The only two writers Roger Waters called better than him: “Who else is there”
The one thing any songwriter can hope to do is leave a piece of their soul in their music. As much as people like the idea of a catchy tune, the ones who truly respect their craft tend to leave a lot of their personal feelings on the page before worrying about making something that people will want to hear on the radio. Although Roger Waters never claimed to be the most accessible songwriter that the world had ever known, he did remember that there were only a few people who could touch what he had done with the rock and roll format.
Granted, it’s not hard to see Waters’s influence on multiple generations of rock and roll fans. Outside of the British invasion bands coming out in the early 1960s, what Waters accomplished with Pink Floyd was nothing short of miraculous. They had already survived having to cut ties with Syd Barrett, but by discovering his sense of empathy, albums like Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here became the blueprint for what could be done with rock and roll.
Compared to other progressive rock acts that were into making various movements throughout the course of one song, Waters made sure never to delve into mindless noodling, either. A lot of Floyd’s best songs could still be played on an acoustic guitar and come off fine, but the real icing on the cake is listening to David Gilmour play those fantastic guitar solos or Richard Wright layering the perfect keyboard patches on top of everything.
But expanding the minds of rock and rollers wasn’t an entirely new concept by the time Waters started. As with most rock subgenres, all of the experimentation can be traced back to The Beatles, and listening to a song like ‘Strawberry Fields Forever,’ John Lennon had already begun pushing the boundaries for what music could do when someone fully took control of the studio.
As Waters began making his own music, though, everyone had started expanding their craft in England. People like King Crimson paved the way for new and exciting things in progressive rock, but Queen was the first to make something absolutely bonkers acceptable to the mainstream. It was easy to groove to ‘Money,’ but ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ grabbed the listener and demanded they pay attention.
Even though Waters had grown as a songwriter by the 1990s, he felt that his inspiration only came from people on his level of writing. When asked about which songwriters he thought were better than him, Waters said, “John Lennon. Er, I can’t think of anybody else. You see, I don’t much like listening to records. I’m a bit isolationist and insular. I’d rather be fishing. The list of great writers is very, very short but I am definitely in it. Er, who else is there that’s better than me? I really don’t know. Freddie Mercury, maybe.”
If Waters only drew the line at two people, he was leaving a lot of great music on the table. Sure, some bands may not have had the raw album sales that he did, but from a songwriting perspective, the kind of mark that everyone from Patti Smith to Bob Dylan to David Bowie to Joni Mitchell did during their tenure has helped shape the world that songwriters are operating in today.
It might not have been the kind of world that Waters envisioned for himself when he made those early Pink Floyd records, but that shouldn’t matter. He may have been one of the biggest rockstars of his time and left an indelible mark on rock and roll, but if anyone drew the line at only Waters, Lennon, and Mercury, they were going to be selling themselves short on the greatest music of the 20th century.
