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Pink Floyd – A Look Back at The Final Cut

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Bargepole on The Final Cut forty years on

With all the glare of publicity being focussed on the 50th anniversary of Dark Side of the Moon, it seems to have been forgotten that this week also marked the 40th anniversary of the last Floyd album to feature Roger Waters, an occasion that seems to have passed without any fanfare at all, let alone any sort of deluxe reissue. It was also the first Floyd release not to feature the keyboards of Rick Wright, whose post Wall exclusion from the band only became common knowledge when the album sleeve listed just three band members. The solemn sleeve hinted at the contents of the album. Missing in action was the inventive imagery of Hipgnosis. Gone were the satirical Scarfe sketches. Instead we have a sombre close up of an ex-serviceman’s jacket on Remembrance Day, while poppies feature prominently on the back cover.

It was certainly a divisive record for both fans and band. Originally intended as an off shoot of The Wall film, a quasi soundtrack titled Spare Bricks, it morphed into a hybrid of that concept, being supplemented with new material inspired by the Falklands conflict and Thatcher’s Britain. David Gilmour was unhappy at using songs deemed not good enough for The Wall, but had no alternative new material to offer. As Waters put it ‘The fact was I was making this album and Dave didn’t like it, and said so.’ In the end, Gilmour had his name removed as co-producer, although he apparently didn’t relinquish he associated royalties. Meanwhile Nick Mason, in the midst of a messy divorce, visited the studio only when absolutely necessary, preferring to spend his time racing cars.

The album begins with the old Floydian trick of a radio being tuned across news bulletins on various stations, each snippet relating to the state of Britain as, in ‘The Post War Dream,’ Waters questions whether the sacrifices of servicemen in World War Two were worth it or had ultimately been betrayed – indeed the album is subtitled ‘A Requiem For The Post War Dream’, and the song’s refrain of ‘Maggie, what have you done to England’ certainly resonated with me and no doubt countless others.

The first ‘proper’ song, ‘Your Possible Pasts’, is the start of the material left over from The Wall when it was cut down from the originally planned triple album to a mere double. Bob Geldof can be heard reciting an early draft of the lyrics in the film, the song being loosely based on a 1968 Waters composition ‘Incarceration of a Flower Child’, a song that the band never recorded, although a cover version can be heard on Marianne Faithfull’s ‘Vagabond Ways’ album. It’s one of the best songs on the album, featuring a blistering solo by Gilmour, as Waters muses on the paths the narrator’s life might have taken. The original lyrics printed on the sleeve featured four unsung lines, although these were removed from later reissues.

Another short interlude, ‘One of the Few’, follows, then we are into another Wall offcut. This is where the 2004 reissue differs from the original album with the inclusion of ‘When The Tigers Broke Free’, a song that recounts the death of Waters father at Anzio in 1944. The other band members vetoed its inclusion on The Wall, fearing it was too closely linked to Waters own life and would thus lack universal appeal. The version here differs slightly from the original 1982 single release and from the version used on the ‘Echoes’ best of set.

Next up is more Wall material, ‘The Heroes Return’. An early version titled ‘Teacher Teacher’ can be found on The Wall Immersion set. It deals with an ex serviceman who has taken a new career in teaching after the war, and his disappointments and fears as he struggles to adapt to his new unfulfilling life/ Surprisingly, when ‘Tigers’ was included on the reissued album the powers that be chose not to also update it to include part 2 of this song, basically an extra verse, and the only official release of this is still as the B side of 1983’s ‘Not Now John’ single.

Now to what is for me the album’s key track, ‘The Gunner’s Dream’. An airman from a downed plane falls through the sky, images of his past and a future he will never see flashing through his mind. A fantastic sax solo from Raphael Ravenscroft illuminates this moving piece as Waters wrings the emotion out of the lyrics.

‘Paranoid Eyes’ returns to our disillusioned despondent teacher, seeking solace in a pub, while mulling over the let down his life and career have proved to be, bitter disappointment replacing his once dearly held hopes and aspirations for a better world for the new generation.

Another short interlude in Get Your Filthy Hands Off My Desert, featuring the holophonically recorded sound of an exploding shell, before we enter The Fletcher Memorial Home. The lyrics date the song somewhat with its references to Breshnev and Reagan, but Waters barely controlled fury is perfectly mirrored by a cutting Gilmour solo, perhaps his best on the album.

Another key song, Southampton Dock, reflects on the futility of yet another war, this time in the South Atlantic. The second part of the song utilises a snatch of the melody of another Wall outtake included on the Immersion set, ‘It’s Never Too Late’.

The title track follows, as a man (possibly Pink from The Wall) contemplates suicide but is distracted at the crucial moment when the phone begins to ring. The ending of the line ‘and if I’m in I’ll tell you…’is obscured by a gunshot, but the fact that the lost words are ‘what’s behind the wall’ again suggest this was a song destined originally for that album.

Perhaps the best known song here is ‘Not Now John’. Gilmour and Waters play characters at the opposite end of the spectrum in lyrics that comment on society’s apathy and ignorance towards the major economic and political issues of the day A real stand out after the lower key songs that precede it.

The album concludes with Two Suns in the Sunset, as the fear of impending nuclear Armageddon overshadows the lives of the population, threatening to obliterate all that was fought for forty years previously. As with ‘Mother’ on The Wall, Nick Mason does not play on this, having been unable to master its deceptively complex time signatures. The song is currently being performed once more by Waters on his This Is Not A Drill tour, its message seemingly as pertinent now as it was when it was originally recorded.

As the band was effectively over, there were no live shows supporting the album. Indeed, Pink Floyd have never played any of this album’s songs live, although Waters has repeatedly returned to it over the years for his own shows. It was certainly a long way musically, stylistically and conceptually from DSOTM and Wish You Were Here.

I don’t suppose this album will ever receive the deluxe reissue treatment. As stated above, there is no live material, the early versions of some songs have already been used on The Wall box set, and it was very noticeable how little space was afforded this album at the ‘Their Mortal Remains’ exhibition at the V&A. Who knows, perhaps Waters has more material lurking in his archive, and I guess he would be the only person interested in putting some kind of expanded version together. In the meantime I suppose we’ll have to make do with the very low-fi demos that have been circulating on the internet for a number of years now. A great shame as this superb record must surely rank as the most underrated, under appreciated and misunderstood album of the Pink Floyd canon.

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Comments

  1. The Gunner’s Dream is a bit all over the place, but does contain my favourite Walters’s moment

    Good-bye Max.
    Good-bye Ma.
    After the walking slowly to the car
    And the silver in her hair shines in the cold November air

    • Goodbye Max, goodbye Ma
      After the service, when you’re walking slowly to the car

      @bargepole says in his excellent review: “images of the past”. I’ve always seen it as the gunner not thinking so much of his memories, at the moment of his impending death, but instead of two distinct visions (dreams). The first, of his own funeral, saying goodbye to his mother and (perhaps) brother, actually reaching out in the dream and touching his mother’s hand. The second, of the England his sacrifice would pave the way for; his dream of a fairer and safer post-war England that The Final Cut is a requiem for.

      • Without thinking about it too much I’ve always assumed it was a Remembrance service because of the band, but, yes, it could easily be a military funeral.

  3. Having not owned or listened to it for years (other than Not Now John and When The Tigers Broke Free – which should’ve been on The Wall but left off – the fools!), I finally bought it (to complete the Floyd CD set) and then realised I was the fool.
    The Final Cut is a close 4th place after The Wall, Dark Side and Wish You Were Here for me

  5. This is my favourite Pink Floyd album.

    As I have mentioned on here before it is the middle part of the trilogy that is The Wall, this and The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking.

    A truly amazing set of three albums.

  7. Great review, @Bargepole.

    I don’t think I’ve ever played this album. I have the pristine vinyl gatefold copy that I bought with a completist’s urge 40 years ago, still sporting the little ‘pink floyd the final cut’ sticker on the front cover and obviously also lacking the Anzio track. I’ve only now noticed that this is their only album where the band name is all in lower case on the sleeve. Come to that, I notice that on the CD, even the ‘tigers’ part of the additional track name is in lower case; odd, given that I assume it refers to the German battle tank of that name. All part of the reflective nature of the piece?

    I think, after reading this splendid review, I need to get the ‘Discovery Edition’ and give it a listen!

    • In some ways, @Tiggerlion, given our shared context on here, this might be a silly question: but why do you own it (or perhaps retain it) if this isn’t a Pink Floyd that you enjoy? Foxy admits to completist urges above – is it the same for you?

      • I have never thrown a CD away. I bought them both out of curiosity. Pros and Cons exceeded my expectations. I bought the version of Final Cut with Tigers inserted. I’d heard that track and liked it. It’s a while since I played it. My recollection of it isn’t bad. I still haven’t listened to The Wall.

        What can I say? A passion for music isn’t rational.

  9. To paraphrase from Mark Blake’s excellent Pigs Might Fly biography, although the album is heavy going at times at least it sounds like the band still give a shit about something.

  10. Whilst WYWH will always be my favourite Floyd, I do rate The Final Cut very highly and see it very much as a companion piece to The Wall – and have never felt it was “second rate” leftover tracks from that.

    Plus it has one of my favourite PF songs in “Two Suns In The Sunset” and my favourite lyric line (from the title track)…

    “Through the fish-eyed lens of tear stained eyes”

    • I greatly enjoy Roger’s lyrics. He’s been quoted as saying they seem a ‘bit sixth-form’ to him these days, but I think that’s just misplaced hindsight on his part. I like their directness and their playful imagery; if that’s ‘sixth form’, then I’m all for it.

      His words are far more interesting to me than those of the lyricist the band’s been using more recently. The lyricist whose husband said dismissively of Kate Bush’s ‘Man With The Child In His Eyes’, the immortal shrug that was “whatever that means”. That’s the bloke who ‘produced’ the album saying that in an inerview. Shallow and self-important arse.

      • I greatly enjoy Roger’s lyrics too, it’s just his melodies, harmonies and chord progressions that are lacking. When Dave and Rick were called upon to provide these things, Pink Floyd produced great albums. The Final Cut is not one of those.

      • I love lots of Roger’s lyrics – especially the imagery of:
        “Fixed on the front of her Fassbinder face
        Was the kind of smile
        That only a rather dull child could have drawn
        While attempting the graveyard in the moonlight” … and breathe
        OR
        “There’s a kid who had a big hallucination
        Making love to girls in magazines
        He wonders if you’re sleeping with your new found faith
        Could anybody love him
        Or is it just a crazy dream?”

  11. I have both the original CD and the hi-res remaster, that includes “When The Tigers Broke Free”.

    Listening again last night to the version with Tigers, I actually find that whilst I like the song, it’s inclusion between “One Of The Few” and “Heroes Return” doesn’t work for me – partly because I grew up with the original segue between the two songs and am more used to that, but also I think lyrically it doesn’t quite flow.

    • Yes I totally agree. And it’s not just a lyrical mis-flow either. Rhythmically and harmonically it just totally trips up the progression of the album.

      I like the song being on the album, but I can’t think where it properly fits. Might even be better as the opening track!

      • It’s an odd one as to where it could be best placed – or indeed why they chose to include it at all instead of simply leaving the album as originally released.

  12. My attitudes to The Wall and The Final Cut have changed as I’ve grown older – in fact they have crossed over.

    My positive view of The Wall at the time was coloured both by the more bombastic, “rockist” elements – and also by the live show (dear reader, I was 20) which was the most astonishing jaw-dropping spectacle of a gig I have seen to date. My negative view of TFC was coloured at the time by the drab, downbeat nature of it, plus the feeling that Rog was shutting out the rest of the “lads” – and the sacking of Richard Wright (I was more prepared to accept it as Rog’s first solo album than a true PF album). The intraband fighting which started shortly afterwards just worsened my attitude to “Roger’s” album.

    Forty years later, I find The Wall tedious and unrepresentative of PF at their best – very much a transatlantic big RAWK album (if I can borrow a term from deramdaze), the PF album most purchased by air guitarists and misunderstood teenagers; while the subtle, quiet “grown up” nature of TFC has seeped into my bones over time. I can appreciate it now for what it is, taken apart from the contemporary associations.

    But then, after all, it’s only leisure time, isn’t it?

  13. I think I’ve only listened to it once and it didn’t grab me. Lots of Rog bleating on as I recall. I must give it a go though no Rick Wright is hardly a selling point.

  14. I listened to this a lot in my youth. It was the closest thing to a “new” Pink Floyd album I had at the time, although even then I could tell that something was up and this wasn’t the Floyd of Meddle or Animals. I don’t think I can add much that hasn’t been mentioned here or in this excellent Quietus article by David Bennun comparing The Final Cut to Dark Side of the Moon; namely that one is bitter and spiteful while the other is warm and empathic. His most pertinent observation, though, is how Waters has denigrated the contributions of all his former colleagues. Yet it is they who made him – and the big loss on The Final Cut is, of course, that of Rick Wright. All that said, I prefer the ascetic nature of The Final Cut to the bombast of The Wall or the plodding blues of Wish You Were Here, and favour its caustic lyrics over the sixth-form allegories of Animals. I especially like Two Suns in the Sunset. It should have been the full stop at the end of Pink Floyd’s career. But then, had that been the case, I would never have seen the band three times.

    https://thequietus.com/articles/32741-pink-floyd-dark-side-of-the-moon-final-cut

    • I’d never think of WYWH as “plodding blues”. I was listening to Shine On You Crazy Diamond this morning, really loud in the glorious spring sunshine. Magnificent and beautiful is what it is.

      I don’t agree with much in that David Bennun article. Especially not:
      Dark Side is humane. It is compassionate. It is hurt, and distressed, by injustice. It is an album of open questions. Final Cut is an album didactically and furiously certain it knows every last one of the answers.

      Dark Side is simply less specifically political, more universal.

    • I assume you have actually heard WYWH but I’m intrigued where the plodding blues is? Which tracks? I’ve heard plenty of plodding blues but none on that album, honest.

      As for The Wall, which seems to be getting a dissing in this thread, I think it’s brilliant. Not my favourite by any means but it’s a masterpiece. I even !Ike the movie.

      • Hang on, doesn’t the track Shine on You Crazy Diamond hang on a very basic blues chord progression? They may have disguised it quite well with Gilmour’s fabulous intro but it is one long blues plod. And while we’re at it, so are Money and Young Lust, just a little faster. They used to do extended blues jams as encores as recently as 1977, so there’s very much a blues chassis there which the band’s better (more Wright-associated) work deviates from.

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