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1994 single by Pink Floyd

"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.[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

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

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

[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

Pink Floyd

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

Additional musicians

• Gary Wallis – programming
• Jon Carin – programming, additional keyboards
• Guy Pratt – bass guitar
• Sam Brown – backing vocals
• Durga McBroom – backing vocals
• Carol Kenyon – backing vocals
• Jackie Sheridan – backing vocals
• Rebecca Leigh-White – backing vocals
• Stephen Hawking – computer voice, sampled

Charts

Release history