Odd how some songs become more powerful and more relevant over time. Very cool you played a part in that. It also still energizes me to hear music like that which is particularly helpful when I am feeling down. The music seems to speak to the triumph of the human spirit. There is a clarity to it that I think can bring people together.
To go on a tangent, so I am not always just talking about awful things, on the Roger Waters song, I've always loved the Jeff Beck guitar part on the song, I feel like it sort of drives and defines it. Roger's vocal is sort sung/spoken and the lyric is very potent but I'd be lying if I said I did not have to read the lyric sheet to catch some of what he says on it, particularly when he throws in "God wants semtex" which I had no clue what he was saying until I read it. Part of it is his pronunciation and part of it the phrasing but then you throw in a line about semtex, which I was not expecting, and I just did not know what he said there without looking at a lyric sheet.
Anyway, here's my question for you, David, because you have been part of plenty of recording sessions, and maybe you have insight into this one in particular, but Waters gets Jeff Beck to come in and play guitar on this song, how do you think that worked?
Does he bring in Beck and play him the song, maybe with a guitar track there and ask him to play something along those lines? Do they play Beck the song and then just let him have a go at it? His part is very prominent in the song.
I would think if you get Jeff Beck you just let him do what Jeff Beck does, but I assume they show him the structure of the song, I don't know if they tell him anything about what to play or tone. I mean, I would not tell Jeff Beck what to play or how his guitar should sound. So do they just play it for him and let him plug in and see what he comes up with?
What he plays on the song does sound, at least to me, like they just let him go and let him play what came to him. It's fantastic really, but I just wonder how they came to that. Were they all just standing there listening and they said "Well, that's why you call Jeff Beck!"
