Roger Waters was a co–founder of Pink Floyd, but his last album with the band, "The Final Cut," arrived in music stores on this day in 1983.
Pink Floyd went on to release three more studio albums and a double–disc live album, but Waters' days with Pink Floyd ended with "The Final Cut."
Seen from that perspective, perhaps it was appropriate that "The Final Cut" was the only Pink Floyd album in which Waters received all the songwriting credit.
"The Final Cut" was also the only Pink Floyd album that didn't include keyboardist Richard Wright.
The album was originally intended to be a soundtrack for "Pink Floyd — The Wall," but plans changed with the outbreak of war in the Falkland Islands in 1982 after Argentine forces occupied the British–held islands temporarily.
By any yardstick you may choose, "The Final Cut" was Waters' album. Not only did he write all the songs, he sang lead on all but one track — guitarist David Gilmour provided lead vocals on the other one.
And it was his statement on war, inspired primarily by the experience of losing his father in World War II but also by more contemporary factors. Waters thought British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's reaction in the Falklands had been unnecessary and aggressive. The album, originally named "Requiem for a Post–War Dream," included a track that bore a variation on that — "The Post–War Dream."
The post–war dream was what Waters believed was the reason for the sacrifices made by his father and others — sacrifices that had been betrayed.
The war theme was also reflected in the cover art. The front cover showed a Remembrance poppy and four World War II medal ribbons. Additional photographs could be found when the gatefold was opened. The album art was reproduced — on a significantly smaller scale — for the CD version of the album.
And, of course, anyone who downloads the album today is deprived of that experience altogether. It wasn't true in all cases, but album art definitely added to an album's experience — and perhaps never as much as it did on a Pink Floyd album.
Pink Floyd's cover art was always memorable, and the band enjoyed considerable success with its album sales, but it had comparatively few hit singles — mostly, I suppose, because the band's tracks didn't usually lend themselves to radio airplay.
The commercially released single from "The Final Cut" could probably be described that way. "Not Now John" managed to make it to the Top 30 in the U.K. — in a censored version. In the album track, the chorus was "Fuck all that," but in the single it was changed to the more ambiguous "Stuff all that."
I have always favored a third track from the album "The Fletcher Memorial Home." It always summarized Waters' thoughts about the world's leadership of that time better than the rest.
The song got its name from Waters' father.
It probably doesn't hold up well for modern listeners, though, many of whom would not recognize the names mentioned. I guess that hopelessly dates the song, which is too bad because it is probably my favorite track.
"This is more like a novel than a record," wrote Stephen Thomas Erlewine for AllMusic.com, "requiring total concentration since shifts in dynamics, orchestration and instrumentation are used as effect."
In many ways, it lacks a true Pink Floyd sound. The music might have benefited from more input from Gilmour.
Erlewine observed that "[t]his means that while this has the texture of classic Pink Floyd, somewhere between the brooding sections of The Wall and the monolithic menace of Animals, there are no songs or hooks to make these radio favorites. The even bent of the arrangements, where the music is used as texture, not music, means that The Final Cut purposely alienates all but the dedicated listener."
