• AllMyVinyl #88
• Band: Pink Floyd
• Album Title: The Final Cut
• Release Date: 21 Mar 1983
• Date purchased: 3 May 2020
• Location purchased: Amazon
• Color of vinyl: black
• Number of discs: 1
• Links: [ Wikipedia | Discogs | Band Website | Complete album on Youtube ]

This is a Pink Floyd record legally, but it’s really super far away from the band Pink Floyd.  It has Roger Waters, David Gilmour, and Nick Mason, but any semlance of working band ceased to be awhile ago.  This is the last one with Roger in the band, Gilmour and Waters were at each other’s throats making this, and it’s even credited oddly as something “by Roger Waters – performed by Pink Floyd”.  It’s effectively the first Waters solo album masquerading as a Pink Floyd album.

I however LOVED it.  I bought it on vinyl and cassette tape when it was new, as it was the first Floyd album that came out NEW after I got into them, so I was there on day 1 to buy it.  I played little else the summer of 1983, and wore out my cassette tape and had to buy a second one – something I did again with Momentary Lapse a few years later.   When I bought a record player in 2020, this was one of the first albums I reacquired.  Then when my brother found my vinyl collection, my original 1983 Final Cut was in there too, so I had two of them on vinyl.  Although the newer one has an extra track that wasn’t on the original pressings. I kept both of them because they’re different.  Although if I’m listening on vinyl, it’s the newer one because of the extra track (more on that later).  I also have my original CD still and a second copy on CD – again newer track – that one was part of the 2011 “Discovery” box which included all the studio albums (minus Endless River which didn’t exist yet) in oner box.  So I have a few copies for sure.

Thing is, I could write this entire piece without even listening to it, since I’ve listened to it a few hundred times.  I will of course listen to it, but it’s one I’ve written about before.  I have two separate blog posts on this site already.  One was a 2,250 word entry I wrote when the album turned 40 in 2023, and the other one is a shorter piece solely about the song “When The Tigers Broke Free“.  Because I have already written at length about this album already I won’t get into a ton of behind the scenes stuff, I’ll leave that for the existing article which I strongly urge you to read – it’s titled “The Final Cut Turns 40“.

The Post War Dream – This starts off really slow.  Honestly, a lot of this album is super slow.  It’s got that “Roger is talking” version of singing here.  It becomes more pronounced once he starts on solo albums, but it’s here.  There’s a moment in the middle when we get some guitar work from Gilmour that’s quite nice, but Gilmour’s guitar is a bit of a rarity on this album.  Probably the only Floyd album you can say that about except Piper, when he wasn’t in the band.  As an intro song it’s kind of meh, but then it fits the tone of the majority of this album.  Has some of Waters’ trademark subjects in the lyrics, including “… was it for this that Daddy died?” and talking about Japanese kids “all committing suicide”.  Waters is right on brand out of the gate.

Your Possible Pasts – This has a guitar intro that reminds me a little of the acoustic guitar from “Wish You Were Here” (the song), but it doesn’t stay that way.  There’s moments of “rock” in this song – mostly around the chorus which is far harder and louder than the rest of the song (Don’t you remember me – how we used to be?).  It’s as if parts of “Not Now John” snuck out into this song, but only a few parts.  As many times as I’ve heard this album the lyrics puzzle me – unclear what the actual point of the lyrics are here.   There is some good Gilmour guitar work on this song too – it’s a good solo, but yeah – it’s a rarity (despite me saying that two songs in a row).

One Of The Few – This is only 1:17 – and is really an intro to what used to be Hero’s Return on the original layout of the album as such it’s an odd beast to stand on its own as it now leads into When the Tigers Broke Free.  It’s got to do with a survivor of World War II, and I do like some of the “echo” in the vocals – where Waters echoes his own singing with a different tone of voice.  As I said, it’s not really a standalone song, so I have a hard time doing anything with it from a musical standpoint.

When the Tigers Broke Free – Now this song..  I have an entire blog post about Tigers.  In that post I said “What’s odd is I love the thing despite its wonderfully depressing atmosphere. The music is minimalistic, I think it fits the theme of the lyrics well.” There’s three things Roger Waters always seems to write about.  Politics, the death of his father, and how shitty people tend to be to each other.  This one ramps up the “Death of his Father” to 11 on the scale.  That’s all this song is about.  Originally it was created for the movie version of The Wall.  Back then, the album “The Final Cut” was going to be just the music from the movie put on an album – they released a single of Tigers. I bought it.  Still have it, but on that it says “From the forthcoming album ‘The Final Cut'” Then the Falkland Island War happened ,Roger wanted to write about that.  Tigers got left off the actual Final Cut album when it became a proper album and not just the movie music.  In 2004, when it was remastered for CD, Tigers was put on there, and it felt odd going from One of the Few into this, and then into Hero’s Return instead of just going to Hero’s Return.  It took me a long time to get used to that, as much as I liked it actually being there. All re-releases since 2004 onwards (including the current iteration – the 2016 remasters) include Tigers.  I like it there, but it still feels odd to that version of me who listened to Final Cut hundreds of times in the 80’s and it wasn’t there.  As for the music – it is a wonderfully minimalistic song – full of sadness and depression – the lyrics are all about Roger’s dad.  I love this song.  A lot.  It’s just oddly placed here I think – problem is I don’t know what would be a GOOD place for it, anywhere interrupts the old flow I remember from 1983.  I do think it works better as a single song like this vs being split into two pieces like it was in the Wall movie, however.

“It was dark all around, there was frost in the ground when the Tigers broke free
And no one survived from the Royal Fusiliers Company C
They were all left behind, most of them dead, the rest of them dying
And that’s how the High Command took my daddy from me”

The Hero’s Return – This is what I still hear in my head after “One Of the Few”, as it works for me in terms of placement. This is a faster paced song.  It’s not in your face rock like “Not Now John” is, but it’s definitely to this point of the album the must upbeat song.  Which I suppose in a way is a good contrast to where Tigers is placed on the album.  Lyrically it’s again about a soldier returning from war and dealing with all of that.  I do like the music for this song.  When it comes out the chorus back into the verse, there’s a hard change from the louder sound into the slow stuff – with a drum beat from Nick Mason, which is even rarer on this album.  One of my favorite songs from a musical standpoint.  It’s got actual singing and music, vs Waters “speaking singing” stuff.  Good stuff.

Side note to Hero’s Return.  If you bought the single for Not Now John, The Hero’s Return was the B-side, except..  It says “The Hero’s Return Parts I & II”.  Part II is ONLY on that single, it’s not any version of the album – ever.  If you’re reading this on my blog, I’ve embedded this extra track below.

The Gunner’s Dream – The last song ends with the phrase “The memory smolders on of the gunner’s dying words on the intercom” so the songs flow together from a lyrical standpoint.  Musically they’re different though.  This one has a piano sound that runs through it (that isn’t Rick Wright – sad) which I quite like.  We get a saxophone solo on this one too – not Dick Parry.  The lyrics on here say “.. and everyone has recourse to the law”, which is brought back later on.  When this was new, I liked the connection of songs via a very similar line of lyrics.  One of the songs that got a video made for it, but more on the videos later.

Paranoid Eyes – I loved the sonic of this.  There’s moments of this song where the special effects were mixed in quite well – even mores than usual. Floyd’s always been known for sound effects in the music, but the way the music and the effects flow together here – some stereo moving from left to right channels and back… the overall mix together is great.  There’s a credit on the back of the album that says “Holophonics by Zuccarelli Labs”.  I always felt that had something to do with this.   Going into the last verse, the music is pushed back and Roger’s vocals are in front, and I ALWAYS adored how that sounded.  The exact moment is when these lyrics are happening..  “You believed in their stories of fame, fortune, and glory. Now you’re lost in a haze of alcohol soft middle age….”   I ADORED the way this sounded in my headphones.  This is an underrated track.  Yeah, it’s mostly Roger, but it works.  When people think of songs from this album, you never hear people talking about Paranoid Eyes.  They should.

Side 2 starts off with a track called “Get Your Filthy Hands off My Desert” – It’s short, only 1:17 – and is mostly an intro to the next song.  There is a short verse with lyrics – it’s all about the Falklands War.  There’s a sound effect in here that Roger used on his magnum opus – 1992’s “Amused to Death”.  Something I don’t have on vinyl, but I wish I did.

The Fletcher Memorial Home – This one is all about Waters’ contempt for politicians.  I did like the music here, but the lyrics really dominated this song.   Thatcher, Reagan, Brejnev, Begin, McCarthy, Nixon…  The songs postulates putting them all in a retirement home where they can’t do anyone harm, and presumably killing them all while there.  Some dark shit.  Gilmour’s guitar makes a brief appearance here.  This one hasn’t held up as well over the years for me.  It’s still an OK song, but all the then current politicians really ages the song in a way most of the other stuff on the album doesn’t have to deal with.

Southampton Dock – Another short one (2:13) with mostly acoustic guitar being the driving part of the song.  The lyrics speak about going off to war vs coming home from war like he usually talks about.  A smaller piece.  It’s a bridge into the next song.  So much so the last line of lyric is “….In the bottom of our hearts, we felt the final cut”

The Final Cut – The song was originally written for the Wall to talk about Pink’s isolation once he built the titular “Wall” from that album’s story.  It ultimately wasn’t used there and was reworked here to be about Roger directly – speaking to an attempt at suicide that was never followed up on / or successful.   This song is the most obvious it was meant for the Wall album because of this part of lyrics..  “And if you make it past the shotguns in the hall… Dial the combination, open the priest hole, and if I’m in I’ll tell you (what’s behind the wall)”  The last part is slightly obfuscated by a sound effect explosion, but it’s there sorta. I know Gilmour wasn’t a fan of the re-used Wall songs, my guess is he fought to fight that.  When this was new, I didn’t know about all the problems that Gilmour / Waters had.  It was 1983 – no internet. Just had Creem & Hit Parader magazines and FM radio for this stuff.   I always thought these lyrics were about the state of Pink Floyd, and Rick Wright being gone (didn’t know Roger fired him then) and leaving Roger “alone” in Pink Floyd..  I was wrong, but that’s what 1983 me thought..

“And if I show you my dark side
Will you still hold me tonight?
And if I open my heart to you
And show you my weak side, what would you do?
Would you sell your story to Rolling Stone?
Would you take the children away and leave me alone?”

Not Now John – This leads into the one full on rock song on the album – the only song where we get Dave signing lead, and playing full on proper guitar though the same thing.  Not Now John – always loved that, and it got a bunch of attention for the song having the lyrics “Fuck all that, we gotta get on with these”.  Has a nice bass beat by Roger too.  Some good stereo mixing of effects here.  The “Fuck all that” made them record a separate version – there’s a censored single version where the lyrics are “stuff all that” instead.  But that was never on any album – the actual “stuff” single is a little hard to come by these days.  Nice guitar solo by Dave.  He never played it live, as there were no live shows for this album, and given Dave’s disdain for the material, there’s a less than zero chance he ever would consider playing this.  I know Roger played it a couple of times, but Dave’s Floyd never did.  Overall the entire song has a great rocking sound like nothing else on the album.  I adore the last verse where Roger goes off in various foreign languages asking where the bar is ,ending up in English with “Oi, where’s the fucking bar, John?”   Great track.

Two Suns in the Sunset – The final song in the album is the least Floyd song there is.  Rick Wright was already gone.  Nick Mason doesn’t play on this song (Andy Newmark does).  Gilmour is technically on the song, but BARELY.  The song itself is about nuclear holocaust.  The “Second sun” is a nuclear bomb exploding.   I mean check these lyrics..

“And as the windshield melts and my tears evaporate
Leaving only charcoal to defend
Finally, I understand
The feelings of the few
Ashes and diamonds, foe and friend
We were all equal in the end”

It’s Roger at his most Roger.   The previous recourse lyrics reappear here with “You have no recourse to the law anymore”.  The music here I quite like.  It’s restrained, which brings a nice contrast to the rather intense lyrics.   When I saw Roger on his “This is Not a Drill” concert in 2022, he ended the concert with “Two Suns” as well, because he said it fit the end of the story he was trying to tell with the songs for that setlist in the same way it ended the story of The Final Cut.   I recorded that – if you’re reading this on my blog, the video I shot is embedded in the page.

There were four videos produced for this album.  They were “The Gunner’s Dream”, “The Fletcher Memorial Home”, “The Final Cut”, and “Not Now John”.  The band appears nowhere in any of them.  Only Roger appears – and only in one of them (The Final Cut). Even then he’s not fully visible, only his mouth is visible on camera.  The four videos were compiled into a then VHS release called “The Video EP”.  But I never quite understood what was happening IN the videos.  They were just there as eye candy for the songs when they were played.  They’re kind of odd in that regard.

That brings me to the end of The Final Cut.  It was the end of Roger’s time in Pink Floyd.  Any semblance of the old band’s function that still existed was destroyed during the making of this album.  There was no tour, no live shows anywhere for this one.  I fully admit up front this album is not for everyone.  It’s so far from things like Dark Side and Wish You Were Here..  It’s OK that most don’t like it.  But I *LOVE* it.  Between this article and the other two I’ve mentioned above, I’ve written about 6,000 words about this album for three articles.  I must like it.