How Stephen Hawking's 1993 TV Commercial Inspired Two Pink Floyd Tracks

Astrophysicist Stephen Hawking helped transform the world's understanding of the universe, but perhaps unexpectedly, he also became something of a celebrity before his death in 2018. He was on an episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" in 1993, among other TV appearances, and was featured in a British Telecom commercial that ran in 1993 and 1994. It was an advertisement, created by the famous ad firm Saatchi & Saatchi, that featured Hawking's distinctive, electronically generated voice discussing how humanity's ability to communicate drives progress. Hawking had a form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) that prevented him from speaking. 

Pink Floyd singer and guitarist David Gilmour caught this commercial with its powerful message and decided to use a sample of Hawking's speech for the song "Keep Talking," which appeared on the band's 1994 album "The Division Bell." "I just found it so moving that I felt that I had to try and do something with it, or with him or something, in some way," Gilmour recalled in a 1994 radio interview. A decade later, Pink Floyd returned to Hawking and the BT commercial for inspiration for the song "Talkin' Hawkin'," on the band's final studio album "The Endless River."

Before David Gilmour caught the BT commercial, he had been well aware of Stephen Hawking and his work, especially the scientist's bestselling nonfiction book "A Brief History of Time," about the origins of the universe. But Gilmour was especially moved, nearly to tears, by Hawking's powerful words about human communication. Hawking used a wheelchair, and at the time he could only communicate by using a single finger with a keyboard that translated his typing into a synthesized voice (and eventually used an early form of AI).

For Pink Floyd's album "The Division Bell," which had a theme centered on communication, Gilmour used a sample of Hawking's speech in the intro, during an interlude, and in the outro of "Keep Talking." The song is about the importance of communication on both the interpersonal and global level, with Gilmour singing about the inability to articulate ("I can't seem to speak now") with female backing vocals representing another side ("Why won't you talk to me?"). Hawking acts as the anchor — "It doesn't have to be like this. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking." The result is a powerful statement, but it seems Gilmour had more to say via Hawking in 2014.

Pink Floyd returned to Stephen Hawking's commercial for British Telecom for its final studio album in 2014, "The Endless River." The album was a tribute to the band's keyboard player Rick Wright, who died in 2008. The album is mostly instrumental and included reworkings of recordings David Gilmour and Wright had made together on the guitarist's houseboat, the Astoria, before Wright's death. In the song "Talkin' Hawkin'," the samples of the scientist's electronic voice take center stage since it's mainly an instrumental.

With Gilmour's plaintive slide guitar, Nick Mason's atmospheric drumming, and Wright's moody keyboards, the scientist's words help ground the song — "Speech has allowed the communication of ideas, enabling human beings to work together to build the impossible," Hawking intones near the halfway mark of the song before going on. "Mankind's greatest achievements have come about by talking. Our greatest hopes could become reality in the future. With the technology at our disposal, the possibilities are unbounded." The song ends with Hawking saying, "All we need to do is make sure we keep talking." With Pink Floyd's use of Hawking in these two songs, he not only made an enormous contribution to science, but also played a vital role in making art.