The Final Cut (album)
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| The Final Cut | ||
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| Studio album by Pink Floyd | ||
| Released | March 21, 1983 (UK) April 2, 1983 (US) |
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| Recorded | July - December 1982, in various studios | |
| Genre | Art rock Hard rock Progressive rock |
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| Length | 43:27 (original album) 46:40 (2004 re-issue) |
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| Label | Harvest, EMI (UK) Columbia, Capitol (US) |
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| Producer(s) | Roger Waters, James Guthrie and Michael Kamen | |
| Professional reviews | ||
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| Pink Floyd chronology | ||
| A Collection of Great Dance Songs (1981) |
The Final Cut (1983) |
Works (1983) |
The Final Cut is a rock album by Pink Floyd recorded at several studios in the UK from July to December 1982. It is the final Pink Floyd studio album to feature Roger Waters. None of the songs have ever been performed live by the band, though some have been performed live by Waters during solo tours. The album is dominantly Roger Waters (similar to The Wall, but even more so). Waters' dominance on the album is most clearly seen on the back cover, which reads "The Final Cut by Roger Waters, performed by Pink Floyd".
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[edit] History
The LP was released by Harvest/EMI in the UK on March 21, 1983, then on Columbia Records in the US on April 2. The Final Cut reached #1 on the UK album charts and peaked at #6 in the US on the Billboard album charts. The Final Cut went Gold and Platinum in the US with a million copies in sales and then Double Platinum on January 31, 1997. It was the lowest selling Pink Floyd studio album in the US since Meddle (released in 1971).
The album was noted for having been recorded using what was called "Holophonics" - a process for enhancing the aural three-dimensional 'feel' of the recording. It was also claimed that this process could not be duplicated through subsequent recordings, i.e., copying to tape cassette.[citation needed]
Originally scheduled as the film soundtrack for the band's movie The Wall, it evolved into a new anti-war concept album. The album cover states: "A Requiem for the Post War Dream by Roger Waters, performed by Pink Floyd" - it was written solely by Waters and is the last Floyd album with him on board. The Final Cut is also the only Pink Floyd album on which Richard Wright does not appear, as he was fired during the recording of The Wall. It has only one David Gilmour lead vocal (on "Not Now John"), and also features David Gilmour's distinctive guitar work. The overall sound is much like a Roger Waters solo album, but the mood of every song is very dark. Waters offered to release it as a solo effort, but Gilmour requested it to be a Pink Floyd record due to the pressure of the recording company wanting a Pink Floyd album and not a Roger Waters album. However, in his book Inside Out: A Personal History of Pink Floyd, Nick Mason claims that Roger never offered to release it as his solo record. Waters dominated the recording sessions, furthering the tension that already existed between him, Gilmour, and Nick Mason, and even employed a session drummer on "Two Suns in the Sunset." Waters intended this to be one of the last Pink Floyd efforts. In 1985, Waters left the band. Gilmour and Mason (along with Wright as a session player) later put out A Momentary Lapse of Reason in 1987 and continued to tour and record as a threesome.
The Final Cut was also the only Pink Floyd album not to have a concert tour in support of the album as the band unofficially split up in January of 1983 as Roger Waters dove head first into the recording of The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking and David Gilmour recorded his solo album About Face.
"Not Now John" was released as a single with "fuck all that" from the choruses overdubbed as "stuff all that" (the lyrics on the sleeve of the 7" single contain that phrase "stop all that"), backed by an extended version of "The Hero's Return" as a B-side, featuring an additional verse.
[edit] Track listing
[edit] On the original release
- "The Post War Dream" – 3:02
- "Your Possible Pasts" – 4:22
- "One of the Few" – 1:12
- "The Hero's Return" – 2:56
- "The Gunner's Dream" – 5:07
- "Paranoid Eyes" – 3:40 (end of side A)
- "Get Your Filthy Hands Off My Desert" – 1:19
- "The Fletcher Memorial Home" – 4:11
- "Southampton Dock" – 2:13
- "The Final Cut" – 4:46
- "Not Now John" – 5:01
- Lead vocals: David Gilmour and Roger Waters
- "Two Suns in the Sunset" – 5:14
[edit] On the 2004 re-release
- "The Post War Dream" – 3:00
- "Your Possible Pasts" – 4:26
- "One of the Few" – 1:11
- "When the Tigers Broke Free" – 3:16
- "The Hero's Return" – 2:43
- "The Gunner's Dream" – 5:18
- "Paranoid Eyes" – 3:41
- "Get Your Filthy Hands Off My Desert" – 1:17
- "The Fletcher Memorial Home" – 4:12
- "Southampton Dock" – 2:10
- "The Final Cut" – 4:45
- "Not Now John" – 4:56
- Lead vocals: David Gilmour and Roger Waters
- "Two Suns in the Sunset" – 5:23
All songs composed by Roger Waters.
- All lead vocals performed by Roger Waters unless otherwise stated.
[edit] Credits
- Roger Waters - lead vocals on all songs, bass guitar, synthesizer, tape effects, acoustic guitar, sleeve design
- David Gilmour - guitars, lead vocals on "Not Now John", bass guitar
- Nick Mason - drums, percussion, holophonic sound recordings
with
- Michael Kamen - piano harmonium
- Andy Bown - Hammond organ
- Ray Cooper - percussion
- Andy Newmark - drums on "Two Suns..."
- Raphael Ravenscroft - tenor sax
- The National Philharmonic Orchestra conducted and arranged by Michael Kamen
- James Guthrie; Remastering producer, engineer, remastering on 2004 re-issue
- Andrew Jackson - Engineer
- Willie Christie - Photography
- Doug Sax; mastering on original album and Remastering on 1994 and 1997 re-issues
[edit] Film
Pink Floyd released a 19-minute "video EP" for The Final Cut, essentially four music videos in a continuous sequence, directed by Willie Christie, who was Waters's brother-in-law. The running order was "The Gunner's Dream", "The Final Cut", "Not Now John", and "The Fletcher Memorial Home". The film is now available on the band's web site. English actor Alex McAvoy, who played the teacher in the film version of "The Wall", had a prominent role in the video EP. Roger Waters appears (though all but his mouth is sillhouetted) as a patient singing the lyrics to a psychologist on the grounds of the Fletcher Memorial Home.
[edit] Concept
The album has three overlapping storylines:
- One portrays Waters' view on world affairs at the time (Tracks 1, 5, 7-9, 11, 12). Much of this was formed by the Falklands War, condemning among others Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, and Menachem Begin. The name Fletcher in "The Fletcher Memorial Home" is in honour and remembrance of his father (to whom the whole album is dedicated in the credits), who died in Anzio during World War II. The album also espouses his views of an ideal world, ending the album with a nuclear holocaust he feared might happen in the real world.
- The second is the story of the mental plight of a World War II veteran and teacher (Tracks 2-4, 5 , 6). The tracks then feature him dealing with memories of the war (Your Possible Pasts, The Gunner's Dream), taking out his problems on schoolchildren (One of the Few, The Hero's Return), and lamenting his life (Paranoid Eyes). The abusive teacher is also mentioned in The Wall, viewed as "one of the bricks" by its main character, Pink (see also, The Happiest Days of Our Lives)
- The final is a story of a depressed man (who might be Pink after he tore down the wall) who either tries to block himself to the real world or kill himself, but is stopped. Track 10, "The Final Cut," was intended to fit in with Pink Floyd's previous album and rock opera, The Wall. The person singing in The Final Cut is highly reminiscent of the depressive, schizophrenic Pink from The Wall, although Waters does sing most of the album in that same vocal style. The first verse of the song ends with "And if you make it past the shotguns in the hall, dial the combination, open the priesthole, and if I'm in I'll tell you what's behind the wall", with the words "what's behind the wall" having been overdubbed with a loud shotgun sound and some shouting.
With the nuclear annihilation ending the album, it could be argued that Pink's unclear fate after the end of The Wall also becomes clear in the end of this album.
[edit] Analysis and Reception
Easily Pink Floyd's most political album, the record is an essentially socialist critique of the current world order, featuring Waters' commentary on topics like globalization, the Falklands War, and nuclear holocaust. The narrator of the majority of the album, whom we can implicitly identify with the abusive teacher on the previous album's "The Happiest Days of Our Lives," is a survivor of war who appears to be suffering from untreated post-traumatic stress disorder, a problem common with many war veterans. In "The Fletcher Memorial Home," he speaks of rounding up a bunch of then-current world leaders, placing them in an old folks' home where they can appear to each other on closed-circuit television (which is "the only connection they feel"), and applying the Nazis' Final Solution to them. "The Gunner's Dream" most explicitly espouses Waters' view of an ideal world: free of war, a place in which "everyone has recourse to the law / And no-one kills the children anymore." "Not Now John" and, to a lesser extent, "Paranoid Eyes" analyze the current world order and finds it to be a place of nearly unbearable stress and bravado, wherein the common man, unable to achieve his dreams, is forced to turn to alcohol in an unsuccessful attempt to numb the pain. The title track is arguably the most personal song Pink Floyd ever wrote and the closest thing to a love song in their catalog, and can be considered this album's "Comfortably Numb", although it is worth noting that it was originally written for The Wall. The album ends on a pessimistic note, with the nuclear holocaust of "Two Suns in the Sunset" annihilating the hopes expressed in "The Gunner's Dream" (Waters makes this explicit by singing, "You have no recourse to the law anymore").
Reception to the album was mixed. Rolling Stone gave the album five stars out of a possible five at its release, calling it "art-rock's crowning masterpiece" and declaring that "Not since Bob Dylan's 'Masters of War' twenty years ago has a popular artist unleashed upon the world political order a moral contempt so corrosively convincing, or a life-loving hatred so bracing and brilliantly sustained." However, the album failed to appear on its Best Albums of the Eighties list at the end of the decade. The readers of Pink Floyd's official fan magazine also famously voted it as Pink Floyd's worst album, even as the editors voted it their best. The album was considered a commercial disappointment, "only" selling three million copies.
[edit] Cover
The cover was designed by Roger Waters. It features a Remembrance Day poppy and four World War II medal ribbons (from left):
- 1939-1945 Star, for at least 6 months service between 1939 and 1945,
- Africa Star, for service in the North African Campaign,
- Defence Medal, for 3 years service,
- Distinguished Flying Cross, for acts of courage, valour or devotion to duty while flying.
Vinyl copies did not have the album title on the cover; this was added for the CD and cassette releases.
The back cover depicted a man stabbed in the back carrying a film canister.
The picture labels on the vinyl copies depicted roses in a poppy field on side one (this artwork was also featured on the 1997 Columbia remaster and the 2004 remaster. This is the picture label on the 1997 Columbia remastered CD copies). Side two depicted a man that was stabbed in the back (from the back cover) now laying face forward dead with a hound dog standing (this artwork was also featured on the 1997 Columbia remaster and the 2004 remaster booklets. This is the picture label on the 1994 EMI Europe remaster and 2004 Capitol/EMI remastered CD copies)
[edit] Reissues
In 1986, the album was released on CD. A digitally remastered CD was released in 1994 in Europe on EMI and in 1997 for the rest of the world on Columbia using an up to date remastering job. A remastered and repackaged CD was released on March 19, 2004 in Europe on EMI and May 4, 2004 in the U.S. on Capitol Records to commemorate the album's 21st anniversary. The track "When the Tigers Broke Free", previously only available on Echoes, was added albeit in a slightly remixed form to the versions found on the movie version of The Wall and Echoes.
[edit] Quotes
It's very very good, but it's not personally how I would see a Pink Floyd record going. The sound quality is very good, it's very very well recorded, and the string arrangements and orchestral stuff are very well done, but it's not me. Consequently, I was arguing about how to make the record, at the beginning and it was being counterproductive.
- —David Gilmour, in a May 1983 interview
The Final Cut was absolutely misery to make, although I listened to it of late and I rather like a lot of it. But I don't like my singing on it. You can hear the mad tension running through it all. If you're trying to express something and being prevented from doing it because you're so uptight...It was a horrible time. 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. 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 [...] It sold three million copies, which wasn't a lot for the Pink Floyd. And as a consequence, Dave Gilmour went on record as saying, "There you go: I knew he was doing it wrong all along." But it's absolutely ridiculous to judge a record solely on sales. If you're going to use sales as the sole criterion, it makes Grease a better record than Graceland.
- —Roger Waters, June 1987, to Chris Salewicz
Well, this has been my beef for years, I mean always has been one of my beefs about what we do is that the balance has to be maintained. I've said it hundreds of times, ad nauseam I've said it—it's the balance between the words and the music I think is a very important thing and that's what I think we lost very much on The Final Cut.
- —David Gilmour, Australian Radio, February 1988
The Final Cut was the lowest point in our Pink Floyd career for me, personally. I started off trying to do my best on that record... I had tried to point out to Roger that some of the tracks he wanted to put on it were tracks we had rejected off The Wall album because we didn't like them, you know. Roger just thought I was interfering... he'd got to a sort of megalomaniac stage where he could not tolerate anyone else having any real say in what was going on. We did fight horribly throughout that whole period.
- — David Gilmour recalls himself about the album during the early 1990s
[edit] Film trivia
During the end of "The Fletcher Memorial Home", the main character's newspaper includes the headline "Your Son's Head in a Box". This is most likely a reference to "Run Like Hell" from Pink Floyd's previous album, The Wall.
In the movie, Roger Waters is paying a visit to a psychiatrist at the "Fletcher Memorial Home". One quick shot shows the psychiatrist diploma, revealing that his name is "A. Parker-Marshall". Alan Parker and Alan Marshall were, respectively, the film director and producer of the "The Wall" movie. Waters fought considerably during the production of the film, trying to put his vision across, and has been quoted many times in saying that he disliked the final product. Other criticism towards the movie can be found in the lyrics of "Not Now John".
[edit] Singles
- "Not Now John (cleaned-up version)"/"The Hero's Return (Parts I and II)" - Columbia 38-03905; released May 3, 1983
[edit] Charts
Album - Billboard (North America)
| Year | Chart | Position |
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| 1983 | Pop Albums | 6 |
Singles
| Year | Single | Chart | Position |
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| 1983 | "Not Now John" | Mainstream Rock Tracks | 7 |
| 1983 | "Your Possible Pasts" | Mainstream Rock Tracks | 8 |
| 1983 | "The Hero's Return" | Mainstream Rock Tracks | 31 |
