“Absolutely misery”: the Pink Floyd vocals Roger Waters wishes he hadn’t committed to tape
Any artist with a discography that reaches as far back as Roger Waters’ is bound to harbour one or two regrets. In most cases, those regrets revolve around musical differences or perhaps production mistakes, but in the case of Waters and Pink Floyd, their extensive history of feuding is equally to blame.
Despite their outspoken resentment of one another, though, Pink Floyd have always remained a rather untouchable outfit, hailed as artistic geniuses for their discography of experimental masterpieces. After all, albums like The Dark Side of the Moon altered the musical landscape forevermore, and it was Waters who was at the reins throughout that prolific period in their history. It is easy to forget, however, just how extensive and experimental Floyd’s output was.
Within that overwhelming wealth of material, there are bound to be a few tracks or projects that haven’t stood the test of time quite as well as others, thus causing a degree of regret for Waters. In particular, the songwriter’s final bitter farewell to the band, in 1983’s aptly named The Final Cut, stands out as a notable low point as far as Waters is concerned.
Composed largely of off-cuts and unused material from the group’s previous smash The Wall, the 1983 album can hardly be considered a masterpiece, even by the most contrarian of Pink Floyd obsessives. Aside from the fact that the material itself was a far cry from the band’s strongest work, the album was further derailed by the vicious infighting that plagued the vast majority of Pink Floyd’s existence.
Ever since Waters and the gang muscled out Syd Barrett in 1968, and Waters took the mantle of band leader, he and David Gilmour struggled to see eye to eye. In fact, virtually every recording session or performance the pair ever performed together invariably ended up in furious arguments and a grudge that still persists to this very day.
Unsurprisingly, then, those working conditions didn’t always inspire the greatest in Pink Floyd. As Roger Waters told Q Magazine during a 1987 interview, once the dust had settled on his departure from the group a few years earlier, “The Final Cut was absolutely misery to make, although I listened to it of late and I rather like a lot of it.” Nevertheless, the vocal performances on the album are still a source of regret for Waters.
“I don’t like my singing on it. You can hear the mad tension running through it all.”
Roger Waters
“It was a horrible time,” he concluded. “We were all fighting like cats and dogs. We were finally realising – or accepting, if you like – that there was no band. It was really being thrust upon us that we were not a band and had not been in accord for a long time.”
Explaining, “Not since 1975, when we made Wish You Were Here. Even then, there were big disagreements about content and how to put the record together.”
That disastrous recording process for The Final Cut appeared to be the straw that finally broke Roger Waters’ back, spurring on his decision to leave the band in 1985. Seemingly, though, Gilmour and company weren’t as convinced by the idea that “there was no band,” continuing to write and record together for many more years, albeit without the same degree of success or acclaim.
