Back in September we highlighted the fact that Body Count – the long-standing LA-based heavy metal rock/rap outfit with rapper Ice-T as its centrepiece – had just recorded and released a highly unlikely cover version of Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb.
Giving the classic their own distinctive spin, the band used the track – with an injection of new lyrics – to highlight the way that we’ve all become numb to the world’s problems, with increasing apathy around doing something about it.
Perhaps what’s more remarkable than the band picking the song in the first place, is the fact the members of Pink Floyd gave their approval for it. And more remarkable than that, Floyd guitarist David Gilmour even plays on the track.
Now, the band have performed the track on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon with Ice-T explaining to Fallon just how the cover came about.
The original, of course, features on Pink Floyd’s 1980 album The Wall, an album very much the baby of the band’s Roger Waters who’s since used it as a vehicle for an ongoing series of live shows and spin-offs, being in no small part a feature in the similarly on-going public spat between Waters and band ‘mate’ Gilmour.
Thus, recording the song would require Ice-T to not only negotiate permission from the band, but also to get its members to agree on something for once…
“Rappers are always listening for something to rap over, and I always liked the bassline to Comfortably Numb,” Ice explains. “So I thought, let’s do it with Body Count. I write the lyrics. I lay it out but I didn’t think about the politics. You gotta send this to Pink Floyd to get approved and everyone is like ‘That’s not gonna happen.’”
And, of course, Floyd’s publishers said no – famously never allowing any samples or covers.
However, Ice’s manager found a back door, getting to Gilmour’s manager and then Gilmour himself, he was able to get Gilmour to hear the track, “And he was blown away by the lyrics,” Ice explains. And with one down there was one to go.
“So we played it to Roger Waters… And he approved it… So now you got two people on opposite sides who approved the song – which made me feel really good… Then Gilmour says ‘I wanna play on it.’”
And they even got him in the video too:
