Keep Talking

For the 2016 Cyrus Villanueva song of the same name, see "Keep Talking (Cyrus song)"

"Keep Talking"
Single by Pink Floyd
Released	12 March 1994 (1994-03-12)
Recorded	1993 at Astoria (London, United Kingdom)
Genre	Progressive rock, space rock
Length	4:55 (single edit) 6:08 (album version) 5:57 (Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd version)
Label	Columbia
Producer(s)	Bob Ezrin, David Gilmour
Pink Floyd singles chronology
"One Slip" (1988) "Keep Talking" (1994) "Lost for Words" (1994)

"Keep Talking"
Single by Pink Floyd
from the album The Division Bell
A-side	"High Hopes" "Keep Talking"
B-side	"One of These Days (Live)"
Format	7", 12", CD (Maxi)
Label	EMI (UK) Columbia (US)
Pink Floyd singles chronology
"Take It Back" (1994) "High Hopes" / "Keep Talking" (1994) "Wish You Were Here (Live)" (1995)

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

Recording

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 (this same commercial would be sampled again in "Talkin' Hawkin'" from Pink Floyd's next and final studio album, The Endless River).^[1] 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.”^[2] The song also makes some use of the talk box guitar effect.

Release

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 USA, 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.^[3]

Live

The song was performed 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

It's more of a wish [that all problems can be solved through discussion, as 'Keep Talking' suggests] than a belief. [laughs]

— David Gilmour, 1994^[4]

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^[4]

Stephen Hawking 1994: "For millions of years mankind lived just like the animals. Then something happened which unleashed the power of our imagination: we learned to talk".

"It doesn't have to be like this. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking".

Personnel

Pink Floyd

• David Gilmour – lead vocals, guitar, talk box, EBow
• Richard Wright – Hammond organ and synthesizer
• Nick Mason – drums and percussion

Additional musicians

• Tim Renwick – rhythm guitars
• Gary Wallis – percussion
• Jon Carin – Programming and additional keyboards
• Guy Pratt – bass
• Bob Ezrin – arrangement, percussion
• Sam Brown, Durga McBroom, Carol Kenyon, Claudia Fontaine (backing vocals on Pulse) – backing vocals
• Stephen Hawking's computer voices says "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 "It doesn't have to be like this. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking".

Charts

Release history

References