thomas (mixing), Steve McLaughlin (orchestra)
Assistant Sound Engineer: Jules Bowen (Astoria)
David Gilmour has said that “High Hopes” was the last song on The Division Bell to have been completed, even though it was composed back in July 1993. It is also the song that sealed his lyric-writing partnership with Polly Samson: “I came up with a tiny bit of music, just had it on cassette, just a few bars of piano and then I went off to get away to a small house somewhere with my girlfriend Polly and try and make some progress on lyric writing and she gave me a phrase, something about ‘before time wears you down’ and I took it from there and got stuck into a whole sort of thing.”148
“High Hopes” is an evocation of David Gilmour’s youth in Cambridge, the expression of a profound nostalgia—a recurrent theme in Pink Floyd ever since the days of Syd Barrett—for a bygone world, a world of magnets and miracles in which our thoughts strayed constantly, where the grass was greener, the light was brighter, and nights spent in the company of friends were inexhaustible sources of wonder. The narrator, who seems to have come to the end of his days, and thus to have reached the time of judgment (the division bell), recalls this period (before time took our dreams away) with abundant emotion. It is clear that his friends have disappeared or are no longer friends, that his life has been strewn with obstacles and consumed by slow decay, and that the dreamed-of world is in reality crushed by the weight of desire and ambition. For the character in the song, life has flowed like an endless river, the title Pink Floyd would give their final album ten years later. Should we see this penultimate line of “High Hopes,” the closing track on The Division Bell, as a deliberate desire for continuity?
According to Bob Ezrin, “High Hopes” is the best song on the album. “It’s the best track on the record. It is all David. It knitted together the album. It’s a monochrome, high-contrast musical painting, surrounded by a few little colourful elements, that form a wrapper around it. But the essence of the song is very stark. It’s peculiarly English. And when the Floyd are being English, they are at their best. Sometimes they are almost Dickensian. So is this.”81
“High Hopes” was released as a single on October 17, 1994 (with “Keep Talking” as the B-side). It reached number 26 on the British charts in October 1994.
The concluding track on The Division Bell opens in a distinctly pastoral mood, with birdsong, bells chiming in the distance, a buzzing bee… Each of these elements lends itself to symbolic interpretation: the birds resemble those at the beginning of “Cirrus Minor” (More), the village church bells are the same as the ones in the intro to “Fat Old Sun” (Atom Heart Mother), and the bee is not unlike that of “Grantchester Meadows” (Ummagumma). Is this intentional? Probably, given the context of the song. A second bell then rings out, putting an end to the gentle bucolic scene. Given its absolute regularity, this “division bell” (which always tolls on the same note of C) has presumably been sampled and programmed. It is answered by a piano, and a kind of dialogue between the two ensues. David Gilmour then launches into the lead vocal in a low and rather melancholy voice supported by the same piano (Wright? Carin?) and Guy Pratt’s bass. Very discreet strings enter with the first bridge, and Gilmour starts to accompany himself on a nylon-string classical guitar (his Ovation 1613-4?), supported by a beat apparently composed of a tom sample and a rimshot (from 1:16). This passage also brings to mind Sting’s superb song “Shape of My Heart” (1993). This is followed by another verse (at 1:54) and, eventually, the first refrain, sung by Gilmour in a higher voice and accompanied by Michael Kamen’s strings, a tambourine, and a (programmed?) drum part. After a third voice and a second bridge, Gilmour plays one of his rare solos on a nylon-string guitar (from 2:58). In fact he plays two guitar parts: a first, consisting of the same motif played over and over again, in the right-hand channel, and a second, answering the first with Spanish-sounding phrases, in the left. He is accompanied by Michael Kamen’s string and brass arrangements and some rather military-sounding snare drums (samples?) that recall “Bring the Boys Back Home” from The Wall. In the final refrain of the song, Gilmour harmonizes with himself. This time, Nick Mason’s drums are very present and launch the guitarist into an epic lap steel solo on his Jedson, most probably with Big Muff distortion. The instrument is tuned in E minor (E, B, E, G, B, E). Gilmour plays for almost 2:20, and it has to be acknowledged that this is one of the characteristic Pink Floyd sounds, reminiscent in particular of The Dark Side of the Moon. “I always had a fondness for pedal steels and lap steels. I guess it’s because I could never come to grips with standard bottleneck playing.”162
The track ends with a fade-out of the music over which the bell gradually returns, eventually ringing by itself for around twenty seconds. This is followed by twenty seconds or so of silence until at 8:18 a sort of hidden message can be heard in the form of a telephone conversation between the Pink Floyd manager, Steve O’Rourke, and Charlie, Polly Samson’s young son: Hello?/Yeah… /Is that Charlie?/Yes./Hello Charlie!/[the Charlie in question then mumbles something and hangs up]/Great! The reason for this little joke is that Steve O’Rourke insisted on making an appearance on the album.
“High Hopes” is also one of the high points on the album, not least for the different atmospheres it evokes. However, David Gilmour would explain that he had a lot of trouble re-creating the mood of his original demo: “I did a complete demo of that in a day at the studio. But for some reason, we couldn’t use it because, I think, maybe the tempo wavered a little bit. It then took ages to capture a take that was anywhere near as good as the demo.”162 He can rest assured: the final result is definitely up to scratch.