Welcome back to another deep dive and I have
to say I have been looking forward to this one
all week because we are tackling a subject that
is frankly just massive. It's a heavy one. It
is. We are looking at a figure who is responsible
for some of the best -selling, most culturally
significant music, I mean, in the history of
the human race, but who also manages to be one
of the most polarizing, divisive figures in modern
culture. He really is. We are unpacking the life,
the music, and the very, very loud opinions of
George Roger Waters. It's a lot to unpack, and
you are so right about the scale. To really understand
Roger Waters, you have to hold two... very contradictory
ideas in your head at the same time. On one hand,
you have the creative architect behind Pink Floyd's
golden era. I mean, the man who wrote the lyrics
that basically defined a generation's anxieties.
For sure. And on the other hand, you have a man
who seems, you know, seemingly hellbent on burning
bridges, engaging these fierce political battles,
and just constantly relitigating the past. Exactly.
And just to set the stakes here, for anyone who
might just think of him as, you know, the bass
player from Pink Floyd. Let's just look at the
numbers for a second. Yeah, the numbers are insane.
We are talking about the dark side of the moon.
This isn't just a hit record. It is a cultural
monolith. It spent 736 consecutive weeks on the
Billboard 200 chart. That is. That's nearly 14
years. 14 years straight. It is a statistic that
doesn't even sound real when you say it out loud.
A typo. It's staggering. And then decades later,
as a solo artist, he launches the Wall Live Tour,
which becomes the highest grossing tour by a
solo artist at the time. So the commercial power
is just undeniable. Absolutely. But our mission
today, it isn't just to list the hits or, you
know, fanboy over the guitar solos. We want to
unpack the man himself. Right. We want to understand
how a war orphan from Cambridge. built one of
the biggest bands in history, tried to dismantle
it legally, and then completely reinvented himself
as this weaponized political activist. And that
really is the central tension of his life, isn't
it? If you look at the trajectory, it is a career
defined by building walls. Literally. Literally.
With giant cardboard bricks on stage. And a later
life dedicated to tearing walls down politically.
But as we'll see, he often uses the exact same
bricks to do both. That's a great way to put
it. It's a story about trauma, control, and the
refusal to compromise, for better or for worse.
Now, before we dive in, we have to do a little
housekeeping on the source material. We are working
primarily from a comprehensive biographical dossier.
Yeah, basically his Wikipedia entry and all the
linked sources. Right, which covers everything
from his childhood to... Very recent, very heated
controversies. Right. And because we are covering
Roger Waters, we are inevitably going to touch
on some highly charged political topics. For
sure. We're talking about the Israel -Palestine
conflict, the Russia -Ukraine war, and accusations
of anti -Semitism. And I just want to be really
clear right up front. Our job here is to report
on what is in the source material. We are going
to look at what he said, how people reacted,
and the events as they happened. We are staying
neutral observers trying to understand the narrative
arc of his life. Perfectly said. We are the observers.
So let's rewind. Let's go all the way back because
you can't really understand the anger and the
isolation in Waters' music without looking at
where he started. You really, really can't. And
with Waters, the story begins with a ghost. The
ghost of Eric Fletcher Waters. Precisely. Roger
was born in September 1943. This is right in
the thick of the Second World War. Right. His
father. Eric was a fascinating figure in his
own right. He was a schoolteacher, a devout Christian,
and a Communist Party member. Which is an interesting
mix already. I mean, you don't often see devout
Christian and Communist Party member on the same
resume. It really isn't. It speaks to a man of
intense conviction, you know. And initially,
Eric was a conscientious objector. When the war
broke out, he refused to fight. Okay. He drove
ambulances during the Blitz, pulling people out
of the rubble in London. So he was still involved,
just not in a combat role. Exactly. But, and
this is the turning point that changes Roger's
life before he can even speak. Eric changed his
stance. As the war dragged on and the sheer evil
of European fascism became clear, he decided
he couldn't just watch anymore. He had to fight.
He had to fight. He joined the Territorial Army
and was commissioned into the 8th Battalion Royal
Fusiliers. And five months after Roger was born?
Eric is killed. February 18th, 1944, the Battle
of Anzio in Italy. Wow. Roger is five months
old. He never knew him. That is, I mean, we talk
about childhood trauma, but... That is a void.
That is a massive empty space right at the beginning
of his life. And if you listen to Pink Floyd,
specifically the later albums, that void is the
engine. It's the whole thing. It's everything.
The cost of war isn't just a political talking
point for Waters. It's his entire identity. It's
the lifelong motif. You hear it so clearly in
the wall where the character Pink loses his father
in the war. Absolutely. And you hear it in the
final cut. which is explicitly dedicated to Eric
Fletcher Waters. He is constantly, almost obsessively,
trying to process the death of this father he
never met. And it's not something he let go of
either. The source mentions that in 2014, so
we're talking when he is, what, 70 years old?
70, yeah. He went to Aprilia, Italy, to unveil
a monument to his father and other war casualties.
70 years later, that wound is still fresh. It
really frames everything he does. If you want
to understand why he hates authoritarianism,
why he hates military interventionism, why he
is so suspicious of governments, it all goes
back to Anzio. The state took his father. The
state took his father and it left a hole that
he's been trying to fill with music and anger
ever since. So let's look at the living parent
then. He was raised by his mother, Mary. She
was also a teacher, right? Yes, also a teacher.
And after Eric's death, she moved with Roger
to Cambridge. And this brings us to the other
major theme of his early life. School. If you've
heard Another Brick in the Wall Part 2, you have
a pretty good idea of how Roger felt about the
British education system. We don't need no education.
It wasn't just, you know, some catchy teen angst
lyric. He described his high school experience
at the Cambridgeshire High School for Boys as
explicitly oppressive. He hated it. He talks
about bullying. Yes, not just by the kids, but
by the teachers. He saw the whole school regime
as this tool designed to crush individuality,
to stamp out any creative spark. The famous lines,
you. Yes, you. Stand still, laddie. Exactly.
That imagery didn't come from nowhere. It was
his reality. He said the same kids who were bullied
by other kids were also susceptible to bullying
by the teachers. So a top -down system of abuse.
It was a cycle of abuse, in his view, designed
to produce obedient workers for the factory floor.
But interestingly enough, despite hating the
environment, this is where the network starts
to form. He attended this school with Sid Barrett.
The original frontman of Pink Floyd. The mad
genius. And David Gilmour, who would later replace
Sid, lived nearby on Mill Road, though he went
to a different school, the Purse School. So the
cast of characters is assembling in Cambridge.
It's wild to think that this one little geographical
cluster produced three members of Pink Floyd.
It's kind of incredible. The whole scene was
right there. And he wasn't just a brooding teenager,
right? He was already getting political. Oh,
very early on. At 15, he was the chairman of
the Cambridge Youth Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
The YCND? Yep. He was designing publicity posters
for them. So at the intersection of visual art,
leadership, and political protest, it's there
from the time he's a teenager. He was never just
a musician. He was always an agitator. So he
leaves Cambridge. He heads to London. And initially,
he's not thinking rock star. He's thinking architecture.
That's right. He enrolled at the Regent Street
Polytechnic School of Architecture in 1962. And
this is crucial, actually, because when you listen
to Pink Floyd, especially the albums Waters Led,
they have a structure. They are built. They're
architects. Exactly. They aren't just jams. There
is an architecture to the concept albums that,
you know, it feels very deliberate. And that
is where he meets the rhythm section. Nick Mason
on drums and Richard Wright on keyboards. They
were fellow students. Yeah. And like so many
college bands, they started playing together
in a tier room in the basement of the school.
And the names. We have to talk about the names
before they settled on Pink Floyd because they
are incredible. Oh, they are fantastic. They
went through Sigma Six. Sigma Six. Then the Megadeths.
Spelled with two Gs inexplicably. The Megadeths.
That sounds like a heavy metal band from the
80s, not a psychedelic band from the 60s. Totally
wrong genre. Wrong decade. The Screaming Ab -Dabs.
The Screaming Ab -Dabs. I like that one. It's
good. Leonard's Lodgers. And finally, the Tea
Set. The Tea Set is so painfully, wonderfully
British. It is. But eventually... Sid Barrett
joins, and they become the Pink Floyd Sound,
named after two American blues musicians, Pink
Anderson and Floyd Council, and then just Pink
Floyd. And in these early days, just to be clear,
Roger is on bass, but he's not the leader. Not
at all. Sid Barrett is the genius, the songwriter,
the frontman, the creative force. This is the
whimsy era. Right, songs about gnomes and scarecrows
and bicycles. Exactly. Waters originally played
rhythm guitar but switched to bass. But then,
of course, we have the tragedy of Sid Barrett's
mental health deterioration. By 1968, Sid is
out. The LSD use, the mental instability, it
just made it impossible for him to function in
the band. And this creates a power vacuum. A
huge power vacuum. And Rogers steps into it.
He doesn't just step, he kind of leaps into it,
right? He leaps into it aggressively. He basically
says, okay, the whimsy is over. You want to drag
the band away from that psychedelic fairytale
stuff toward what he called political and philosophical
concerns. And you can feel that shift almost
immediately. It's a seismic shift. Yeah. And
it's the shift that gives us the golden era.
Okay, let's unpack this. Because from 1973 to
1983, Underwater's conceptual leadership, they
go on this just insane run. Dark Side of the
Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals, The Wall.
It is arguably the greatest run of albums in
rock history. It has to be in the conversation.
It does. And notice the shift in tone. Darkseid
isn't about gnomes. It's about madness, time,
greed, death. It's serious art. It's about the
human condition. It is. Waters said that when
he played the finished mix of Darkseid for his
wife at the time, she just burst into tears.
Wow. And he thought, okay, this is a pretty complete
piece of work. He knew they had struck a nerve.
He realized that by tapping into these universal
fears, he could connect with millions and millions
of people. But as the success grows, so does
the control, right? It seems like Roger starts
tightening his grip on the band's creative direction.
It becomes a stranglehold. By the time they get
to the wall in 1979, it is largely Roger's autobiography.
It's his therapy session. It's his therapy session
played out on a double album. The rock star feeling
isolated behind a wall. That's him. He's writing
about his own alienation from the audience. The
famous story of him spitting on a fan. Exactly.
That was the seed of the entire concept. And
then we get to the final cut in 1983. And this
is where it gets really, really tense. Yeah,
this is where the cracks become chasms. The final
cut is practically a solo album. It is subtitled
A Requiem for the Post -War Dream by Roger Waters,
performed by Pink Floyd. Roger Waters, performed
by Pink Floyd. That is... That is a statement
that is putting your name above the brand in
big, bold letters. It is. And the story behind
the album is even more telling. The source notes
that David Gilmour didn't have any new material
written at the time. He asked Roger to delay
the recording so he could write some songs to
contribute. Roger refused. Just flat out said
no. Flat out no. He said, no, we're doing this
now. These are the songs. He just plowed ahead.
Wow. And the tension was so bad that Gilmore's
name was actually removed from the production
credits. What? I didn't know that. Yeah. He was
still paid his producer's royalty, but Roger
essentially wiped him off the creative ledger
of that album. It was a clear message. I am the
creator. You are the musician. That's just brutal.
So it's no surprise that two years later in 1985,
the whole thing just explodes. The famous acrimonious
split. And this is fascinating legal and artistic
history. Waters leaves the band. He puts out
a statement calling Pink Floyd a spent force
creatively. Ouch. And he launches a legal battle
to dissolve the partnership. He genuinely believed
that Pink Floyd was him. Right. That the band
couldn't exist without him. He made this comparison.
He said if Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr went
on tour as The Beatles without John Lennon, it
would be sacrilegious. He viewed Gilmore and
Mason continuing as Pink Floyd as an insult to
the work, to the legacy. But he lost that fight
legally. He did. The court and the industry sided
with Gilmore and Mason. They kept the name Pink
Floyd. Roger kept the rights to the wall concept
and famously the inflatable pig from the animals
tour. He got the pig. He got the pig. Or a small
victory, I guess. But looking back. Years later,
Waters actually admitted he was wrong about the
lawsuit. Really? That doesn't sound like him.
Humility isn't the first word that comes to mind.
It's a rare moment of introspection, for sure.
He said he failed to understand the commercial
value of the brand name, independent of the members.
He regretted all the negativity. He realized
he couldn't just dictate to the others whether
they were allowed to work or not. So that's a
rare moment of, I guess, self -awareness in this
story. So he's on his own. He's got the pig.
He's got the wall, but he doesn't have the band
name. How does the solo career kick off? It's
a very rocky start. In 1984, while the legal
battles are still raging, he releases The Pros
and Cons of Hitchhiking. Which is... A concept
album about a man's dream about hitchhiking?
It's a concept album about a man named Reg having
a midlife crisis, debating between monogamy and
the call of the wild promiscuity. And it's all
dreamt in real time. It takes place between 4
.30 a .m. and 5 .11 a .m. That is incredibly
Roger Waters level specific. It is. And he had
Eric Clapton on guitar, which is a huge get.
Yeah, having Clapton in your band is not a bad
start. Not at all. But the critics. They hated
it. Rolling Stone gave it one star. One star.
They called it hideous. And the tour lost money.
He estimated he lost about 400 ,000 pounds on
that tour. Oof. That has to hurt, especially
while the other guys are out there as Pink Floyd
filling stadiums with the name he tried to kill.
Exactly. Then he follows it up with Radio KAOS
in 1987. Another concept album. Of course. This
is another very dense concept. It's about a mute,
wheelchair -bound man named Billy who can tune
into radio waves in his head. Okay. And he eventually
learns to communicate with a DJ, hacks the world's
military computers, and simulates a nuclear attack
to scare the world into peace. You know, that
sounds weirdly prescient, actually, regarding
hacking and cyber warfare, but maybe a bit heavy
for 1987 pop radio. It was. It was a commercial
disappointment. It didn't light the world on
fire. Yeah. But then history hands Roger Waters
a moment, a perfect once -in -a -lifetime moment.
November 1989. The Berlin Wall falls. And he
has the rights to the wall. Precisely. July 1990.
The walls live in Berlin. This is the spectacle
to end all spectacles. It was staged on vacant
terrain between Potsdamer Platz and the Brandenburg
Gate. Literally no man's land. The death strip
just months before. The symbolism was off the
charts. The scale of this event is hard to even
picture. We are talking about an estimated attendance
of anywhere between 200 ,000 and 450 ,000 people.
One of the largest rock concerts in history.
And the production itself was. It was massive.
He had an East German symphony orchestra, a Soviet
marching band, U .S. military helicopters. It
was a massive geopolitical statement as much
as it was a concert. And the guest list was insane
too, right? Unbelievable. Joni Mitchell, Van
Morrison, The Scorpions, Cyndi Lauper, Bryan
Adams. It was a who's who of 80s rock and pop.
But there were three people notably not invited.
Gilmore Mason and Wright. Of course. Correct.
Even at this moment of global unity, the band
rift was still the wall that couldn't be torn
down. That is tragic in a way. Just petty on
some level. It really is. So he pulls off this
massive historic event. Does that finally jumpstart
the solo career? Artistically, yes. In 1992,
he releases Amused to Death. And this is where
I think, you know, even his biggest critics have
to give him credit. Many fans and critics consider
this his solo masterpiece. Okay, so what's the
concept here? It's always about the concept.
Always. It's heavily influenced by the Tiananmen
Square protests and the first Gulf War. It's
a critique of how war had become television entertainment.
The CNN war. The CNN war, exactly. It's based
on a book by Neil Postman called Amusing Ourselves
to Death. He's exploring this idea that we're
watching smart bombs go down chimneys like it's
a Nintendo game. He's asking what happens to
our humanity when death becomes content. Which,
again, is a theme that has only become more and
more relevant with the Internet and social media.
Absolutely. It's a dense, brilliant, and deeply
cynical album. But commercially, he was still
living in the shadow of his past. He spent a
lot of the late 90s and 2000s touring his old
material. The In the Flesh tour, the Dark Side
of the Moon live tour. He's playing the hits.
He's playing the hits, which is what the people
wanted to hear. And then we fast forward to the
modern era. he decides to do something bold or
sacrilegious depending on who you ask in 2023
he re -records the dark side of the moon the
dark side of the moon redux he's 80 years old
when he does this why i mean why mess with what
many people consider a perfect album his rationale
was interesting he said that he and the band
were so young when they made the original he
felt that the central message of the album hadn't
stuck you know look at the state of the world
right so he wanted to bring the wisdom of an
80 year old to the piece to recontextualize it
and musically what did he do to it he stripped
it way back it's very sparse very atmospheric
he added spoken word sections over the top of
the music and most controversially No guitar
solos. No guitar solos on Dark Side. That's like
taking the cheese off a pizza. I mean, Gilmore
solos are as iconic as the lyrics. It was a statement.
It was a deliberate act of reauthorship. He was
saying, this piece is about the words. This is
about the message. The music is secondary. How
did that go over? It received, let's say, mixed
reviews. But it shows that even at 80, he is
not content to just play the hits. He wants to
provoke. He wants to challenge the listener.
And speaking of challenging the listener. This
is where we have to pivot. Right. This is where
it gets really complicated is maybe the best
phrase. We have to talk about his politics. This
is the elephant in the room or perhaps the inflatable
pea in the room. Roger Waters has evolved from
a musician with political themes to a full blown
activist who uses music as his platform. And
the source material here is dense with controversy.
We need to unpack this carefully because the
accusations are very serious. They are. And we
need to be careful to parse this out accurately,
just reporting what's in the text. Let's start
with the issue that generates the most heat,
his stance on Israel and Palestine. Right. So
Waters is a very vocal member of the BDS movement.
That's Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions. He
is one of his most famous proponents. He has
repeatedly compared Israel's treatment of Palestinians
to apartheid South Africa and, most controversially,
to Nazi Germany. And he doesn't just talk about
it in interviews. It's part of the show, right?
It's integrated into the visuals. It is. In 2006,
he visited the West Bank barrier. He spray -painted
Tear Down the Wall on it. He moved a concert
from Tel Aviv to Neve Shalom, a peace village
founded by Jewish and Palestinian citizens of
Israel. But over the years, his rhetoric has
sharpened. He started calling out other artists.
He did. He has publicly feuded with other artists,
Bon Jovi, Radiohead, Nick Cave, criticizing them
for performing in Israel. He essentially demands
that other artists join his boycott. And when
they don't, he attacks them publicly. Which has
led to these very serious accusations of anti
-Semitism. Yes. And we need to look at the specific
evidence cited in the source material. In 2013,
the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights
organization, accused him of anti -Semitism for
using a giant pig balloon that had a Star of
David on it. But to be fair, the pig had other
symbols on it too, right? It wasn't just the
Star of David. It did. It had a crucifix, a crescent
and star, a dollar sign, the Shell oil logo,
a hammer and sickle. Waters' defense was that
these are all symbols of religious and political
ideologies that he sees as oppressive. He wasn't
singling out Judaism. His argument was that it
was a critique of all dogmas. Exactly. He argues
that listing the Star of David alongside the
cross and the crescent makes it a universal critique
of religion, not a specific attack on Jews. But
his critics say putting the symbol of the Jewish
people on an animal considered non -kosher is
an anti -Semitic trope in itself, regardless
of the other symbols. But it didn't stop there.
There was the documentary in 2023. The Dark Side
of Roger Waters. This was produced by the Campaign
Against Anti -Semitism. It alleged that he sent
emails to his team proposing an inflatable pig
with a slurred dirty kike written on it alongside
scum. Whoa. Okay, that is extremely specific
and ugly. It is. Now, Waters has dismissed this.
He claimed it was brainstorming regarding the
evils of fascism and bigotry, not an expression
of his own bigotry. He argues that he is exposing
these ugly words, not endorsing them. But you
can see why that defense doesn't land for a lot
of people. Of course. When you are writing those
words, even in what you call a brainstorming
session, it is shocking. And then there was the
uniform incident in Berlin. May 2023. He performed
in Berlin wearing a long black leather trench
coat with a red armband, reminiscent of a Nazi
officer's uniform. German police actually opened
an investigation for incitement. But wait, hasn't
he been wearing that costume for 40 years? It's
the character from The Wall movie, isn't it?
The fascist dictator character, Pink. That is
exactly Waters' defense. He came out and said,
I've been doing this show since 1980. This is
satire. I am playing a villain. I am playing
a demagogue to critique demagogues. He's making
an anti -fascist point by portraying a fascist.
That's his argument. He argued that the investigation
was absurd because the contest of the show makes
it clear he's depicting a bad guy. But in that
same defense, he also called the attacks diversionary
tactics by the Jewish lobby. And using a phrase
like the Jewish lobby probably didn't help his
case against the accusations of using anti -Semitic
tropes. It certainly didn't. That is a phrase
that often crosses a line for critics. And the
fallout from all this has been real. He lost
a publishing deal with BMG. Hotels in Argentina
and Uruguay canceled his reservations for his
tour. And then there was the conflict with his
former bandmates, which just went nuclear. The
tweet. The tweet. In 2023, Pauly Sampson, David
Gilmour's wife, and a lyricist for the later
Pink Floyd albums, tweeted directly at Waters.
She called him anti -Semitic to his rotten core.
And she didn't stop there. She also called him
a Putin apologist, a misogynist, a thief, and
more. It was a brutal takedown. and Gilmore.
He quote tweeted it and added his own comment.
Every word demonstrably true. Wow. That is a
bridge not just burned, but nuked from orbit.
It is. It suggests that the bad blood isn't just
about credits or money anymore. It's about fundamental
moral disagreement. You mentioned Putin apologist.
We have to pivot to Russia and Ukraine because
his take there has been, well, unexpected for
a Western rock star, to say the least. To say
the least. Before the 2022 invasion, he went
on a podcast. and called the rumors of an imminent
attack bullshit. He was mocking the American
media for suggesting Russia would invade. Well,
that aged poorly. It did. After the invasion
happened, he condemned it, but it was a very
big but. He called it not unprovoked. Okay, what
was his reasoning? He shifted the blame to NATO
expansion. He blamed the West for backing Russia
into a corner. He blamed Joe Biden, even labeling
him a war criminal in his concert visuals for
fueling the fire in the Ukraine. And then he
spoke at the UN. I mean, this was surreal. It
was. He addressed the UN Security Council at
Russia's invitation. At Russia's invitation?
How does that even happen? A Russian official
saw an interview he gave, and they invited him
to speak. In the speech, he condemned the invasion,
to be fair. But he also condemned the provocateurs
in the West, who he claims forced Russia's hand.
How did that go down in the room? The Ukrainian
ambassador wasn't having any of it. He looked
at Waters and called him another brick in the
wall of Russian propaganda. Using his own lyric
against him. A very pointed moment. He also wrote
to Ukraine's first lady, didn't he? He did. He
wrote an open letter to Aida Zelenska, urging
her husband to stop the war and negotiate, effectively
telling the invaded country to stop fighting
back. He accused extreme nationalists in Ukraine
of setting the country on a path to this war.
It's a very specific worldview. He seems to be...
intensely skeptical of any Western narrative
to the point where he often aligns with some
very authoritarian regimes. That's the pattern.
The source material outlines it clearly. He has
stated that Taiwan is part of China and that
the international community has accepted that
since 1948. OK. He endorsed Maduro in Venezuela,
calling the U .S.-backed opposition a sock puppet.
He called the White Helmets, the civil defense
volunteers in Syria, a fake organization creating
propaganda for terrorists. It's interesting.
He built his entire artistic identity on anti
-authoritarianism, tearing down the schoolmaster,
tearing down the wall. But now he often aligns
with these very powerful state actors as long
as they're anti -Western. That is the paradox
at the heart of the modern Roger Waters. He views
the United States and the West as the ultimate
empire, the ultimate evil. So anyone opposing
that empire, in his view, must have a point.
But it leads him into these contradictions where
the man who wrote The Wall. is defending governments
that crush dissent. So after all of that, what
does this all mean for the music? Can we separate
the art from the artist? That is the million
-dollar question, and it's really for every listener
to decide for themselves. But we should talk
about the artistry itself for a moment, because
beneath all the politics and the feuding, there's
a brilliant craftsman. Right, and we touched
on this, but it's funny. He's a legendary bass
player who kind of hates playing bass. He admitted
it himself. He said he was never a bass player
in his heart. He had no real interest in the
instrument as an instrument. The source material
notes that David Gilmour actually played a lot
of the bass parts on the records because Roger
couldn't be bothered or wasn't precise enough
for the studio. So what was his instrument then,
if not the bass? The studio. Mm -hmm. And the
pen. He was a lyricist, first and foremost. Biographers
cite his use of trochaic tetrameter. Trochaic
tetrameter. Okay, break that down for us non
-poets. It's a rhythmic meter in poetry. Most
English poetry is iambic, which is da -di -om,
da -di -om. Trochaic is the opposite. It's di
-em -da, di -o -em -da. Think of the opening
of the song, Time, taking away the moments that
make up a dull day. It's a driving heartbeat
rhythm. It's aggressive. It pushes the song forward
relentlessly. He wasn't just throwing words together.
He had a deep... Almost literary grasp of prosody
and how rhythm affects emotion. And the sound
effects. We can't talk about Pink Floyd's sound
without the sound effects. Music concrete. Yeah.
The clocks in time. The cash registers in money.
The voices of the roadies floating in the background
of Darkseid. He treated the album as a movie
for the ears. He was building sonic landscapes.
He wasn't a player. He was a builder. He was
an architect. He was a virtuoso builder. A builder
who builds walls. Exactly. It always comes back
to that. So as we wrap up this deep dive, we
are left with this just incredibly complex legacy.
We are. We have a man who's been married five
times, an atheist, a man permanently scarred
by the death of a father in 1944, a man who achieved
the absolute pinnacle of commercial and artistic
success, and then spent the next 40 years fighting
against the machine that made him rich and famous.
He alienated his bandmates in the most public
and brutal way possible. He's alienated a huge
portion of his fan base with his politics, but
he also created art that people, millions and
millions of people cling to as the soundtrack
of their... alive. He's the definition of the
tortured artist, but he's also the torturing
artist. He challenges you. He provokes you. He
doesn't want you to be comfortable. He definitely
doesn't want you to be comfortably numb. Nice
one. Had to get it in there. Yeah. But really,
he wants you to feel the pain, the anger, the
injustice that he feels. Even if his targets
for that anger now seem misplaced or contradictory
to many of us. It brings us to a final thought,
a final question for you to chew on. Roger Waters
famously asked in his lyrics, is this the life
we really want? A great question. A timeless
question. But looking at his trajectory from
the boy who felt trapped by an oppressive school
regime to the man being investigated by police
for wearing his own anti -fascist costume, from
the man who screamed about isolation to the man
who completely isolated himself from his closest
collaborators, it raises another question. Go
on. Does his life prove that you can never truly
tear down the wall? That maybe when you tear
one down, you just inevitably, unconsciously
build a new one out of the exact same rubble?
That is a haunting thought. And looking at Roger
Waters, the man who is still fighting the Second
World War in his head every single day at age
80, the answer might be yes. That's all for this
deep dive. Thanks for listening. Keep thinking.
See you next time.