THE FINAL CUT

This is one of the most controversial albums of all times. Looking at previous reviews you can see every rating from 1 to 5 stars, and this partially reflects the position that some Pink Floyd fans took in favour of Waters or Gilmour and the rest of the band when they disbanded and this is something that can easily influence the judgement.

It can be considered a follow-up to The Wall, even if it seems that some songs were already written at the time of the Animals tour. Surely it contains, enhanced, all the personal problems that were affecting the personality of Roger Waters. Yes, the album is dedicated to his father, but there are some references to Syd Barrett hidden in the songs. Not many people knows that Barrett was orphan as well as Waters and some of the situations described on The Wall and on The Final Cut are speaking of Syd instead of Roger only.

Let's go to the music now:

"The Post War dream" opens with the usual gimmicks and the music in introduced by an explosion. This song is about the Falklands war which represented the end of the "post war dream": the illuson that after the 2nd world war the world would have been a better place. "Tell me why was Jesus crucified?" can be intended as the death of his father for the post- war dream that Maggie has destroyed sending the British navy to fight against Galtieri's troops. Of course Maggie is Margaret Thatcher, the "Iron Lady" who was prime minister at that time. From a musical perspective this is just an opener.

"Your possible pasts" is the first almost-country-acoustic-guitar ballad of the album, but in the middle it contains the first Gilmour's solo, too. Here the absence of Rick Wright is clearly perceived. There are almost no keyboards, at least not what we were used with on previous PF albums including The Wall, and this absence is anhanced by the "olographic sound" that was the technical characteristic of the album. The concept is interesting. "They flutter behind you, your possible pasts". If you look at the past starting from the present, forgetting what the past was, it's the same as looking to the future. There are possible (potential) pasts as well as possible futures.

"One of the few" is a short interlude, but the musical theme will be recurrent since now on. The acoustic guitar makes me think to Set The Controls of The Heart of The Sun.

"The Hero's Return" contains the first direct reference to Waters' father. Who speaks is the teacher of The Wall: "Trying to clout these little ingrates into shape". It's an autobiographical track, even if Waters declared in an interview that the teacher who inspired the character was not really so bad. After the rocky part, the acoustic coda mentions "the gunners dying words on the intercom". If you remember the gunner's death in The Wall...

"The Gunner's Dream" is one of the best moments of the album from a musical point of view. The sax solo that starts over the waters' cry is probably the best thing of the whole album. The chords sequence is not trivial as on many of the album's tracks. The key of this song is

"And maniacs don't blow holes in bandsmen by remote control And everyone has recourse to the law And no-one kills the children anymore"

The recourse to the law is what one can do against an injustice when in democracy. Here Waters intends totalitaristic regimes like Argentina in those years, as well as in war, where no law exists or the evil guys are the law.

Another acoustic interlude with "Paranoid eyes" just to be introduced into one of the main themes of the concept with "Get Your Filthy Hands Off Of My Desert". There is a joke with the words "Desert" and "Dessert". Just few notes and few words to say "And Maggie over lunch one day took a cruiser with all hands apparently to make him give it back". This short song fades into "The Fletcher Memorial". From a musical point of view this is similar to "The Trial". The interlude is grotesque. The powermen are children, "incurable tyrants", like the Valhalla Gods were in a Monthy Phyton movie. Sarcastic.

"Southampton Docks" is lost in the space and time. It starts with "They desembarked in '45", but it's where the Falklands' fighters desembarked and 45 may be their number. The musical theme is the most recurrent. is "she" Waters' mother or just a character?

"The Final Cut" is back to our days. It speaks of media, majors, star system... "Open the priesthole and if I'm in I'll tell you what's behind the wall" or "There 's a kid who had a big hallucination making love to girls in magazines" or again "And if I show you my dark side will you still hold me tonight" In those sentences there's almost all the story of Pink Floyd since Barrett to now. With a so big attention to the lyrics, the music in not the best of the album.

"Not Now John" is the concept's closure act. There's one more song after, but it's a sort of "end titles". In brief, we defeated the Japaneses in the world war and now we have to compete with them form an economical point of view. Then the invective touches the Russian bear, the Argentines, no need to worry about Vietnam...The post-war dream is dead, that's all. This is the most rocky track on which there's also the only vocal performance of David Gilmour, together with a not bad guitar solo.

The last track "Two suns in the sunset" is imaginative. We are in the years of the Reagan's space shield. Many people is fearing for a possible nuclear war. One year after Waters will take part in the soundtrack of a cartoon produced by Greenpeace: "When the Wind Blows", about the long death of two innocent survivors to a nuclear attack. The imagine of a "sun is in the east even though the day is gone" viewed in his car's rear mirror is incredibly strong. The song is another slow acoustic, but it's one of the album's best in terms of songwriting.

It's true that it's mostly a Waters solo album, but this is just the conclusive act of what was started with Animals. The lack of Wright, and keyboards in general is the weakest thing of the album and what gave to the fans the impression to be listening to something else than a Pink Floyd disc, but if we forget that it's branded Pink Floyd and try to rate it independently, I think it can deserve 4 stars for the lyrics and 3 for the music, also considering that no many good things were in the music shops in 1983.

I can't say that's non-essential because it's the foundation for Waters' following works but I understand that not everybody can like it, so I roud it "odwn" to 3 stars because I can't sy that it's not good. Not the Pink Floyd best, maybe the worst but not bad at all.