New Dark Side

[Journey Man]

If the shows run to his usual two hour-plus format, and assuming the Dark Side Redux performance takes up one half of the show, the prospect of what other material might be performed is fascinating...perhaps material from the Lockdown Sessions album?

[Frankymole]

Has Rog ever done all of The Final Cut live in concert? That'd be nice to hear.

[keleven]

Has Rog ever done all of The Final Cut live in concert? That'd be nice to hear.

Only TFC songs ever performed live were
Gunner's Dream (P&C tour)
Get Your Filthy Hands Off My Desert/Southampton Dock (KAOS & ITF tour)
Not Now John (KAOS tour)
Fletcher Memorial Home (still-pissy-about-the-Iraq-war tour)
Two Suns in the Sunset (latest tour)

Pretty decent coverage of the album, except for the frustrating omission of the title track, which is such a great, overlooked song that would have been a highlight of the record even if it had been put on The Wall

[MrFender]

(...still-pissy-about-the-Iraq-war tour) 😂

[daemonspudguy]

I mean, I also am still pissy about what my country did during the Iraq War, but that's another topic.

[MrFender]

I'm surprised Roger isn't still more pissy about the Falkland Islands war.

[Frankymole]

Pretty decent coverage of the album, except for the frustrating omission of the title track, which is such a great, overlooked song that would have been a highlight of the record even if it had been put on The Wall

Yes, I liked it on "The Video EP" but that was just mimed. Still, nice to see him "singing" it.

[rontoon]

So Steve Lillywhite has heard Roger has turned "Money" into a country song for the new Dark Side release!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQdZV3nUCKE

This is from 5 months ago before the new version was released. Certainly not a CW song.

[YASHA]

The joke with the country version of "Money" has already been=)

[Frankymole]

The joke with the country version of "Money" has already been=)

Then there was the "Dance Music" version

[TheMoebLoop]

My thoughts on "Money" and the ensuing comments here:

The instrumental is good, with the cello being a welcome addition, and some interesting synthesizer work going on in the background. I don't mind the drum tone per se, as it seems to suit well the decadent atmosphere to my ears; but, speaking of Tom Waits, if, as someone suggested, Joey was banging a skull with femurs, we can be sure there would be plenty of resonance to go around, unlike here.

Now, if only Roger would shut up and let us listen to all that...

Roger has found and fallen in love with his bass register since "Is This The Life (...)?", hasn't he? That would be a nice touch to drop in every now and then, but singing without the enthusiasm or the vigour of (again) Waits or Beefheart, there is no translation of any richness that that area might have; so it just sounds as if he's affecting a bland sinister character, or is too lazy/inept to increase the volume.

deibd has written that painting a picture using words over a musical background is something only Roger can do. Conditioned with aphantasia, I can't tell; yet, I beg to differ: my favourite poets in contemporary music, Peter Hammill, Peter Gabriel, Ian Anderson have done that lots, for years on end! One would be hard pressed to find lyrics that create pictures both lovely and slightly tragic than Alfreda Benge's on Robert Wyatt's "Dondestan". All of Scott Walker's celebrated albums are song after song of nothing but stories about fallen people and tales from his nightmares. Not to be accused of favouritism, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop ("China Girl" his best example of that), Nick Cave, Leonard Cohen (who Roger now wants to be), and Bob Dylan (who Roger has always wanted to be) are all examples of artists who I don't like, but have been praised time and time again for their skills in picture-summoning songs. You may prefer Waters's version of it, but it's not something distinctive of his, or even his forte - we know his forte is ranting, saying "or whatever", and list songs (the latter of which IS something I've never seen anyone else do).

On the middle section itself, I really don't think this is good poetry. What makes poetry good is a contentious issue in itself, but, bear with me, if we establish some parametres, I think Roger's "a tale of two boxers (?)" fails on all of them:

a. Message: my first thought on it was “what the hell is he on about?”. To use Roger against himself, at the least the ant bit on ITTLWRW, as ridiculously unimaginative and/or scientifically-ignorant as it is (go read a Edward O. Wilson book, Waters!), has a coherent message; on “Money”, we have the boxing arena, two competitors and Satan, so what? A comment on Capitalistic competition? On the weathered industry still beating the daylights of the youth, while unaware of its own mortality? On entertainment being a Satanic ritual? Frankly, who cares? If it’s any of these, either, some, or all, the message doesn’t stand out, doesn’t make you think, doesn’t provoke (apart from lazily using “rude” words; see c.), isn’t built in a way that makes you go, “how did he think of that?”; conversely, doesn’t even make you think, “he neatly give his own spin on that trope”. I don’t think message is the end-all-be-all of any art, and don’t even think that it is art’s main aspect, but, for a man who notoriously thinks it is, his poem is extremely lightweight on that. And its prelude adds nothing.

b. Storytelling: the poem starts, something happens in the middle, it ends – that’s it. The characters are presented, but you don’t really get a feel for them, except for Roger Waters beating you on the head as to why you must find the overweight champion repugnant (he’s fat, sweats, gorges on food, has toad lids, folks! Har-har-har!). The action of the poem, where the supposed hero is knocked out, happens so fast and with such poorness of structure that you will miss it if you blink, and, with him being presented so lazily to begin with, his defeat doesn’t make him a tragic figure with whom we sympathise, nor does it imbue the poem with any pathos or irony – it just happens. Then, Roger does what he thinks is the plot twist, with Satan, but it too is poorly structured, and one has lost all interest by now. And its prelude adds nothing [2].

c. Imagery: This part is the easiest, really. With “but tonight lie still/while I plunder your sweet grave”, Waters is no stranger to attending to the most basal instincts in us all, but I think this is a new low for him, not for topping the repellence of aforementioned line, but for the number of cheap epithets included as some artistic statement. I get that the description of the champion is meant to makes us not want to associate with him, but, apart from his physical ugliness or his uncultured habits, what’s wrong with that? You wouldn’t invite him to a dinner at your house, but what crime he committed? The imagery as developed by Waters is not offensive, it’s just vulgar; some called this section the Beat Poetry part of the song, but I don’t think that’s fair – sure, the Beats were degenerate edge lords, but, reading “Naked Lunch”, one wants to vomit and quit (the latter of which I did, never to return), not be led to think that Burroughs is simply pretending to be damaged. “sumo backside”, “breaks wind out loud”, “cuprous speed”(?), “digested shit”; really, I’ve seen Slipknot lyrics with more effort than this. And its prelude adds nothing [3].

d. Delivery: I’ve heard poems that seemed really silly, cheap or simplistic on paper really take off when delivered or sung by a talented voicebox - witness Rush’s “Natural Science”, Tragically Hip’s “Freaked”, Genesis’s “The Cinema Show” (“Seconds Out” version, especially). Hell, The Fall’s Mark E. Smith’s “poems” are mostly all about petty grievances of his, that nevertheless work because of his caustic delivery. What does “Money” got? A whispered, monotonic delivery that completely sucks whatever momentum or tension that the words could contain (on that, see b. and c.), making it flaccid, drawn out and disinterested, therefore uninteresting. And its prelude adds nothing [4].

e. Metre: This renders structure and movement, folks. Really, if a poem has failed at all the previous, it can still save a poem by showing that its writer at least put some effort on the skeleton. Not here: apart from a profusion of close rhymes (which do, in fact, destroy the flow by resembling a stutter), and some ABBA stanzas (chiasmic structure, not the group), the verses have no implicit melody and no movement whatsoever. And its prelude adds nothing [5].

So, yes, I think it’s a failure. And so Roger has crafted a neat instrumental to go with a facsimile of his song, set fire to it, and is selling the charred remains as a celebration; I guess he is of the mentality that, “since I cannot top the original with anything new I conceive”, as his ego thinks that everything is a competition, “I can brutalise the material as I wish”. Hmmmm, I guess the “champion” of the poem is himself.

My verdict: Was this that Syd was referring to with, "awful, awful crawl"?

[voices2010]

obviously your knowledge of contemporary poetry is minimal or non-existent. I stayed in:
"...Now, if only Roger would shut up and let us listen to all that..." I immediately guessed what was to come... more whining about new ways of doing things.

[deibd]

Not liking the ant section in ITTLWRW was enough to disregard your autistic rant

[NuffM]

deibd what an awful thing to say on here.

[rontoon]

My thoughts on "Money" and the ensuing comments here:

The instrumental is good, with the cello being a welcome addition, and some interesting synthesizer work going on in the background. I don't mind the drum tone per se, as it seems to suit well the decadent atmosphere to my ears; but, speaking of Tom Waits, if, as someone suggested, Joey was banging a skull with femurs, we can be sure there would be plenty of resonance to go around, unlike here.

Now, if only Roger would shut up and let us listen to all that...

Roger has found and fallen in love with his bass register since "Is This The Life (...)?", hasn't he? That would be a nice touch to drop in every now and then, but singing without the enthusiasm or the vigour of (again) Waits or Beefheart, there is no translation of any richness that that area might have; so it just sounds as if he's affecting a bland sinister character, or is too lazy/inept to increase the volume.

deibd has written that painting a picture using words over a musical background is something only Roger can do. Conditioned with aphantasia, I can't tell; yet, I beg to differ: my favourite poets in contemporary music, Peter Hammill, Peter Gabriel, Ian Anderson have done that lots, for years on end! One would be hard pressed to find lyrics that create pictures both lovely and slightly tragic than Alfreda Benge's on Robert Wyatt's "Dondestan". All of Scott Walker's celebrated albums are song after song of nothing but stories about fallen people and tales from his nightmares. Not to be accused of favouritism, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop ("China Girl" his best example of that), Nick Cave, Leonard Cohen (who Roger now wants to be), and Bob Dylan (who Roger has always wanted to be) are all examples of artists who I don't like, but have been praised time and time again for their skills in picture-summoning songs. You may prefer Waters's version of it, but it's not something distinctive of his, or even his forte - we know his forte is ranting, saying "or whatever", and list songs (the latter of which IS something I've never seen anyone else do).

On the middle section itself, I really don't think this is good poetry. What makes poetry good is a contentious issue in itself, but, bear with me, if we establish some parametres, I think Roger's "a tale of two boxers (?)" fails on all of them:

a. Message: my first thought on it was “what the hell is he on about?”. To use Roger against himself, at the least the ant bit on ITTLWRW, as ridiculously unimaginative and/or scientifically-ignorant as it is (go read a Edward O. Wilson book, Waters!), has a coherent message; on “Money”, we have the boxing arena, two competitors and Satan, so what? A comment on Capitalistic competition? On the weathered industry still beating the daylights of the youth, while unaware of its own mortality? On entertainment being a Satanic ritual? Frankly, who cares? If it’s any of these, either, some, or all, the message doesn’t stand out, doesn’t make you think, doesn’t provoke (apart from lazily using “rude” words; see c.), isn’t built in a way that makes you go, “how did he think of that?”; conversely, doesn’t even make you think, “he neatly give his own spin on that trope”. I don’t think message is the end-all-be-all of any art, and don’t even think that it is art’s main aspect, but, for a man who notoriously thinks it is, his poem is extremely lightweight on that. And its prelude adds nothing.

b. Storytelling: the poem starts, something happens in the middle, it ends – that’s it. The characters are presented, but you don’t really get a feel for them, except for Roger Waters beating you on the head as to why you must find the overweight champion repugnant (he’s fat, sweats, gorges on food, has toad lids, folks! Har-har-har!). The action of the poem, where the supposed hero is knocked out, happens so fast and with such poorness of structure that you will miss it if you blink, and, with him being presented so lazily to begin with, his defeat doesn’t make him a tragic figure with whom we sympathise, nor does it imbue the poem with any pathos or irony – it just happens. Then, Roger does what he thinks is the plot twist, with Satan, but it too is poorly structured, and one has lost all interest by now. And its prelude adds nothing [2].

c. Imagery: This part is the easiest, really. With “but tonight lie still/while I plunder your sweet grave”, Waters is no stranger to attending to the most basal instincts in us all, but I think this is a new low for him, not for topping the repellence of aforementioned line, but for the number of cheap epithets included as some artistic statement. I get that the description of the champion is meant to makes us not want to associate with him, but, apart from his physical ugliness or his uncultured habits, what’s wrong with that? You wouldn’t invite him to a dinner at your house, but what crime he committed? The imagery as developed by Waters is not offensive, it’s just vulgar; some called this section the Beat Poetry part of the song, but I don’t think that’s fair – sure, the Beats were degenerate edge lords, but, reading “Naked Lunch”, one wants to vomit and quit (the latter of which I did, never to return), not be led to think that Burroughs is simply pretending to be damaged. “sumo backside”, “breaks wind out loud”, “cuprous speed”(?), “digested shit”; really, I’ve seen Slipknot lyrics with more effort than this. And its prelude adds nothing [3].

d. Delivery: I’ve heard poems that seemed really silly, cheap or simplistic on paper really take off when delivered or sung by a talented voicebox - witness Rush’s “Natural Science”, Tragically Hip’s “Freaked”, Genesis’s “The Cinema Show” (“Seconds Out” version, especially). Hell, The Fall’s Mark E. Smith’s “poems” are mostly all about petty grievances of his, that nevertheless work because of his caustic delivery. What does “Money” got? A whispered, monotonic delivery that completely sucks whatever momentum or tension that the words could contain (on that, see b. and c.), making it flaccid, drawn out and disinterested, therefore uninteresting. And its prelude adds nothing [4].

e. Metre: This renders structure and movement, folks. Really, if a poem has failed at all the previous, it can still save a poem by showing that its writer at least put some effort on the skeleton. Not here: apart from a profusion of close rhymes (which do, in fact, destroy the flow by resembling a stutter), and some ABBA stanzas (chiasmic structure, not the group), the verses have no implicit melody and no movement whatsoever. And its prelude adds nothing [5].

So, yes, I think it’s a failure. And so Roger has crafted a neat instrumental to go with a facsimile of his song, set fire to it, and is selling the charred remains as a celebration; I guess he is of the mentality that, “since I cannot top the original with anything new I conceive”, as his ego thinks that everything is a competition, “I can brutalise the material as I wish”. Hmmmm, I guess the “champion” of the poem is himself.

My verdict: Was this that Syd was referring to with, "awful, awful crawl"?

Thank you for taking the time to articulate your thoughts so sussinctly. Not a word was wasted and it's rare to see this kind of analysis on a public forum where most posts contain a couple of sentences expressing people's feelings without explaining why.

[Triply]

My thoughts on "Money" and the ensuing comments here:


So, yes, I think it’s a failure. And so Roger has crafted a neat instrumental to go with a facsimile of his song, set fire to it, and is selling the charred remains as a celebration; I guess he is of the mentality that, “since I cannot top the original with anything new I conceive”, as his ego thinks that everything is a competition, “I can brutalise the material as I wish”. Hmmmm, I guess the “champion” of the poem is himself.

My verdict: Was this that Syd was referring to with, "awful, awful crawl"?

This is my totally subjective take on your take.

I appreciated your post about what you consider poetry should be. However, your last couple of paragraphs - your summary - undoes everything.

Your verbose name dropping of lyricists and poets to tell us what Roger should be doing seems to disregard the very essence of everything Roger has ever done.
Decades ago, Roger mentioned how the lyrics of Breathe in the Air are like second form poetry that you'd be embarrassed to show anyone, but it is that very quality of the lyrics that seems to have made it timeless.

Nothing in that regard has actually changed. Roger still manages to come up with lines that are very simplistic in nature, but can really catch you off guard with it's weight or emotion.

Whether it's "The rusty wire that holds the cork that keeps the anger at bay, gives way and suddenly it's day again", or "Hey Joe, where you goin' with that dogma in your head? You can prove your point, but your kids will still be dead" or "No tears to cry, no feelings left. This species has amused itself to death"...
Whether it's "You never took us fishing dad, and now you never will", or "He picks his way up through the broken China of her life"...
Whether it's "I wonder what became of them in the cauldron that was Lebanon", or "I'm coming home, I'm the life that you gave, I'm the children you save, I'm the promise you made, I'm the woman you crave. So hold on, I'm coming home", the lines still bring a lump in my throat.

As a conveyer of feelings via words, he has been constantly hitting it out of the park decades after TDSotM.

If you do not dispute his legacy and only take exception to Money, then I would just agree to disagree because, as I said, this is purely subjective.
You obviously know a lot more about poetry than I do. However, your supposition about Roger's mentality and your statement about his ego reduce your entire post to just another rant against Waters and, as expected, it is appreciated by the usual suspects. And while I do get the irony that my post is just another rant from the pro-Waters faction, I couldn't help responding when I read your summary.

Roger has made it amply clear that he is not trying to paint over the legacy of what he and his ex-bandmates created and that he is proud of it. This is no different from David trying to do an acoustic version of Shine on you Crazy Diamond in 2001-2002.

In the end, to paraphrase Roger, us fans are like 2 lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year, running over the same old ground...

P.S. I think Syd was referring to The Endless River with "awful, awful crawl"!!

[rontoon]

P.S. I think Syd was referring to The Endless River with "awful, awful crawl"!!

You almost wrote a decent post until you dropped this awful, off-topic whataboutism.

[MrFender]

And time to close the thread.

[Skinny12]

This is so sad. You guys are abolishing your own community by not being able to accept other opinions. How many times do we have to explain this.