I can’t say enough good about this album.
Roger Waters never knew his dad, who was killed in World War 2. This is Roger Water’s album about the war, basically looking back on all the little people who were asked to give their lives for the sake of a country that didn’t seem to care much about them once the war was over, when they came back broken or didn’t come back at all.
The monster of a schoolteacher who’s a main villain in “The Wall” is here. You get to learn about some of his experiences in the war, helplessly hearing his friend die over the intercom, coming back and trying to put together a life in a country that didn’t bother to understand what had happened to him, trapped in his own private hell and unable to ask for help.
The atom bomb is here too. Waters grew up during the time when it was a very real concern that he might get it dropped on him, so it’s easy for him to sympathize with some random person in Japan who’s just driving down the road and sees a sudden bright flash in the distance. That’s the last song, “Two Suns in the Sunset.”
Good message to musicians, don’t release two very depressing albums unless you’re known as a depressing band (The Cure, Smiths, Postal Service (although they only did one album)etc.). That said, this album is amazing, I encourage everyone to give it a listen. It also gave us another fantastic Pink Floyd album, “The Division Bell”, which is definitely their most underrated album.
For me I like the Roger Waters stuff better than the post-Roger Waters stuff like Division Bell… even his solo stuff resonates with me a lot. It’s a sad thing. It seems like there are Roger Waters Floyd-fans and David Gilmour Floyd-fans and after the split they either gravitate to one side or the other. But IMO only the stuff that has both sides is truly complete.