The authorship and composition of this song is credited to David Gilmour and Richard Wright for the music and Roger Waters for the lyrics. Dark Side, admitted the latter, "is a little adolescent and naïve in its preoccupations, but I'm not belittling it. It's like a rather wonderful, naïve painting. 'Breathe in the air / Don't be afraid to care' – that's the opening couplet. Well, yeah, I can cop that, but it's kind of simplistic stuff." The song is slow-paced and rich in texture, and features Gilmour playing the electric guitar with a Uni-Vibe and lap steel guitar with a volume pedal and several overdubs. On the original album, it is a separate track from "Speak to Me", the sound collage that opens the first side. Since this track segues into "Breathe" via a sustained backwards piano chord, the two are conjoined on most CD versions of the album. A one-minute reprise features at the end of the song "Time", without the slide guitar and using Farfisa organ and Wurlitzer electric piano in place of Hammond organ and Rhodes piano. Along with the other Pink Floyd tracks, "Time" and "The Great Gig in the Sky", "Breathe" is seen as Gilmour "carving out a more distinctive style" with the introduction of blues-based chords and solos. "Breathe" has also been seen to "embrace ecology". This song was one of several to be considered for the band's "best of" album, .
Alternative and live versions
The Pulse CD and DVD features a live version of the song with a run time of 2:33.
The song was played at the Live 8 concert and features on the DVD. For that performance, "Breathe" and "Breathe " were combined to form one song. Although Pink Floyd themselves had never done this before, the London Philharmonic Orchestra had previously covered the song in this manner on their 1995 album .
The solo Roger Waters DVD and CD, In the Flesh – Live, features a version of the song sung by Doyle Bramhall and Jon Carin.
Waters originally recorded a song called "Breathe" for Music from The Body, a soundtrack album which he recorded with Ron Geesin. Although the two are largely different in lyrics, chords and subject matter, this version can be seen as an early version of the song. Although the song is still available through CD and digital releases of this soundtrack album, it often appears on Pink Floyd bootlegs, most notably on A Tree Full of Secrets.
Live versions with Richard Wright appear on the Gilmour solo Remember That Night DVD and Live in Gdańsk CD. The Live in Gdańsk version is titled "Breathe " rather than just "Breathe".
"Breathe " appears on Gilmour's 2017 album and DVD Live at Pompeii.
Personnel
David Gilmour – electric guitar, multi-tracked pedal steel guitars, lead and backing vocals
Capital Cities covered the song and incorporated a sample of Tupac Shakur's rap from Scarface's "Smile," which features a similar lyric to the Pink Floyd song.
