Keep Talking (Pink Floyd song)

"Keep Talking"
Single by Pink Floyd
from the album The Division Bell
B-side"Take It Back"
Released12 March 1994 (1994-03-12)
Recorded1993 at
Astoria
(London, United Kingdom)
Genre
Length4:55 (single edit)
6:10 (album version)
5:56 (Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd version)
LabelEMI (Europe)
Columbia (US)
Songwriter(s)
Producer(s)
Pink Floyd singles chronology
"One Slip"
(1988) 		"Keep Talking"
(1994) 		"Lost for Words"
(1994)
Audio video
"Keep Talking" on YouTube

"Keep Talking" is a song from Pink Floyd's 1994 album, The Division Bell.

Recording

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Written by David Gilmour, Richard Wright and Polly Samson, it was sung by Gilmour and also features samples of Stephen Hawking's electronic voice, taken from a BT television advertisement.[1][2] This same commercial was sampled again in "Talkin' Hawkin'" from Pink Floyd's next studio album, The Endless River.[3] Gilmour chose to use the speech after crying to the commercial, which he described as "the most powerful piece of television advertising that I’ve ever seen in my life.”[4] The song also makes some use of the talk box guitar effect.

Release

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The song was the first single to be released from the album in the United States in March 1994. It was the group's third #1 hit on the Album Rock Tracks chart (a chart published by Billboard magazine which measures radio play in the United States, and is not a measure of record sales), staying atop for six weeks.

The song was included on the 2001 compilation, Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd.[5]

Live

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The song was performed every night during the 1994 The Division Bell Tour and live versions, taken from different shows, were included in both the album Pulse and the video of the same name.

The song was sampled by Wiz Khalifa on the title track of his 2009 mixtape Burn After Rolling.

Quotes

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[Interviewer:] Several songs on the album, like "Keep Talking" suggest that all problems can be solved through discussion. Do you believe that?
[Gilmour:] It's more of a wish than a belief. [laughs]

— David Gilmour, 1994[6]

Well, I guess I experiment more than I think I do. I had a Zoom [effects box] in my control room one day and I was mucking about with something. Suddenly, I thought I should stick the E-bow on the strings and see what would happen. It sounded great, so we started writing a little duet for the E-bowed acoustic guitar [a Gibson J-200] and a keyboard. We never finished the piece, but Jon Carin [keyboardist] decided to sample the E-bowed guitar part. We kept the sample and ended up using it as a loop on "Take It Back", and again on "Keep Talking".

— David Gilmour, 1994[6]

Personnel

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Pink Floyd
Additional musicians

Charts

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Release history

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Region Date Format Label Catalog no.
United States[12] March 12, 1994 CD-R (Modern rock/Alternative radio) Columbia Records CSK 6228
United Kingdom[13] March 28, 1994 CD-R (Contemporary hit radio, BBC Radio 1 rotation) EMI PINK 1
October 10, 1994 CDEMDJ 342

References

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  1. ^ "Pink Floyd's 'Keep Talking' - Discover the Sample Source". WhoSampled. Archived from the original on 8 June 2020.
  2. ^ "A quote by Stephen Hawking". www.goodreads.com. Archived from the original on 20 April 2021. For millions of years, mankind lived just like the animals. Then something happened which unleashed the power of our imagination. We learned to talk and we learned to listen.. It doesn't have to be like this.. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking
  3. ^ (liner notes from Echoes)
  4. ^ Michaels, Sean (2014-10-08). "Stephen Hawking sampled on Pink Floyd's The Endless River". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 11 November 2020. Retrieved 2015-02-17.
  5. ^ "Echoes: the album credits". Pink Floyd. Archived from the original on 2 June 2010. Retrieved 20 June 2013.
  6. ^ a b "Sounds of Silence" interview, Guitar World, September 1994 Archived 2012-06-20 at the Wayback Machine, retrieved 28 July 2010
  7. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2017-12-07. Retrieved 2017-12-07.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  8. ^ "Regional Airplay: South" (PDF). Music & Media. Vol. 11, no. 20. 14 May 1994. p. 27.
  9. ^ "Official Singles Chart Top 100". Official Charts Company.
  10. ^ "Artist Chart History (Singles) – Pink Floyd". Allmusic. Retrieved 26 July 2007.
  11. ^ "RPM 100 Hit Tracks of 1994". RPM. Retrieved November 23, 2017.
  12. ^ "US CD Singles". Pink Floyd Discography Archive. Retrieved 31 May 2013.
  13. ^ "Pink Floyd". VintageCD. Archived from the original on 15 June 2013. Retrieved 2 June 2013.
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