Finding a Long Version of Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb

A long version of Comfortably Numb with extended guitar solo is the holy grail of The Wall’s missing parts. Here’s where to find what extended versions are available and how this classic track almost wasn’t on Pink Floyd The Wall.

On The Wall LP releases, “Comfortably Numb” (6:22) closes out Side 3. One of the most popular tracks on the album, “Comfortably Numb” was not part of Waters’ original Wall demo. “The Doctor”, as it was named during production, was written and added early on, before the first production demo of January 9, 1979.

Originally, “Hey, You” was to close out the side, sequenced just after “Comfortably Numb”. However, at the last minute it was moved before the album went for mastering. In fact, on the early pressings of the album, the inner sleeves still showed “Hey, You” closing out the side on the track listings. When the decision was made to move the track, the album artwork had already been designed and sent out to print.

The track was the third and final single from The Wall. In 2010, it was ranked number 321 on Rolling Stone magazine’s updated list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. The second guitar solo is considered one of the all-time greats. At the time of its release, the single didn’t even crack Billboard Magazine’s Top 100.

The solo is actually built from several different solos that David Gilmour recorded for the track. In a 1993 interview with Guitar World magazine, he recalled:

“I just went out into the studio and banged out 5 or 6 solos. From there I just followed my usual procedure, which is to listen back to each solo and mark out bar lines, saying which bits are good. In other words, I make a chart, putting ticks and crosses on different bars as I count through: two ticks if it’s really good, one tick if it’s good and cross if it’s no go. Then I just follow the chart, whipping one fader up, then another fader, jumping from phrase to phrase and trying to make a really nice solo all the way through. That’s the way we did it on ‘Comfortably Numb.’ It wasn’t that difficult. But sometimes you find yourself jumping from one note to another in an impossible way. Then you have to go to another place and find a transition that sounds more natural.”

James Guthrie shared a story about working with David in the studio recording the album’s guitar solos,

“I have great memories of working with David on all the guitar solos. For the majority of the solos it was just David, myself and Phil Taylor in the room. We would make numerous passes, then Dave would take a break and I would combine a solo from all the different performances. He would come back, have a listen and either we would move on to the next piece, or he would have me make one or two changes and then we’d move on. As most guitarists know, David uses a lot of finger vibrato as well as the whammy bar, often at the same time. On the first solo of ‘Comfortably Numb’ he was exaggerating the effect quite dramatically. I asked if he thought it was too much and he replied, “No, I want it to sound drunk!” And there it was.”

The foundation of “Comfortably Numb” was actually written before the original Wall demo and was not part of Waters’ original cycle. Gilmour wrote the music in 1977; it was the last track he wrote for his first solo album. Running out of time before he could finish the lyrics, he put the demo recording aside.

Initially, Waters was reluctant to include the piece and did so only at co-producer Bob Ezrin’s insistence. The song is one of three co-writing credits David Gilmour has on the album. It would be one of the last times he collaborated with Roger Waters on a song.

David’s original demo for the song was instrumental only. This demo can be heard in the Work In Progress discs of the Immersion box set. The structure of his song changed very little for its inclusion on The Wall. He explained,

“This was just something I wrote and plonked down on a high-strung guitar one afternoon…. The only thing that changed was that the verses I put in… weren’t quite long enough to take the phrase ‘I have become comfortably numb’ and Roger said, “Listen, I want to put one more phrase in. Can we lengthen the verse by these few bars?”

A second recording of his original demo — with lyrics he wrote at the time — surfaced in the excellent 2015 documentary David Gilmour: Wider Horizons which was rereleased as part of the special features on the 2017 box set release David Gilmour: Live At Pompeii. When revisiting the recording for the filmmakers, a surprised Gilmour exclaimed “Wow! I’d forgotten I’d written words… of some sort.” You can hear the demo in the video embed below:

Often considered one of the best Pink Floyd tracks, “Comfortably Numb” was a true collaborative effort between Gilmour, Waters, and Bob Ezrin and it almost wasn’t included on the album.

Ezrin later recalled, “At first Roger had not planned to include any of Dave’s material…. I fought for this song and insisted that Roger work on it.”

“The Doctor”, as it was named during most of production, was written and added early on, before the first band production demo of January 9, 1979. Several versions of the track were recorded. Waters and Ezrin preferred a wall-of-sound version with orchestrations behind the guitar solos while Gilmour preferred a looser but harder-edged version with no orchestration; he called it a “sloppier version.” Both versions have exactly the same tempo and can be heard on the bonus material of the Immersion box set. Bob Ezrin talked about it in a Guitar World interview:

“I fought for the introduction of the orchestra on that record. This became a big issue on ‘Comfortably Numb,’ which Dave saw as a more bare-bones track. Roger sided with me. So the song became a true collaboration — it’s David’s music, Roger’s lyric and my orchestral chart.”

In the end, the three compromised. The final version featured orchestration behind the first guitar solo and no orchestra behind the final solo. Bingo… history.

The final version is not only an excellent compromise but collectively it is a better track than either of the two versions would have been on their own. Moving from softer and orchestral to raw and edgy adds a sonic contrast that builds to a crescendo as the song progresses. The shift in tone adds weight to the drama of the track and the ultimate climax that closes out the side.

Session musician Lee Ritenour was brought in to play a second high strung acoustic guitar for the chorus underneath David Gilmour’s vocals, adding to the fullness and fill of the sound.

Is there a long studio version of Comfortably Numb with extended guitar solo?

Unfortunately, none that was ever released. There is no extended version for the studio recording of “Comfortably Numb” that I’ve been able to locate. I’ve looked. I’ve been searching all sources and then some for years — even for a low-quality studio outtake just to hear. For now, the live version on Is There Anybody Out There? is the longest commercial version we have with the full band. It clocks in at 7 minutes 25 seconds.

I really wish I could have found an extended version of the studio track — anything, even a few more seconds at the end… just to hear. Given all that was cut so that The Wall would fit onto two LPs, it would make sense that “Comfortably Numb” also would have been trimmed somehow.

There are rumors online that have been circulating for years that the track was originally one minute longer with a longer guitar solo at the end and that this was among the last-minute cuts made throughout the album so that it would fit onto two vinyl LPs. So far, I’ve been unable to reliably confirm this.

Sometimes, the band released alternate versions of tracks from the album as singles or as exclusives for radio play. For instance, a special eight track promo-only sampler was released only to radio stations and contained an extended, partially-restored version of “Run Like Hell”. “Comfortably Numb” was included on this album but was one of few tracks that was no different from the album version.

There are some excellent live versions with extended second solos. My favorites are the Live 8 version at Hyde Park and “Comfortably Numb” Live at O2 Arena where David Gilmour performed a one-off for Roger Waters The Wall tour. Ideally, though, I prefer the perfection and polished sound of the classic studio version.

For a brief but excellent history of “Comfortably Numb”, check out “The Life and Times of “Comfortably Numb” by Dan Wiencek on Popdose.

Comfortably Numb – US promo single sent to radio stations. It’s a brutal 4 minute edit.

Alternate Versions of “Comfortably Numb”

Several alternate versions of the track were released. Most of them are edited, live recordings, or demo versions of the song. There are several legitimate releases of these versions and many, many ROIOs as well. In my opinion, the best version of the track is available on the album.

“Comfortably Numb” / “Hey You” single (1980). (3:57) First guitar solo, second verse and chorus have been cut. Final guitar solo is edited to the end of the first verse. Fades out early. Butchered, really.

Pink Floyd Off The Wall – Special Radio Construction (1979). (6:22) A rare 1979 US 8-track, radio-friendly promo sampler LP for The Wall album distributed mainly to radio stations. No changes from the album version. Mastering of the vinyl was a little better than the mastering of the LP due to its deeper grooves. If you like the sound vinyl brings to a recording, this is one to get.

Is There Anybody Out There?. (7:26) The official live album of the original The Wall tour in 1980. Final guitar solo is extended and the song ends with a cold fade. I like the extra time and the longer solo, but I feel this version of Gilmour’s second guitar solo never quite reaches the heights of the shorter studio version.

Live 8 – Live at Hyde Park (2005) Live 8 was the final time all four members of the band performed together live. “Comfortably Numb” was the final song they performed there. The song runs about 6min 52sec before it ends. Here, Gilmour is in top form and really makes his Strat sing. The second guitar solo in particular really benefits from the extended length of the performance and builds to a very nice crescendo. Although it’s not a note-for-note perfect performance, in my opinion, this is one of the best alternate versions of the band performing “Comfortably Numb”.

Below is the Live 8 performance in its entirety. Skip to about 16:20 in the video for “Comfortably Numb”.

Pink Floyd The Wall movie (1982). (6:15) The iconic opening guitar slide is practically eliminated from the mix and with it a lot of the weight those 4 bars would normally have. Parts were unnecessarily re-recorded. The film version uses very similar yet alternate vocals and alternate baseline throughout the track. Why? The song fades out a few seconds early. Distracting vocal and noise effects throughout the track were added for the film. Somehow, the mix manages to strip most of the weight and drama and for me, for the most part, this version just plods along.

The Wall: Immersion – Work In Progress (2012). There are three very interesting versions of “Comfortably Numb” in the extra materials of the Immersion edition.

“Comfortably Numb”, Disc 6 Track 22 (3:15) is the original demo from the sessions of David Gilmour’s self-titled solo album. It’s basically just an unfinished melody that he intended to use at some point. But his demo contains the music, melody, and framework of what would later become the chorus.

“The Doctor”, Disc 6 Track 5 (3:15), is one of the early production demos of “Comfortably Numb”. The structure of the song is in place here, but lacks the polish of the release version. As in the final version, Roger Waters is the voice of the doctor and David Gilmour sings the refrain as Pink’s inner voice. This working demo lacks a second guitar solo and has none of Michael Kamen’s orchestrations. There is a lot of distracting vocal clutter going on in the stereo mix here which helps illustrate Pink’s confusion and mental state at this point in the narrative. It’s interesting from a song evolution standpoint, but I’m glad it did not make it into the final mix. This is the much of the same version of “The Doctor” that’s on the ROIO Under Construction (or Building The Wall, Wall In Progress 1978-1979 and The Wall Demos — these are all the same recordings) except here the mix is very good and audio quality is almost commercial, although a second verse and the final guitar solo have been edited out — or, the version on the ROIOs is a later demo and those parts haven’t been edited in yet.

“The Doctor”, track 15 disc 6 (3:20), is the second of the early production demos of “Comfortably Numb” to appear on the Immersion edition bonuses. It features David Gilmour exclusively on vocals as the voice of both the doctor and Pink. The verses are in a different key to accommodate Gilmour’s vocals. There is none of the vocal clutter found in the previous demo of the song and this version really has a different feel to it. This is is David Gilmour’s rougher, edgier, “sloppier” version that he recorded to demonstrate how he thought the track should sound. Roger Waters and Bob Ezrin preferred a slicker, orchestrated version. In the end, there was a compromise. The album version took elements from both and turned it into a classic.

Listening to all three (or all four) versions gives a lot of insight into the creative evolution of this classic track.

Under Construction ROIO. A bootleg collection of production demo tracks, probably from sometime between the second and third official production demos. Although many of these tracks were later released in higher quality on The Wall: Immersion edition, there are still a good number of unique and interesting versions here and “Comfortably Numb” is definitely one of them. Still listed as “The Doctor” at this point, the track runs about 4m 46s or so. The audio is bootleg-quality. This take is similar to “The Doctor”, Disc 6 Track 5 (3m 15s) on the Immersion Edition, except this version contains an outro with an early version of David Gilmour’s second guitar solo to extend out the track. Although Gilmour recalled that the solo on record was an edit of 5 or 6 solos, none of those elements can be heard here. Still, it’s an interesting look at the evolution of this track and fills in a gap between the demo versions released on Immersion and the final studio version.

Last updated: March 1, 2024