Roger Waters and the politics of music
Maybe that song about the Vietnam War takes on a new meaning — given a decade or two
Politics and music: Keep them separate, right? I once felt that way, not because the politics in music typically ran contrary to mine, but because I felt like political time stamps left a song trapped in amber. Country Joe’s “Fixin’ to Die Rag” is an extreme example, perhaps. But the minute the Vietnam War ends, such a clearlydefined Vietnam War song loses some degree of relatability.
But add a few miles to your life’s odometer and the road looks different. The underlying themes of political music can sometimes carry their resonance across decades — maybe a song isn’t about the Vietnam War, but rather it’s about misguided conflict or colonialism or nationalism or any number of things.
Occasionally they bear a serendipitous gift. Case in point: When Roger Waters sang “Pigs (Three Different Ones)” at the Toyota Center Thursday night, he sang it as he sang it in 1977: “Hey you Whitehouse, haha charade you are.” In 1977, the Whitehouse referred to a British activist from the era. Fast forward 40 years and that word once again fit Waters’ visual
accompaniment for the song, which was his most pointed barb directed at a guy sitting in a White House far from England.
The response to “Pigs” was largely rapturous, though I heard more than a few grumblings while exiting the show about how it should have been more sensitively customized for Texas.
But should it? I’ve received some commentary critical of Waters, a few emails grousing about, and I paraphrase, “Another rich musician telling us how to feel.”
Well, no. It’s another rich musician telling you how he feels. That’s what musicians do.
Waters has been doing this a very long time, which makes it confounding that his provocative commentary still leaves listeners upset.
Waters’ set was structured like a Broadway production rather than a concert. To my ears the songs were sequenced in a nearly linear narrative way that ran from conflict
through resistance toward some strained feeling of peace.
I left disheartened that “Shine on You Crazy Diamond” never found its way into the set. But I also realized it didn’t fit the narrative of the Us + Them Tour. That song is too personal and too much about one person.
Waters leaned heavily on Floyd’s songbook to craft a 24-song set list that pecked away at the idea of abuse of power.
Before getting to the songs, I feel like Jonathan Wilson bears some mention. Just 42, Wilson admirably stepped in for Floyd guitarist/singer David Gilmore’s vocal parts, and handled partial guitar duties.
As for the songs, thematically it may have been the most out-ofplace song of the night, but I liked the gentle contrast that “Wish You Were Here” provided in the first set. Amid the large visuals – walls, pigs, etc. – the song was void of façade, and all the more effective for that. And coming out of intermission with “Dogs” and “Pigs (Three Different Ones)” was a visceral and powerful choice. The whining guitar crescendo in “Dogs” is testament not to what Gilmore could do as a guitarist, but as a composer. With just a few notes the little passage is full of anguish and melancholy and longing.
And he got dirty with “Pigs (Three Different Ones),” singing with an angry sneer as his “Animals” factory set piece provided a screen for projections of a world leader he views alternatively as a pig and an infant.
Should the point not have clinked home, he followed those two songs with “Money.”
Tonally “Comfortably Numb” was an obvious choice to close the night. It felt less a call to tune out the ills of the world and seek oblivious peace in isolation. Instead it felt like a personal declaration to seek some graceful solution to the two-plus hours of troubles that he’d just sung about. Not a rich guy telling you how to feel. A rich guy telling you how he feels.