Pink Floyd and War

I held my tongue during the antiwar music discussion some time ago so as not to overload the blog, but these two YouTubes (part 1, part 2) constitute the short film Pink Floyd did for their unjustly neglected 1983 album, The Final Cut. Four songs from the album are featured. At about 5:00 into part two begins “The Fletcher Memorial Home,” which envisions a kind of insane asylum to which the warmongers of the world could be entrusted. This part is a bit shocking.

Viewers of Pink Floyd The Wall will recognize the main character here. It’s the schoolteacher from that movie, played once again by the late (d. 2005) Alex McAvoy, except this time we see a bit more about his life. He’s a World War II veteran, and his son apparently died fighting in the Falklands.
Roger Waters, who wrote all the material, is consistently antiwar from what I can see, including even NATO’s intervention in the Balkans. It’s well known that his own father died in World War II; I recall an interview years ago in which he lamented how many young kids grow up without fathers because of war.

I remember first hearing this album in 1987, and not really quite getting it. One night I forced myself, lying in bed with the lights out, to listen to the whole thing. I was so blown away that I got up and started the whole thing over again. Typical thing for a 15-year-old to do instead of sleeping, I suppose.

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3:35 pm on June 5, 2008