Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour shares ‘hobbit-like’ lifestyle since lockdown started (Picture: Redferns)
Pink Floyd’s guitarist David Gilmour, 78 and wife Polly Samson, 62, opened up about how their lifestyle has transformed since the Covid pandemic started.
The rocker’s first solo studio album in almost a decade Luck and Strange, in collaboration with his wife explores themes around love and mortality -issues which have preoccupied the couple over the past four years.
Much like the rest of the world, the legendary guitarist and his family shut themselves away at the start of the first lockdown in March 2020.
Eventually they even started a series, Von Trapped, which largely consisted of home concerts. But when lockdown restrictions were lifted, Polly shared that they remained ‘cocooned’.
‘My consuming fear of David dying was what we endlessly talked about, but yet when the rest of the country unlocked, we didn’t; we stayed cocooned,’ the longtime lyricist, who has been married to David for over 30 years, said in a new interview.
Her sentiment was echoed by David who added: ‘Mortality is something I think about and have done so intensely since I was 13 in my bedroom, essentially a linen cupboard in my parents’ house.
Polly and David feared catching Covid and channeled this into the new album (Picture: Getty)
Now David is embarking on a live tour (Picture: Getty)
‘Probably with most of the songs I have written over the years, it is the main topic. But when you get to my age, one has to be realistic and say that immortality is no longer an option.’
Since then, the reclusiveness has stuck around.
David added to the Independent: ‘In some ways, we still are like hobbits – we’ve been to no more than two things with 10 people in a room since then.’
As he told Rolling Stone, the couple ‘almost completely’ locked themselves down ‘for basically two years’
He explained: ‘We were very, very nervous about getting out and getting Covid. We didn’t succeed in not getting Covid of course, but all the discussions that went on about this Sword of Damocles that’s hanging over our heads during that time went into this album.’
Pink Floyd is not reuniting anytime soon as David give update on selling catalogue (Picture:Getty)
This is about to change, however, as he is set to play a series of live shows across the US and Europe over the next few months.
Despite his return to the long-awaited return to the studio, a Pink Floyd reunion is looking no more likely as the feud between himself and former bandmate Roger Waters rages on. The last time the pair performed together was in 2010.
Now, David’s main priority is getting the Pink Floyd catalogue sold, a task proving more difficult than anticipated due to internal conflict.
‘To be rid of the decision-making and the arguments that are involved with keeping it going is my dream,; he added to the publication.
‘If things were different… and I am not interested in that from a financial standpoint. I’m only interested in it from getting out of the mud bath that it has been for quite a while.’
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