Did David Gilmour Ever Openly Discuss Depression or Anxiety and How It Shaped His Playing?

David Gilmour has talked about experiencing anxiety and periods of low mood, though he’s never been as confessional as Roger Waters. He once told an interviewer that after the massive success of Dark Side of the Moon he felt a “kind of depression” from the pressure and lack of direction – and that it took him years to understand how to channel that into music.

That internal turbulence shows up most clearly in his guitar work. On songs like “Comfortably Numb” and “High Hopes,” his solos don’t just sound sad – they sound like someone working through something. Gilmour said he treats each note as a vocal cry, and the weight of his own quiet struggles gave those lines a human ache he might not have found if he’d been perfectly happy.

He also mentioned seeing a therapist in the mid‑1970s, which helped him loosen up and become more comfortable with vulnerability in his writing. You can hear the shift: his playing after Wish You Were Here became more deliberate and emotionally direct, less about flash and more about holding a single bent note until it says everything.