‘Amused to Death’: Roger Waters’ three wishes for the world
“You can have three wishes, if you don’t take too long,” Roger Waters sings on ‘Three Wishes’. Imagining the classic fairytale scene where a genie offers to grant a person three of their heart’s greatest desires, Waters’ character asks for his requests. But after the release of the album Amused To Death, which the track features on, a fan asked the musician the same question.
It’s the well-known Aladdin moment. If you could have absolutely anything, the question of what three things you want prompts us to consider what we care about. In his song, Waters’ character requests that “somebody’d help me write this song”, that his father was around during his youth and that “they all were happy in the Lebanon”. It’s arguably three quite random wishes, but what else can you do while working around a rhyme scheme?
But when a fan asked Waters for his own answer, his response was a bit more revelatory. Throughout his entire career, Waters has never shied away from sharing his beliefs and politics. In recent months, he called both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris “evil beyond all imagination” due to their stance on the ongoing actions carried out by Israel on the Palestinian people. He regularly gives time in his live shows to political messaging and campaigning, so it’s not a surprise that his wishes largely connect to ideas of justice.
“One, the innocent should be spared,” he said as his first wish. This interview was carried out in 2000, but since the 2010s, he’s been passionate about this topic as a firm supporter of Julian Assange, the man behind WikiLeaks. No doubt he would now see this wish as taking Assange’s face, wishing for the publisher and activist to be spared.
But he also extends his wishes out into the dark side. “Two, that the guilty should be forgiven,” he said as his second wish. Displaying an incredible sense of compassion, Waters’ passion for justice is also matched with a belief in rehabilitation and second chances, wishing the world would lead with more empathy and understanding and be more willing to allow for true healing.
For his third and final wish, he would call upon the spirit of another musician. “Three that John Lennon should have been seen as right when he said all you need is love,” he said, dedicating his final request to The Beatles’ singer and songwriter. That focus on love is seen across all three of his wishes really as Waters clearly dreams of a more caring and kinder world, and a world in which wise people preaching the need for more compassion are heard and believed.
Asking for true peace and justice, as well as more empathy, understanding, and love, is no small request, but there is no doubt that the world would be a better place if there was a supernatural being that could make it all come true. As the voice in his own song says, “Where the hell’s the lamp, sucker?”
