Ok. I don’t want to spend too much time on this. I’ve been a HUGE Pink Floyd fan since I was 13, and I’m 51 now.
The Final Cut was never one of my favorite PF albums. I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t love it.
I just listened to the whole thing. Holy shit. It’s the whole MAGA movement explained. Really. It’s kinda messed up.
I’d encourage everyone to listen to is and see how it’s an anthem to how the world is changing and leaving some people behind. It’s uncanny.
And it’s from 1983.
It’s not uncanny, it’s what was happening in England during the Falkland’s War and the reign of Margaret Thatcher.
I’ve been hooked from on The Final Cut since I heard The Gunner’s Dream put to a clip from Heavy Metal. While deployed to Iraq. In the midst of an existential crisis.
I practically lived The Hero’s Return and One of the Few, teaching a bunch of little ingrates at the Naval Academy in my first tour back from Iraq. I think some of them might just have laid down and died in the decade or so since. That’s… that’s not something to dwell on, I think…
Anyway, I fear Pink Floyd had already captured the essence of MAGA with Waiting for the Worms in The Wall.
Agreed. I’d say it’s actually very canny.
mmm
I listened to Animals the morning after Trump was first elected in 2016, and felt the same way.
I asked back during the presidential campaign, when Trump kept getting cease and desist orders from musicians whose music he was using without permission, why he didn’t just use “In The Flesh”, since it seemed obvious that Roger Waters wouldn’t mind.
So I was aware that the album was a reaction to what was going on in the UK at the time. But I still think it’s uncanny because what does early 80s Thatcherism have to do with 2020s MAGA?
It’s also a bit odd to hear Waters expressing that MAGA sentiment.
Quite a lot, really. So does Reaganism. Conservatives have been flirting with fascism since the Weimar Republic at least. Trump has just given it an extra nudge in the US.
Not lately. Rogers has even been dropped by BMG over his politics and lost a lot of fans over some of his more unpopular views.
There’s a lot of us out there trying to look the other way just enough to keep enjoying his music. I’ll always listen to Pink Floyd, I’m not going to spend money to see him a third time.
Have I been wooshed all these years?
I thought Waters’ depiction of the neo-fascist in The Wall was to show them as idiotic thugs, mocking rather than praising them.
I thought the fact that audience members might have missed the point and flocked to such movements kind-of underlined the point about their level of intelligence.
But are his detractors saying he really is a neo-fascist?
Is he really a neo-fascist, or is he an artist writing scenarios that are emphasizing the faults of Neo-Fascists?
It’s no secret that Reagan left the Democratic party because he saw too many ‘dark’ delegates at the convention; it’s no coincidence that a new wave of fascism became more vocal during his administration – and during the 2016 and coming administrations, as well. [It had never and has never really gone away.] Thatcher was just his British counterpart.
–G!
–G?
People aren’t angry about his song lyrics, they’re angry about things he’s said in interviews or stopped concerts to talk about.
Taiwan is part of China and Ukraine is the at-fault party for getting invaded by Russia, that type of stuff.
It’s the same reason why Trump matches the Biblical Antichrist prophecies so closely. The prophets weren’t able to pull back the veil of the future; they just knew of people like Trump in their time and before, and saw how the population responded to them.
@Joey_P , you might not want to give that channel too many views, if they’re referring to Waters’ statements as “truth grenades”.
Wow. I was aware of the allegations being levied against Waters, and I did not doubt them. But that video is the first time I’ve listened to him speak on these matters.
What happened to him?
I used to think so, in 1979. Maybe, at the time, so did Waters. But it’s obvious he doesn’t agree any more (see the linked thread).
The Final Cut is actually more problematic. I think Waters was the opposite there. He hated the whole thiing, I don’t think that album is supporting Thatcherism at all. The trouble with that album is it is too angry. The whole album seems to be a simple screed on how Waters hates the entire world for killing his father. To the point of being unlistenable. The Fletcher Memorial Home even lists them by name.
It’s cl\ear that DSotM is also an album about Waters dealing with the world killing his father, but it had the benefit of being a bit more subtle. And better. Though The Gunner’s Dream and the title track are some of their best songs.
Almost everything Waters has done has been about “I’m angry I lost my daddy,” and I’m sorry, at some point you’ve lost my sympathy and it’s time to move on. We all have our crosses to bear.
I certainly see The Final Cut as a criticism of Thatcher, not a love letter.
I was just struck at how many of the critical lines (One of the few, to land on your feet; What happened to the post war dream; If it wasn’t for the n*** being so good at building ships; and more) sound exactly like the MAGA complaints about being left behind, the loss of good manufacturing jobs, and a pining for a past time.
It’s populism (ok, and racism with the slur about Japanese shipbuilding), and unfortunately right wing authoritarian movements have historically excelled at tapping into that with a kind of faux-populist rhetoric to mobilize the masses into voting against their own interests. Centrists, however, are already so primed to see the left as uniquely dangerous that when the left tries to draw on similar (but more genuine and with less racism, sometimes even to the point of being actually anti-racist) populist sentiments to oppose the rise of fascism, they get shouted down with #bothsides rhetoric (which, curiously, only seems to get directed at the left, while the ultra-right proto-fascist movements get sane-washed).
20 or 30 years ago, I remember Waters saying WWII was a “just war” (in the sense of being morally right). The UK declared war on Germany when they invaded Poland. Yet so did the Soviets. Ribbentropp had also convince Stalin it would be a real neat idea to invade Finland too, which demonstrated to Germany the general capabilities (if not sheer numbers) of the Russian Army whom Germany would overwhelm across Ukraine and pretty deeply into Russia.
If it was a “just” war it certainly was not easy to pick sides, even once you decided it would not be Germany (and that was not a given in the USA. I’ll assume Charles Lindbergh was well read and pre-Pearl Harbor was not the only American who wanted nothing to do with Europe)
So the USA sent lots of trucks and stuff to Russia via the White Sea before and after Dec 7 1941. It probably helped yet it was by no means a goodwill gesture - it was crucial that Germany not take control of European Russia’s resources.
The unbroken siege of Leningrad which Hitler wanted really bad and his victory celebration at the Astoria Hotel there was cancelled. That was just a symbolic gesture.
Germany lost the war (to all intents) at Stalingrad as Stalin had not executed brtilliant Field Marshall’s like Zhukov and Vasilevsky.
Then this “just war” became all about The West getting to Berlin before Zhukov did (they did not).
Waters makes some cogent arguments about NATO encroaching on Russia. Putin - no brilliant tactician - rightly knew he had to take Crimea to secure Sevastopol which would be a de-facto US/UK/NATO naval base by now (no cite unless it’s in Waters liner notes).
He is absolutely out of his mind regarding Ukraine - just everything. And Taiwan is certainly considered part of China (dunno anything about the reason for a treaty in 1948) yet I’ve read stuff about colonies gaining independence, revolutions and how the sun never sets on the British Empire.
I recall Trump got into a bit of diplomatic trouble taking (or even making) a call to the Taiwan leader when he became President in 2017. I reckon if it’s his call where the 7th Navy is going to be in the next 12 months - Hawaii, Brisbane or the Chinese Sea.
He should first appoint the nominal bassist for Pink Floyd as ambassador to China.