How David Gilmour and Polly Samson Wrote Lyrics for The Division Bell

The most interesting thing about The Division Bell’s lyrics is that they weren’t written by one person sitting alone in a room. David Gilmour and his then-girlfriend, now wife, Polly Samson would sit together, often late at night, and hash out lines line by line. Gilmour would hand her a cassette of an instrumental; she’d write pages of lyrics, they’d trade them back and forth, and eventually piece together a final version. Almost like co-writing a song from scratch, but with Gilmour’s voice and melody already in place.

Compare that to Roger Waters, who famously locked himself away with a tape recorder and a notebook for months. Waters wrote everything alone—lyrics, concepts, even the narrative arcs—and then brought the finished words to the band. For The Wall, he had the whole story mapped out before anyone played a note. No back and forth, no collaborative scribbling at 2 a.m. Just one man’s vision, delivered complete.

Samson’s role in The Division Bell wasn’t just a stylistic shift—it was a practical one. Gilmour has said he can’t write lyrics the way Waters did; he needs a partner who’ll challenge him, who’ll push past his instinct to sound “nice.” With Samson, the album got lines like “The sun is the same in a relative way, but you’re older”—smart, slightly surreal, and nothing like Waters’ grim epics. Different process, different result.