Could Richard Wright have saved ‘The Final Cut’?
There’s a very telling part of the liner notes for the 1983 Pink Floyd album The Final Cut. Tucked away, where none but their most die-hard fans who know their Richard Wright from their Nick Mason will find it, is an album description more devastatingly accurate than anyone could have intended. In it, the album is called The Final Cut: A Requiem for the Post-War Dream by Roger Waters, performed by Pink Floyd.
In typical ‘Rog’ fashion, he probably felt like he was spreading the credit evenly. After all, like their previous album, The Wall, he was the primary creative vision behind it. In fact, the original vision for the album was a collection of offcuts from The Wall to celebrate the release of Alan Parker’s film version of the album.
Unfortunately, most people saw right through the ruse and to the heart of the problem of The Final Cut. This was a Roger Waters’ solo album in all but name, no matter how “performed by Pink Floyd” it was. It’s since been heralded as one of the low points of their whole back catalogue and the beginning of the band’s descent from titans of British rock to a squabbling mess of egos and legal threats.
Could there have been a way around this? After all, the band did make some great music with Waters at the helm. It’s not outside the realm of possibility that he could have shepherded the band, if not back to greatness, then at least to relevancy. The problem lies in exactly that, though. Waters saw himself as the sole creative vision for the band when his secret weapon left in 1981.
What did Richard Wright mean to Pink Floyd?
By the end of Floyd’s imperial phase in the late 1970s, Richard Wright was becoming more and more disillusioned with the band. The preternaturally talented pianist had spent the last 15 years not only as the keyboard player but, crucially, as one of their key arrangers and producers as well.
He’s arguably the glue holding the band together on Wish You Were Here and Animals was all but produced by the man singlehandedly. So when The Wall came along, not only did Waters hog all the songwriting spotlight for himself, but half the actual keyboard parts were being played by seemingly anyone except Wright.
By his own admission, Wright ended the 1970s deeply depressed, resentful of his bandmates and desperate to leave the coalition. Ultimately, the decision was made to retain him as a session player until the end of The Wall’s world tour. By the time it ended in 1981, Wright’s mind was still made up, and he parted ways with the band.
However, what if he hadn’t? If he’d stayed on, could his influence have made something listenable out of The Final Cut? I hate to say it, but probably not. Waters was in full megalomaniac mode by the time that album was being made, and there was no one, not even talismanic guitarist and singer David Gilmour, who was getting any creative say whatsoever.
Had Wright been there, he would have been in the exact same conditions which had ground his spirit into dust five years previously. He would have either decided to leave then or done exactly as Waters told him to do—just the way he’d done for The Wall. This was, after all, an album “by Roger Waters”, only “performed by Pink Floyd”.
