Ice T’s Voice Is Rock & Roll Dynamite Covering a Pink Floyd Classic with Body Count
The Law & Order: Special Victims Unit star got David Gilmour and Roger Waters' rare blessing to cover "Comfortably Numb."
Ice T and Body Count have debuted a bold new take on a Pink Floyd classic.
The Law & Order: Special Victims Unit star and Body Count frontman brought his heavy metal band to The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on December 4 to cover "Comfortably Numb," the single from Pink Floyd's seminal 1979 album, The Wall.
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Body Count's "Comfortably Numb" cover not only featured a harder rock sound, it includes new lyrics written by Ice T.
It was the rapper and actor's new verses that led to the original Pink Floyd members giving their blessing to the new version.
Before his performance with Body Count, Ice T sat down with Jimmy Fallon to talk about how his "Comfortably Numb" happened.
"'Comfortably Numb,' which is a classic Pink Floyd song, and you got a collab with David Gilmour. Pink Floyd said yes to you — they don't say yes to anyone," Fallon told Ice T. "Not only David Gilmour, but David Gilmour and Roger Waters, who haven't agreed on anything in 20 years."
The Host asked Ice T how he managed to get permission from Gilmour and Waters — and even got Gilmour involved.
How Ice T got Pink Floyd's approval for Body Count's "Comfortably Numb" cover
"Well, rappers always listen to music for tracks they could rap over, breakbeats, things like that, and I always liked the bassline to 'Comfortably Numb.' I wanted to rap on it," Ice T answered.
"Then I said, 'Well, let's just do it with Body Count,' right? So I do it, I write the lyrics to it, we lay it out, and then I just don't think about the politics.
"So they go, 'Okay, you got to send this to Pink Floyd to get it approved,' and everybody's like, 'That's not going to happen.' So we send it to the publishers and they said, 'No, Pink Floyd doesn't allow samples or covers,' so it was dead in the water," Ice T continued.
"I was ready to trash the song, and then my manager somehow got to David Gilmour's manager, and David heard the record and was blown away just by the lyrics, 'cause it's his music, but it was the lyrics," Ice T continued.
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"He said, 'I totally approve it.' So then they go, 'Okay, we got to get Roger Waters.' Now, I don't know what's going on with them," he told Fallon. "I mean, I don't know. So Roger Waters listens to it, and he said, 'Well, who's singing?' They said, 'Ice T.' He approved it."
"So now you've got two people on opposite sides that approved the song, which made me feel really good," he said. "'Cause that means that the song is honest and real."
Gilmour did more than lend his stamp of approval to the cover — he also asked to play guitar on the track, and even appears in the music video. The power of Ice T!
Watch Ice T and Body Count's powerful performance of "Comfortably Numb" in dynamic Tonight Show video above.
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What inspired Body Count's new album, Merciless
Body Count's latest album, Merciless, was released on November 22, and it was declared by Metal Hammer to be an "ice-cold knock-out."
It was the politically-turbulent year of 2020 that inspired Ice T to write the album, as he told Jimmy Fallon during his Tonight Show visit on December 4.
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"I'm looking at horror movies back to back during COVID. I'm looking at all this madness, all this politics stuff, and I just start writing and writing," he recalled. "And then I just said, 'You know what? Who knows if this is my last album? I'm gonna get everything off my chest,' and it came out good."
