Skip to content
News

Roger Waters Unveils Studio Version of Revamped ‘Comfortably Numb’

This arrangement is utilized as the opening song in former Pink Floyd member's ongoing tour
Photo: Angel Marchini / SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images

Roger Waters has released a revamped studio version of the Pink Floyd classic “Comfortably Numb,” the new arrangement of which is utilized as the opening song in his ongoing This Is Not a Drill tour. It is available on all DSPs as well as in music video form, directed by Sean Evans.

 

Waters wrote on social media that he first began work on the new version “before lockdown” and “pitched it a whole step down, in A minor, to make it darker. [I] arranged it with no solos, except over the outro, where there is a heartrendingly beautiful vocal solo from one of our new sisters, Shanay Johnson.”

He continued, “It’s intended as a wakeup call, and a bridge towards a kinder future with more talking to strangers, either in ‘The Bar’ or just ‘Passing in the Street; and less slaughter ‘In Some Foreign Field.'”

Despite removing David Gilmour’s all-time great guitar solo, “Comfortably Numb 2022” is more than two minutes longer than its counterpart from 1979’s The Wall. It’s one of the 17 Pink Floyd songs featured in the 24-song set list of This Is Not a Drill, which will resume with European dates on March 17 in Lisbon. It is billed as the “first ever farewell tour” for Waters, who turned 79 in September.