OPINION
QUESTION: Is Roger Waters' music adamantly anti-war?
| In the war against war, Waters takes no prisoners by Jacki Dimitroff Interestingly, the three works addressing issues of war have several common themes, and one of those is the destruction of the human race. "Two Suns in the Sunset" from The Final Cut has the lines "I suffer premonitions/Confirm suspicions/Of the holocaust to come." Similarly, Radio KAOS climaxes with the song "Four Minutes" in which the hero, Billy, fools the world into thinking a nuclear war is about to occur. And then there is the most obvious example, the title track from Amused to Death. In that song, the lyrics describe the end of the human race from an alien's perspective: "A keen-eyed look-out/Spied a flickering light/Our last hurrah." Clearly Waters sees war as the equivalent of the destruction of the human race, as the scene is played over in each of his works addressing war. Is such a statement only marginally anti-war? No, it's pretty unequivocal. Another similarity Waters uses in his works addressing war is his omnilateral blame for the existence of war. He doesn't consider only national leaders to be warmongers—he also faults the apathy of the average citizen. For the former, Waters presents "Get Your Filthy Hands Off My Desert" from The Final Cut, "The Powers that Be," from Radio KAOS, and "What God Wants" from Amused to Death. Each of these songs places blame directly on our national leaders for their role in waging war against other humans. However, there is the argument that finds fault in the world's citizens for contributing to the perpetuation of war. In The Final Cut, Waters writes "Not Now John," which shows an obsession for those things that distract us against thinking about war: work, television and films, and blind patriotism ("got to compete with the wily Japanese"). In the song "Home" from Radio KAOS, Waters questions the weak-minded apathy of a citizenry that allows itself to be distracted from real issues by their leaders ("When they overrun the defenses/a minor invasion put down to expenses/will you go down to the airport lounge"). Finally, in the ultimate expression of apathy, Waters writes in Amused to Death about "The Bravery of Being Out of Range." Here the issues of concealing our true problems through self-medication come to the forefront. We want to see war, and we want it to be entertaining enough to get us through the cocktail hour: "Hey bartender over here/ two more shots and two more beers/sir turn up the TV sound/the war has just started on the ground." Clearly Waters takes no prisoners in his anti-war campaign. All are at fault, national leaders and citizens alike. When Waters lays blame for war, he doesn't qualify it. War is bad; everyone is equally at fault; everything I need to know I learned in kindergarten. In reviewing the entire Pink Floyd/Roger Waters examination of war, there isn't a single work addressing a just cause for war. Instead, Waters uses his music to make very definitive anti-war statements. There is no vacillation in the lyrics of "Too Much Rope" from Amused to Death: "you don't have to be a Jew to disapprove of murder." He further adds his hope that the next generation will heed his message on "The Tide is Turning" from Radio K.A.O.S: "Now the satellite's confused /'Cos on Saturday night / The airwaves were full / of compassion and light / And his silicon heart warmed / To the sight of a billion candles burning....But on Saturday night / all those kids in the sun / wrested technology's sword from / the hand of the War Lords" If there were one statement I had to choose to describe Waters' view on war, it would be these lyrics at the end of "Two Suns in the Sunset": "Ashes to diamonds/ foe and friend/we were all equals in the end." This is the best argument Waters ever makes for or against war. This statement excludes economics, patriotism, and personal issues and addresses everyone as a human being. Reagan or Billy, we need to concern ourselves with the matters of war and how they effect ourselves as humans. Again, Waters' shows he is pretty singleminded in his attitudes toward war. After examining Waters' music, it is pretty clear that he is adamantly anti-war, but there is one other argument to make, and that comes from his personal life. Many know that Waters' father died in World War II. With this in mind, expecting Waters to have less than a total disdain for the act of war is like expecting someone who lost a loved one to a drug overdose to differentiate between good and bad drugs. It just doesn't play. Roger Waters is adamantly anti-war, and that is clearly expressed in his music. In each of his works addressing war, Roger Waters portrays the end of the human race and examines the perpetuators of war, both large and small. He makes a unilateral call for reprieve on war itself in every work. I believe if Waters had a statement to make in favor of war, he had many opportunities to do so, and yet he did not. Instead, he focuses on highlighting the human causes of war and a sign of hope that we can all see how to end war forever. Jacki Dimitroff is a Spare Bricks staff member.
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A closer look reveals nuance and subtleties by McDaniel Wyatt
It is common knowledge that Waters' armchair socialism has always contained a large dose of anti-violence sentiment despite what may seem like his occasional support for personal attacks ("It's A Miracle", "One of These Days"). From his earlier 'war' pieces, such as "Corporal Clegg" and "Us and Them" to his later period of larger thematic works (from The Wall to "Each Small Candle"), Waters has injected a major element of his ideology into his songwriting: anti-authoritarian pacifism. Evidence of this is seen in one of his earliest compositions, "Corporal Clegg", in which Waters pines over the forgotten veteran who receives a wooden leg in World War II, and whose only reward is a medal he found at the zoo. A continued disgust is included in "Us & Them," where high ranking officers relax easily as "the lines of the map move from side to side" (a glaring reference to the World Wars of the twentieth century). It is interesting to note that "Us & Them" is a re-working of the Wright composition titled "The Violent Sequence" (written to accompany the riot scene from Zabriskie Point), a compelling fluid-piano- and-swishing-cymbal array that traditionally would be involved in anything but a 'violent sequence'. Pink Floyd retools this number to maximum effect to preserve the irony of "The Violent Sequence" and embody its original intent. With the pure juxtaposition of the lilting phrasing of "after all we're only ordinary men" to the bombastic rush of "forward he cried from the rear / and the front rank died", Waters and company counteract the apathetic generals' shrug concerning "what the fighting is all about." This viewpoint is not necessarily pacifism but the utter triviality of war (and perhaps violence in general), and is continued into Waters' magnum opus, The Wall. The autobiographical "When the Tigers Broke Free" contains many themes about 'the generals' that are similar to those found in "Us & Them". "Tigers", however, discusses his father's death in the Italian campaign ("the Anzio bridgehead was held for the price of a few hundred ordinary lives"). This campaign, while not seen as historically irrelevant, was admitted by Dwight Eisenhower as a compromise with the British government. The English were suspicious of easing tensions on the Soviet's Eastern Front, because of a fear that the Russians would acquire total control of Eastern Europe (which, of course, they did anyway). They chose instead to focus on campaigns in Greece, Northern Africa, and Italy. Finally, to Stalin and the Soviet Union's relief, Roosevelt and Churchill ordered the D-Day invasion after Anzio. But by this point the Soviets had lost over 25 million soldiers and civilians to the Nazi war machine. The British and American casualties combined were less than one million. This mentality is the one that Waters is railing so passionately against. It is instructive to view The Wall as a whole, however, and Waters does not let himself escape without some self-criticism. Perhaps his father died in vain, but is it better to allow fascism to run free over Europe? In a very ironic twist, Waters' protagonist Pink becomes the leader of the fascist swine that are similar to the ones who killed his father during World War II. Upon further review, we find that in Pink's trial, he is condemned for blaming others for his own faults. Whether Pink (or perhaps Waters himself) recognizes that he is right or wrong in his beliefs, Waters still holds true to them in his earlier and later work. In Radio KAOS, he condemns market forces for destroying lives (similar to the high-ranking generals in "Us & Them"). In Animals, he depicts the three different pigs that contaminate society and the dogs that also wreak general havoc. Even his newest work is presented with a touch of the old "Us & Them" thematic. During his In The Flesh 1999-2000 tour he showed Stanley Kubrick's film Paths of Glory, which concerns the misguided leadership of World War I generals.
Mcdaniel Wyatt is a Spare Bricks staff member.
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by Rick Karhu
"The Hero's Return Part 2" has a rather unique status in the entire body of Pink Floyd's work. The Final Cut was originally intended to be an album of outtakes from The Wall (although it evolved eventually into its own fully developed work) and "The Hero's Return Part 2" is an outtake from that. So, in a roundabout way, the song is an outtake from the outtakes.
The word "outtake" conjures images of half-baked or poorly constructed tidbits whose inherent weaknesses almost automatically select it for removal. This characterization doesn't apply to "The Hero's Return Part 2." The lamentably short song, which essentially follows the same same melody as "The Hero's Return Part 1" (a.k.a. "The Hero's Return") albeit with different instrumentation, is a shockingly powerful piece of music with lyrics that are harrowing and memorable. It's no outtake in terms of quality.
Why it failed to make the final cut is a mystery and to the best of my knowledge Roger Waters has never gone on record with an explanation. The piece was good enough to resurface on the single for "When the Tigers Broke Free" (which itself never made the album) where it was rejoined with the first part into one piece strangely titled "The Hero's Return Part 1 and 2." This, despite the fact that the two "halves" were mixed together as one.
| The Hero's Return Part 2: The Lyrics |
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Jesus Christ, I
might as well be dead Bombarding their
still soft shores When I turned back
the stone Lyrics by Roger Waters |
It's a reasonable assumption that most Pink Floyd fans make that the songs were originally joined this way and that the so-called "part 2" was actually the original ending of the song. The single had them mixed in a way that lends credence to that assumption.
However, I think there are some important lyrical and musical clues that indicate that the two pieces were in fact originally intended for different places on the album. In fact, the lyrics are the greatest clue to this and those of "part 2" fit almost seamlessly with other parts of the album.
Roll over the stone
The first time I heard "The Hero's Return Part 1 and 2", it immediately struck me that the two sounded like they had been spliced together in the studio to sound like one song. The lyrics winding down to "the gunner's dying words... on the intercom..." still sounded like the end of a song to me while the sudden swelling guitar drone that kicks off part 2 sounded like the start of a whole other song.
To my ears, the joining of these two parts sounded artificial and forced.
Of course, that could explain why part two was removed, if the two parts failed to make a cohesive whole. It could also have meant that part had originally occupied a slot elsewhere on the album. I wondered for bit where "part two" would best fit on The Final Cut.
A look at past examples provides us with some clues about how "The Hero's Return part 2" might have been originally conceived. There has been a tendency in Pink Floyd albums to reprise themes or songs. Consider the two parts of "Breathe" on Dark Side of the Moon (three parts if you consider "Any Colour You Like" just an instrumental jam over the same chord progression) or the three parts of "Another Brick in the Wall". Consider "Empty Spaces" and "What Shall We Do Now?" which were originally conceived in a similar manner.
Like those songs, the differences between part one and part two of "The Hero's Return" are evident in the dynamic shifts. Part two is a lot heavier than part one.
Disappointment back home
Let's think about what The Final Cut would have been like if the album had included "The Hero's Return Part 1 and 2" in place of the "truncated" version. The beautiful segue from "...the gunner's dying words... on the intercom..." to "Goodbye Max... goodbye Mom..." would have been destroyed by lyrics that seem otherwise irrelevant to that moment on the album.
The lyrics are fantastic, but they simply do not fit between "The Hero's Return" and "The Gunner's Dream."
Look at the end of part two and you see Roger expressing his "disappointment back home." What other songs on the album contain that theme? The opening song hints at it ("if it wasn't for the nips"), but the song that really makes the point, obviously, is "Not Now John" with its angry and sarcastic look at post-war, nationalistic pride.
The flow, both lyrically and dynamically, from "my own disappointment back home..." to "Not now John..." is perfect. The former becomes very quiet and sparse which gives way to the latter's louder and more strident tone.
The most striking segue however is from "The Final Cut" into "The Hero's Return Part 2", where the songs lock together perfectly, like pieces of a puzzle.
"I held the blade/in trembling hands/prepared to make it but.../Just then the phone rang/I never had the nerve to make the final cut ... Jesus Christ I might as well be dead...."
That's such a startlingly natural fit that I find it hard to believe that the song should have been anywhere else on the album but between "The Final Cut" and "Not Now John." It's too right feeling. The beginning and ending of part two dovetails perfectly with those two songs.
Rick Karhu is editor of Spare Bricks
Is
Rogers Waters' music adamantly anti-war? Of course it is, and for a
variety of reasons. To ask that question is the same as asking if Waters
would ever support war for the right reasons, which is totally ridiculous.
You only have to examine Waters' portrayal of war—and whom he finds
at fault— to really understand his position on war. There are three
works of Pink Floyd/Roger Waters to examine in this argument: The
Final Cut, Radio KAOS, and Amused to Death. These
are the only works that Waters has presented that have any significance
to the war themes. A review of the elements in each of these works
reveals definitive evidence about Roger Waters' position on war in general,
and there are no "gimmies."
Is
Roger Waters' music adamantly anti-war? Of course not! Generally speaking,
of course, Waters is a pacifist, and his lyrics do seem to contain an
anti-war outlook. But on closer inspection it is not 'war' in itself
that Waters is railing against, but rather its evil partner, authoritarianism.
Waters'
music is not ardently anti-war, but rather anti-authoritarian. The so-called
pacifism that we see in his work is really based on the fact that he
views wars as being fought for the wrong reasons. He insists in his
thematic works that war is not intrinsically wrong, in itself, but rather
that the reasons for war for are, in fact, immoral ones.