Oct 22, 2020
Roger Waters Versus the Pigs
The rock legend is still skewering his opponents.
It’s 2020 and Trump is still officially president, although maybe not for much longer. Back in 2017, when this situation was new, rock legend Roger Waters must have been heavy into the Taken movies starring Liam Neeson, because he came out swinging like the deadliest of grizzled combatants. Is This the Life We Really Want? was his first solo rock album in 25 years, and it showed he hadn’t lost his edge. Like Bryan Mills in Taken, Waters has particular skills that he has acquired over a lengthy career, and they make him a nightmare for his opponents.
The former Pink Floyd bassist is at his fieriest on this release. In an interview with Rolling Stone, he said one major theme was the death of innocents, especially children, at the hands of nationalist, colonialist and supremacist forces. It comes as no surprise that war is a big part of the problem, and Waters, whose father died in World War II, has long been a vocal opponent of war. He isn’t afraid, however, as in “Picture That,” to drop bombs, many F-bombs.
His recent concerts have been equally aggressive. In a video of a 2016 performance in Mexico City, Trump’s image appears on a screen during “Pigs (Three Different Ones)” from the Pink Floyd album Animals (1977). This makes clear who Waters means by the lyrics “big man, pig man / Ha ha, charade you are.” Later, Trump’s face appears on the body of a pig, then on an obese form in lingerie, then nude with a close-up of minuscule genitalia. Then the giant inflatable pig so representative of Pink Floyd appears, graffitied with political symbols and phrases. The song ends with a series of Trump’s more odious quotes. By contrast, former bandmate David Gilmour’s recent work inside and outside Pink Floyd has been more subdued, inward.
Waters is also at his most compassionate on this album. As an activist, he has addressed poverty, malaria, climate change and, controversially, the Israeli occupation of Palestine. His worldview is one of freedom and dignity for all people, and he expresses it more poetically than ever before. The lyrics to “The Most Beautiful Girl” are satisfying apart from the music, evoking the sadness of life lost too soon. The album demonstrates an ability few lyricists have — Bono, Lana Del Rey, Aimee Mann — and more poignant phrases stand out with each listen.
The music on Is This the Life We Really Want? is highly reminiscent of Pink Floyd’s The Wall (1979). Waters has changed this sound little over the years. It’s brooding and prone to sudden outbursts, with Waters rarely straying from his soft singing-going-on-spoken-word vocal delivery. Media clips and radio chatter are everywhere, as are sound effects like clocks, aircraft and heartbeats. Unfortunately, these dramatic touches sometimes detract from the music, a characteristic already apparent on The Final Cut (1983), Pink Floyd’s last release with Waters, and a characteristic the artist appears intent on not changing. At first, longtime listeners may feel as if they’ve heard this album before.
One difference, however, is the absence of lead guitar. Waters has always benefited from the best guitarists — David Gilmour in Pink Floyd, Eric Clapton on The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking (1984) and Jeff Beck on Amused to Death (1992) — and they provided many standout moments. When Waters released a remastered version of Amused to Death in 2015, the video for “What God Wants, Pt. 1” showed Beck in the studio working his instrument into throes of protest against warfare as televised entertainment. There are talented guitarists on Is This the Life We Really Want?, among them longtime Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich, but Waters never lets them take flight. Is This the Life We Really Want? could benefit from its creator loosening up.
His backup vocalists also never get to soar. Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig of indie pop band Lucius have brought their distinct sound to the album. I find it hard to believe anyone could hear these two sing — I highly recommend intimate performances such as their NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert — and not feel a brush with the sublime. That’s why everyone from the indie project San Fermin to the heavy metal legend Ozzy Osbourne has recruited them for vocals. There was potential here to equal in impact, if not copy in style, Clare Torry’s famous solo in “The Great Gig in the Sky” on Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon (1973). While the vocalists stand out more when on stage with Waters, as well as in a series of socially distanced performances released on YouTube earlier this year, it’s a shame they’re always in the background on the album.
Flaws, however, can also be strengths. The Waters sound is one he established. It’s a good one, and no one else sounds like it. If he were to take my advice to loosen up, allow his guitarists to seize the floor, and have backup artists command his audience, the result would be something different, perhaps something more like everything else, and that too would be a shame. Waters is among the last of the uncompromising artists. Do we really want to lose that?
Roger Waters is one of a few legends — Bob Dylan from the Sixties, Rage Against the Machine from the Nineties — who can still draw blood. Even if Trump doesn’t “win” another election, Israel will still occupy Palestine, the police will still kill too many people, and the world will still be seconds to midnight. We need Waters to make us ask a question found in the lyrics of “Picture That,” to ask it and really ponder the answer: “Who gives a shit anymore?”
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