Was David Gilmour’s Comfortably Numb solo really a first take? Total Guitar sets the record straight

In 2022, producer Bob Ezrin spoke to UK guitar magazine Total Guitar – part of GuitarWorld.com’s family of brands – about his work with Pink Floyd. However, a comment that Ezrin made in this interview about the song Comfortably Numb was misconstrued by TG – so we are now clarifying exactly what Ezrin said in relation to the two guitar solos in this track, performed by David Gilmour.

Ezrin was misquoted in Total Guitar with the statement: “The second solo in Comfortably Numb was a first take.” Ezrin was in fact referring specifically to the first solo in the middle of the track when he said: “It was a first take.” But at the time, TG believed – incorrectly – that Ezrin was referring to the second solo at the end of the song.

As a result of this mistake, the incorrect quote which TG attributed to Ezrin has been repeated in recent days in various online stories in which it was also reported that former Pink Floyd bassist/vocalist Roger Waters had claimed that Bob Ezrin “lied” about the recording of the second guitar solo in Comfortably Numb.

Total Guitar is happy to set the record straight, and we offer our sincere apologies to Bob Ezrin, Roger Waters and David Gilmour for any misunderstanding arising from the interview we published in 2022.