Lost For Words (Pink Floyd Song) - Recording

Recording

In January 1993, Gilmour, Mason and Wright began ad-libbing new material, in sessions at a remodelled Britannia Row Studios. Although the band were initially apprehensive about recording together, after the first day their confidence improved and soon, bassist Guy Pratt (who had, since the end of the Momentary Lapse of Reason Tour, become an item with Wright's daughter, Gala Wright) was asked to contribute. According to Mason, "an interesting phenomenon occurred, which was that Pratt's playing tended to change the mood of the music we had created on our own". Without the legal problems experienced during production of their 1987 album, A Momentary Lapse of Reason, Gilmour was at ease; if he felt the band were "getting somewhere", he would press the record key of a two-track DAT recorder. At one point Gilmour surreptitiously recorded Wright playing the keyboard, and captured material which later formed the basis for three pieces of music.

The improvisations the band recorded helped spur their creative process, and after about two weeks they had around 65 pieces of music. With engineer Andy Jackson back on the team, and Bob Ezrin employed as co-producer, production moved to Gilmour's houseboat and recording studio, Astoria. The band listened to and voted on each track, and whittled the material down to about 27 pieces of music. Eliminating some tracks, and merging others, they eventually arrived at a list about fifteen strong songs, before cutting another four to produce a tracklist of eleven. Song selection was based upon a system of points, whereby all three members would award marks out of ten to each candidate song, a system skewed somewhat by Wright's decision to award his songs ten points each, and the other songs no points. Wright was not contractually a full member of the band, a situation which clearly upset him; Wright later reflected: "It came very close to a point where I wasn't going to do the album, because I didn't feel that what we'd agreed was fair." Despite his frustration he chose to remain, and received his first songwriting credits on any Pink Floyd album since 1975's Wish You Were Here.

Gilmour's new wife, Polly Samson, also received song-writing credits. Initially, her role was limited to providing encouragement for her husband, but she later helped Gilmour write "High Hopes" (a song about Gilmour's childhood and early life in Cambridge). Her role expanded to co-writing a further six songs, something which did not sit well with Ezrin. In an interview for Mojo magazine Gilmour admitted that Samson's contributions had "ruffled the management's ", but Ezrin later reflected that her presence was inspirational for Gilmour, and that she "pulled the whole album together". She also helped Gilmour, who, following his divorce, had developed a cocaine habit.

Keyboard player Jon Carin, and Gary Wallis were brought in to complete the band, before recording began. Five backing vocalists were also hired, including Sam Brown, and Momentary Lapse tour singer Durga McBroom. The band then moved to Olympia Studios, recorded most of the 'winning' tracks over the space of a week. After a summer break, they returned to Astoria to record more backing tracks. Ezrin worked on the various drum sounds, and previous collaborator and orchestral composer Michael Kamen provided the album's string arrangements. Dick Parry played saxophone on his first Pink Floyd album for almost 20 years, on "Wearing the Inside Out", and Chris Thomas was booked to undertake the final mix. Between September and December recording and mixing sessions were held at Metropolis Studios in Chiswick, and the Creek Recording Studios in London. In September, the band performed at a celebrity charity concert at Cowdray House, in Midhurst. The album was mastered at the Mastering Lab in Los Angeles, by Doug Sax and James Guthrie.