How 'Breathe' on Dark Side Got Its Lyrics: Waters Wrote Them, But Gilmour and Wright Co-Wrote the Music

The lyrics for “Breathe” are indeed credited to all three of them – Waters, Gilmour, and Wright – but the words themselves were written entirely by Roger Waters. The co-credits came from the musical composition. David Gilmour and Richard Wright wrote the song’s chord progression and melody together during sessions at Abbey Road, and when Waters later added his lyrics, the band agreed that the music was a genuine collaboration. So the “lyrics” credit is a bit of a misnomer: it’s really a songwriting credit for the whole piece, with Waters handling the words.

The lyrics themselves were adapted from an earlier piece Waters wrote for the 1970 soundtrack The Body (with Ron Geesin). That original version was a short, simpler poem about birth and breathing. For Dark Side, Waters tightened the language to fit Gilmour and Wright’s new music, keeping the central theme of being “born into this world” and the fleeting nature of life. The seamless blend of Waters’ existential poetry and the band’s drifting, atmospheric music made “Breathe” one of the album’s most iconic openings.