The guitar solo in Comfortably Numb is one of the most produced pieces of audio to ever appear on a record.

The solo was played by David Gilmour on a standard Gibson guitar thru a rack of audio effects, and recorded into tape. The tape was then played in the speaker system of a huge arena, the type you can fit 30,000 people into.
Microphones in the center of the arena picked up the resulting sound and recorded it into another tape. This tape was then combined in the studio with all the previously recorded material.

Some kinky way of saving some money on a reverb effect.

The concept for The Wall was rooted in an incident on the Animals tour. Roger Waters, swearing at the audience for shooting firecrackers during his song, became particularly angered by a fan, leaned down and spat in his face. The inspiration for part of the song Comfortably Numb stemmed from the same tour. The tour was going horribly and one night Roger was feeling horribly sick. Backstage, managers whizzed around, found a doctor and pumped Roger full of drugs. Roger recollected the experience with the lyric "my hands felt just like two balloons", and stated that the experience reminded him of having a fever as a child.

In the film version of The Wall, the song is played when the protagonist, named Pink Floyd, overdoses in his hotel room. A hubbub of suits and doctors rush into his room. The two verses depict the doctor's dialogue to an unresponsive Pink. Pumped full of drugs, Pink is thrown on stage and envisions his rock concert as a neo-nazi rally, which takes up Side Four of The Wall. In the film, the rockstar overdosed on drugs. In reality, Roger Waters was writhing in pain backstage, later found out to be caused by hepatitis.

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