The 1987 song Roger Waters called “one of the best I’ve ever written”
All Pink Floyd material fits in a particular bubble for most prog-rock fans. Even when talking about their questionable releases, there is sure to be a handful of fans who think it’s one of the finest entries in their catalogue and should be put alongside other classics like Dark Side of the Moon.
While Roger Waters is quick to dismiss anything without his name on it as inauthentic Pink Floyd music, he did think his solo song ‘Home’ from Radio KAOS was on par with the best tracks he wrote with the group.
When you listen to the album by itself, that statement will be a lot more difficult to take in. Radio KAOS is far from a bad album, but it’s so dated you can practically see the timestamp on the record from the minute those glistening keys come in. Despite David Gilmour getting a lot of flak for A Momentary Lapse of Reason being dated, this might be even more “of its time”, especially since half the tracks rely on Waters and a Casio to get the job done.
But like all Roger Waters outings, it’s not always about the music. It has more to do with the story being told, and considering where he was at the time, this project centres around the pressing issue of the lack of communication and how it can end up destroying relationships if not taken care of properly.
That emphasis on narrative has always been Waters’ strongest suit, even when the sonic palette hasn’t quite aged as gracefully. Strip away the glossy production and what you’re left with is the same thematic backbone that powered his best work with Pink Floyd, a fascination with isolation, disconnection, and the fragile threads that hold people together.
It’s also why a song like ‘Home’ stands out to him more than the rest of the record. Beneath the layers of dated instrumentation, there’s a core idea that feels far closer to the emotional weight of his earlier writing. For Waters, that connection to something genuine seems to matter more than whether the track fits neatly into the sound of the time, even if the final product ends up being tied to a very specific era.
While Waters drapes everything in a character portrait, it’s hard not to see ‘The Tide is Turning’ as specifically about the state of the world since it also mentions the massive charity spectacle Live Aid. The former Pink Floyd frontman may have been the mouthpiece of the album, but he at least had the foresight to know when someone was better suited to take the lead vocal than him.
Returning from her performance on ‘The Great Gig in the Sky’, getting Clare Torry to sing pieces of ‘Home’ is one of the most immaculate tracks on the record. Sure, it still has enough cheese to fill an entire cheesecake, but hearing her wail like she did back in the day almost gives the audience visions of a simpler time when Waters was making songs like ‘Breathe’ or ‘Brain Damage’.
Despite Waters admitting that he probably should have laid off some of the effects, he knew he had something unprecedented on his hands with ‘Home’, saying, “I allowed myself to get pushed down roads that were uncomfortable for me. I should never have made that record, Matt. I love some of the songs-‘Home’ is one of the best things I’ve ever written.”
It usually takes that kind of dated production for someone to learn, and once Waters got his bearings again, Amused to Death would become one of the greatest records any former Floyd member made. Say what you will about the later Floyd records, but Waters’s third outing with Jeff Beck is still one of the best fully fleshed-out concepts that any of them created after The Wall.
In fact, there’s a good chance that ‘Home’ may have been served better on the next record, only to get relegated to this piece of MTV-era ephemera. Still, it’s nice to see this as a short teaser for when the masterpieces started rolling in.
