Guitarist David Gilmour and his wife, writer Polly Samson, talk to the newspaper reporter The Independent, Geordie Greig, about their collaboration on the new album, about the secret of their love, about the fear of death and why there will never be a Floyd reunion with Roger Waters.
Translation (partial): Telegrafi.com

"During isolation, I was obsessed with the thought that David might die and leave me alone - it was an unbearable, painful feeling," says Polly Samson, 62, as she talks about David Gilmour, 78 - the guitarist of the Pink Floyd band, the rock legend and her husband of 30 years.

Agony and ecstasy collide in Luck and Strange, his first solo album in nine years, which was released this week. Her primal fear that he will die before her and that their love is unchanging are the core of the album, an anthem for a rock 'n' roll marriage. Her delicate, honest lyrics fit seamlessly into his work, and their professional partnership spans more than three decades - since Samson began writing for both Gilmour and Pink Floyd.

As they speak, the two are actually floating on the water, in the river Thames, on the ship Astoria - Gilmour's studio.

It's rare for them to be away from their Sussex farm, where they were almost hermetically sealed off during the coronavirus period and for a long time afterwards. This forced them to focus. They began to write, compose, sing and eventually record - her poetic lyrics accompanied by his voice that mourns the melody.

"Thinking about how we'll part / Will I hold your hand or will you hold mine?"

“My overwhelming fear of David dying was something we talked about endlessly, but when the rest of the country opened up, we didn’t come out – we stayed locked up,” she explains.

The album features a recording of their son, Joe Gilmour, now 29, from a tape as a child, saying: "Sing, Dad." That recording was used, as was a recording from a session the guitarist had at his home with Pink Floyd keyboardist Rick Wright shortly before his death in 2008. The couple's daughter, Romany, also sings and plays harp. Their son Charlie, a writer, added a few verses. It's a family project, from start to finish.

We talk about Samson's love of cold water swimming and David's views on politics. "Keir Starmer looks like a statesman, despite the fact that he was in charge of the Public Prosecution Service when Charlie was jailed for the attack on the war memorial [during a 2010 student protest]. But we have forgiven him!"

With a grey beard and a black T-shirt, Gilmour listens more than he talks. “Mortality is something I’ve thought about for a long time, since I was 13 ... Probably in most of the songs I’ve written over the years, it’s the main theme. But when you get to my age, you have to be realistic and realise that immortality is no longer an option,” he says.

While holed up in Sussex with some of their kids, they created a somewhat random podcast, Von Trapped (a clever reference to the movie The Sound of Music), where they almost always sang and performed. It became a viral hit, stemming from the digital promotion of Samson's novel, A Theater for Dreamers - after the coronavirus halted the book tour, preventing him from visiting any bookstores. The coronavirus has changed their lifestyle for a long time. "In some ways, we're still like hobbits - we've only been in a room with 10 people on two occasions since then," he adds.

During lunch in the kitchen, Gilmour instinctively grabs the guitar (five years ago he auctioned off more than 120 guitars from his collection, which sold for over $22 million—all for eco-charity) and fiddles with the tuning, using a kitchen knife to turn a screw, the blade of a razor... to achieve his unique, warm, monumental sound. "Ten million dollar hands," I say. His go-to guitar for upcoming gigs this fall is what he calls Black Cat Strat.

"He's not careful with those farm hands, and they're his world," Samson says. "You should see what he does when he comes out of the woods, sometimes cut and bruised." Gilmour laughs and tells how one of his fingers needed medical intervention.

The two are anchored in family life — their dogs, their long walks, their children and grandchildren — and they still seem to be in love with each other. They joke and argue. They finish each other's sentences. Well, mostly that. Their gazes rarely leave each other. Such intimacy unfolds in the lyrics.

"Honey, don't make the tea / Sit and take a nap with me / I'm not ready for the news / Not even leaving this protection."

But even though they deal with death, they are positive, attractive, curious and down to earth. Laughter characterizes them more than frowning faces. Samson's lyrics echo what poet Andrew Marvell wrote in his immortal poem For his timid love (To His Coy Mistress): “The grave is a special and intimate place, / but I think no one brings love there” - but, she believes that love conquers all.

Their love affair began at a party at David Hockney's old studio in Notting Hill when friends introduced them more than three decades ago. Soon a romance was born between the guitarist of the band Pink Floyd and the daughter of a woman who was a major in Mao's Red Army. Gilmour was 46 and she was 30; the son of Cambridge professors, charmed by a single mother (Samson had a son, Charlie, from a relationship with the poet Heathcote Williams).

"I can't remember many of the details of that first meeting," says Gilmour. "Don't worry, I remember," Samson adds and teases, "I can humiliate David!" "It's one of her favorite crafts," he adds.

Her memories of their early meetings are clear: "I remember after a few dinners, in December 1990, he said: 'Tomorrow I'm going skiing, will you come?' I said: 'I don't have a plane ticket!' He said: 'All right; I'm the pilot.' 'What do you mean you're the pilot?' 'I fly my plane!' 'Do you have a plane?' 'Yes, I have seven!'”

Then she teases him. “But actually,” she says half-jokingly, “I think he wanted me to come and take care of his kids at first, because he said, ‘The nanny let me down, would you like to come?’” He laughs at her story. And so, they have three children together (he has eight in total), and her son Charlie is legally adopted by Gilmour.

Pink Floyd's fame and extreme wealth have always been thrilling, making all the members rich. Giving large sums to charity has been part of his identity. But, Samson dropped a "bomb" last year, when he posted on Twitter about former bandleader Roger Waters, who left Pink Floyd in 1985. She accused Waters of being "anti-Semitic at its rotten root," during an online debate about Israel. She also claimed he was a "Putin apologist," after Waters, in an interview, said the Russian invasion of Ukraine was "probably the most provoked invasion." In response, Waters said he was "aware of the inflammatory and wildly inaccurate comments made about him in Twitter by Polly Samson, which he rejected."

It reignited a four-decade feud between the Floydians, which centered on Waters' attempts to shut down the band after his departure. I ask if there will ever be a reunion, and Gilmour's answer is a resounding "no" if it involves Waters. As for a partial reunion with drummer Nick Mason, that's not entirely out of the question. But for now, he's focused on his album. "I've never been so happy." He brought in new musicians, a new producer, and it's as fresh and captivating as anything he's done before. The key to that has been his partnership with Samson.

I ask about that first meeting and what struck Gilmour about Samson in the 1980s when she was writing about The Sunday Times. He says: “From the beginning she was lovely, wonderful and terribly articulate. That always helps me – the articulation.” Gilmour is modest about her careful, even hesitant choice of words, unlike Samson who is a torrent with a rapid flow of articulation – perhaps not surprising, given that her novels and texts are defined by precise and compelling language.

She continues with the memory, saying that they often sat next to each other, along with their friends. “David asked me to go with him to a charity event, saying, ‘I need someone to come with me, because then I’ll be surrounded by women!’ I thought he wanted someone to be like his date.” Gilmour adds: “Yeah, well, some of my words were not right.” Samson continues: “I think he was terrified of rejection.” He laughs at her teasing, as does she.

Rock and roll has always had many casualties, and Samson and Gilmour believe they saved each other. The texts in Luck and Strange dig into the darkest moments in the guitarist's life. "We definitely saved each other's lives," she says. This becomes clear when I ask about the lyrics The Piper's Call, with the warning line: "Do whatever it takes to get away from snakes."

Who are the snakes? "Temptations," says Samson.

Gilmour is more precise: "It's about the temptations in the life I've led."

His life as a star is all about the hedonism of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s - until he met Samson, when she changed him dramatically. But are these lyrics a reference to the middleman? “It could be drugs; it could be anything. What I want is for people to get a grip on the song, so breaking down every verse is not helpful,” she says.

So are we talking about drugs?

Gilmour: “Nobody gets through rock and roll without ...,” he says and pauses. Samson adds the word: “Cocaine!” He neither denies nor admits.

What about his health concerns?

“Well, of course Polly was worried,” he says. “There was a time when I let things go on - I drank too much, I did too much cocaine, all that stuff. And that ended when we [Polly and I] started.”

So Samson was his savior?

"Yeah ... and I haven't been around any of those things for over 30 years," Gilmour says. She continues: "We saved each other's lives."

Gilmour: “I was going through a tough time with my band, with my relationships, all that stuff. In the early eighties, I was going through a really torturous time; I didn’t realise I was out of control… I’m not going to call you a gift, Polly, but something came into my life that was real and she couldn’t stand it [drugs]. I just needed a little push to get it out of my head.” “I couldn’t do it any other way,” says Samson. “I was a single mother. It was a non-negotiable for me and I made that clear.”

Gilmour credits Samson with his transformation. “There aren’t many women who would have the strength Polly had to deal with this,” he says. That was her ultimatum. “It was really: ‘If you do it again, I’m out,’” says Samson. “I’ll give you one incident as an illustration, but it’s quite funny. At a charity dinner at one of those big hotels in Belgravia, David disappeared in the middle of the dinner, into the bathroom, with his then-manager, and when he came back I knew what he had done - something he promised he wouldn’t do again. I just said to him: ‘Did you just take some cocaine?’ Since he couldn't lie to me, I had a glass of champagne in my hand and I threw it in his face. But he dodged it. I took Douglas Adams (author), because I was so horrified by what I had done, and I went out ... I ran down Park Lane, really upset, and he was running after me saying, 'I'll never do it again.' The police saw this man following me and asked me if he was bothering me. I said yes, and they went to arrest him, but then the policeman said, 'Are you Dave Gilmour?' At that moment, we both started laughing ... That kind of saved the day." And that was the last time he used cocaine.

What about Gilmour, who saved Samson's life? Shortly after they started dating, she was suffering from an illness, almost in extreme poverty, and with a small child to care for on her own. Desperate, she turned to him when she was heading for emotional and physical breakdown, and he stayed with her. "He looked after me and Charlie, and I really think he saved my life."

And the rest is history. While caring for her, he recorded songs for Pink Floyd's 1994 album, The Division Bell, and he would come home to perform some of the songs. “Then I would mumble ... not thinking I was writing lyrics; and he would try these things, and I would say, ‘That’s not right. No, no, I’ll rewrite it for you!’ That’s how it all started.”

As they plan a mini world tour of select countries, they will be on the road before returning to their closed-off lives - hermetically together. But, Luck and Strange can unlock and set them free. "We loved this album and are planning the next one." No more nine-year waits. No more novels blocked by the coronavirus.

And, the last question: what would they differ from each other? In unison, the answer is: "Nothing!" /Telegraph/

 

MUSICCult