Roger Waters has
gone too far! Sorry for the outburst, but I just can't help feeling
that way. The trend that reached a certain limit with THE
WALL finally crested the bounds of credibility. Roger's
obsession with cramming as many words as possible onto an album tipped
the balance here away from that perfect Pink Floyd mix, and sent the band
into the downward spiral from which it never recovered. You'll notice
in the liner notes it is listed as "by Roger Waters performed by Pink Floyd",
as though the rest of the band was of total insignificance in the process
(and maybe they would have preferred to be). This is the album that
convinced Roger that he could do just fine without the rest of the guys
(erroneously), and created the ultimate split. Though my friend Tony
Barry likes this album a great deal, I find much with which to be dissatisfied.
And what's with the e.e.cummings affectation, anyway?
I'll state up front (as if you didn't know) that
I lean toward music that actually has music in it, so that is the biggest
offense in this album, for my tastes. I'll allow Roger the need to
give a final "good-bye" to his father by trashing everyone who ever helped
create a war, but it was virtually criminal to let so many other resources
go to waste (i.e. Dave, Nick,
and Rick) (Well, Nick gets a little chance
to shine, but not too much.) Since Roger is not a great singer, it's
simply not possible for him to carry the melodies with the tone of his
voice. He's good enough to evoke strong feelings at times, but not
to replace all the sounds that are usually created by the instruments of
the band.
the post war dream
sets the tone for the entire collection. It is musically extremely
simplistic, and somewhat reminiscent of parts of THE WALL.
In fact, much of the "music" on this album was stuff that was eliminated
from THE WALL by the rest of the band as being too
far beneath their standards to perform. (I think they allowed it
here because they all needed some money, and no one else had been doing
much songwriting in their spare time) You can almost feel Roger's
anger, not only at the war that took his father away, but toward his bandmates,
who will just have to put up with his domineering ways one, last time.
thepost war dream begins a pattern of songs that open quietly,
with soft chording underneath the vocal, then crash the chorus down around
your ears in angry, shouting finales. your
possible pasts continues that theme, and if you don't hear THE
WALL all over this one, then you need to go back to music school.
Dave gets a short chance to play after the 2nd chorus in this one, but
it's a pretty pedestrian solo, with little of the imagination or talent
that he usually puts into his playing. (Sort of an "I'll show you,
Roger. You can make me play, but you can't make me play well.")
Sad.
one of the few really does
affect me, but I'm not totally sure how. Supposedly, Roger's father
was a teacher before he went off to war, and Roger has great respect for
teachers (don't tell me about Brick In The
Wall - listen to all 5 songs with that theme, and I think you'll
think differently). Still, this song makes me feel that he is angry
toward those veterans who got to come home and take teaching jobs, while
his father didn't. It's a very eerie ballad,
but I like it.
the hero's return changes
the mood of the album to a much more interesting tempo, and seems to be
the teacher's response to the preceding song. It reminds us that
it's not easy to adjust to civilian life again, but Roger ruins the overall
effect with the poor segue ending that
leads into the gunners dream. This
piece returns to the earlier pattern, but with a little less offense in
the chorus. In this one, the dead "gunner" dreams that everyone is
at peace, and all the vestiges of military insanity are gone. It's
a pretty good dream, and Roger encourages us to try to make it come true
- probably my favorite piece on the album.
paranoid eyes reminds
us of the other side of the "dream", those people who never fully give
up the feeling that they are threatened. It's a quiet sort of ballad,
and a good reminder not to let our fears get the best of us, but it's not
really a "tune". It does give me the feeling that he's almost sorry
that he wrote Corporal Clegg so
long ago, as though he's gained some sympathy for what war might
have done to ruin a man.
get your filthy hands off
my desert is a short ditty poking fun at 3 leaders (Brezhnev, Begin,
Thatcher) who fought stupid battles over worthless territories (Afghanistan,
Lebanon, Falkland Islands), and uses a little classical string work to
lead into the fletcher memorial home.
Here, Roger is ready to put all the warlike leaders into a home for the
criminally insane (as though they were going someplace elegant) and then
"the final solution can be applied". [Yikes!] (You'll recall that
Hitler coined the term "final solution" to refer to his extermination of
the Jews.) The more terrible irony here is that Roger named that
home after his father, Eric Fletcher Waters, who was killed in WWII in
Italy, 1944.
southampton dock reminds
us of those left behind in yet another tuneless ballad, which ends with
the impossible-to-fit line that leads into the
final cut. Here, we hit another really good song.
Roger is asking us how we'll treat him if he allows us to see what he's
really made of. Since he's so well-protected by defense mechanisms,
we'll have to try hard, but our interest may save him from himself, much
as we did for him in THE WALL. (I suppose there's
a part of us that, by now, is saying, "Roger, stop begging for our intervention".)
Still, I think we almost feel compelled to like this man, who is so opinionated,
angry, and strident, and at the same time so vulnerable. Again we
get a serviceable solo from Dave (happily, at that) between choruses.
not now john really belongs
on some other album. After all these sparsely instrumentated semi-ballads,
this profane rocker just really doesn't fit in. The back-up singers
are stereotypical, Dave's solos are almost formulaic,
and Roger just seems to be looking for another reason to shout.
two suns in the sunset
brings the whole thing to a close, and not a moment too soon. The
ambient
sounds{CPFS}
here become almost a parody of past Pink Floyd moments. Roger is
trying to warn us about our potential for self-destruction, but the message
gets lost in a weak conclusion to an uneven album. Since this final
ballad has a rather sappy pop-music feel, it doesn't even do the rest of
this
album justice.
Because of the reputation of Pink Floyd (and the
eager anticipation of their fans), this album went to #6 on the US album
charts. Still, it was a kiss good-bye to Pink Floyd as we knew them,
and the end of a dynasty.
