•
Rating: Roger Waters has never gotten over the loss of his father during the Anzio landings, and nearly fifty years later, Amused To Death begins and ends with the calm and dramatic account of an English soldier from World War II. A critical reading of Amused To Death cannot overlook the war and the devastation it brings to the body and soul of men. From this, and at a later stage, one can appreciate Waters' musical choices and interpretative flair. The album is a sort of apology for man and his weaknesses, where every track is essential to understand the rest, both in terms of musical flow and individual themes addressed.
The senseless and uncontrollable death drive of men is already translated in the first track ("What God Wants, Part I") into a bitter reflection on God's will: "God wants crusade, God wants jihad, God wants good, God wants bad". A rock song with an irresistible refrain that seems to sarcastically underline its heavy contents.
It is followed by the two parts of "Perfect Sense", where in the first, the visions and thoughts of a cinematic-memorable monkey inherit the feeling of restlessness from the previous track. The second is a simple and bitter observation on the power of money: "can’t you see, it all makes perfect sense, expressed in dollar and cents, pound shillings and pence". In the two compositions, the pianist touch and orchestral accompaniment emerge, which will characterize, respectively, the most reflective and the most paranoid moments throughout the album.
"The Bravery Of Being Out Range" is a closed and energetic rock that chases reflections, on the verge of frantic thoughts, on the military world. "Late Home Tonight", Part I and Part II, unfolds on an intimate and familial terrain, Waters' voice becomes warmer and less inclined to melody. It is the most intense moment of the album, the music is just a backdrop for disturbing domestic vignettes, opposite and interposed to ironic observations on war: "the beauty of military life, no questions only orders and flight, only flight".
It is followed by "Too Much Rope", a melancholic track that denounces some contradictory aspects of human nature, probably the highest point of the entire work in terms of integration between music and lyrics.
"What God Wants, Part II" is just a call back to the first part, a temporary curtain to what on 33 rpm was the A side.
The second part begins with "What God Wants, Part III", a name perhaps given just because it was handy and due to the impossibility of finding a suitable one: an overly inspired Waters indeed lays out a decidedly rambling text over carpets of keyboards and piercing guitars. The following two tracks are the least integrated into the overall style of the work. "Watching TV" is the poignant story of a Chinese girl who loses her life in Tiananmen Square, a touching piece, sung with two voices and exquisitely accompanied by acoustic guitar. "Three Wishes" is a dreamlike episode tied to the memory of the artist's father.
The next and penultimate track is "It’s A Miracle", where once again the writer's cynical irony is the absolute protagonist: "They’ve got Pepsi in the Andes, (…) A Brazilian grew a tree, a doctor in Manhattan saved a dying man for free, it’s a miracle". The track fades and introduces the worthy closure of the album "Amused To Death. In technical terms, the title track is the last among the tracks and is like a desire to testify from beginning to end, almost obsessively, the final message. The human species has a natural tendency towards its own annihilation, and Waters finds nothing better than to have the concept reiterated by an alien during his anthropological tests. A splendid piece that is one of the pinnacles of his entire solo production and with Pink Floyd.
The first listen, let it be clear, is difficult, a bit like having reached this point in the review. The complex kaleidoscope of sounds and words assembled on the album is not immediately enjoyable; often the pleasure of listening to certain music is like a revelation, and the author loves to obscure his compositional genius under an overbearing personality. The search for hidden meanings, the perception of a hidden melody, the appreciation of background sounds are the necessary tools for active listening, free from the mechanisms of the music business that feeds us music which exhausts after a few radio airings.
"Amused To Death" is from 1992, since then Waters has practically not produced any new material and in November, after thirteen years, he will present his first opera. This is therefore, morally, the terminal album of the rock career of one of the geniuses of modern music. A point of arrival that concludes a musical discourse lasting thirty years, which without it, would have remained without its passionate epilogue.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 The Ballad of Bill Hubbard (04:19)
tv channels changing
Two things that have haunted me most are the days when I had to
collect the paybooks; and when I left Bill Hubbard in no-man's-land.
I was picked up and taken into their trench. And I'd no sooner taken
two or three steps down the trench when I heard a call, 'Hello Razz,
I'm glad to see you. This is my second night here,' and he said 'I'm
feeling bad,' and it was Bill Hubbard, one of the men we'd trained
in England, one of the original battalion. I had a look at his wound,
rolled him over; I could see it was probably a fatal wound.
You could imagine what pain he was in, he was dripping with sweat; and after
I'd gone about three shellholes, traversed that, had it been...had
there been a path or a road I could have done better. He pummeled
me, 'Put me down, put me down, I'd rather die, I'd rather die, put me
down.'
I was hoping he would faint. He said 'I can't go any further, let me die.' I said 'If I leave you here Bill you won't be found, let's
have another go.' He said 'All right then.' And the same thing
happened; he couldn't stand it any more, and I had to leave him
there, in no-man's-land."
05 The Bravery of Being out of Range (04:43)
You have a natural tendency
To squeeze off a shot
You're good fun at parties
You wear the right masks
You're old but you still
Like a laugh in the locker room
You can't abide change
You're at home on the range
You opened your suitcase
Behind the old workings
To show off the magnum
You deafened the canyon
A comfort a friend
Only upstaged in the end
By the Uzi machine gun
Does the recoil remind you
Remind you of sex
Old man what the hell you gonna kill next
Old timer who you gonna kill next
I looked over Jordan and what did I see
Saw a U.S. Marine in a pile of debris
I swam in your pools
And lay under your palm trees
I looked in the eyes of the Indian
Who lay on the Federal Building steps
And through the range finder over the hill
I saw the frontline boys popping their pills
Sick of the mess they find
On their desert stage
And the bravery of being out of range
Yeah the question is vexed
Old man what the hell you gonna kill next
Old timer who you gonna kill next
Hey bartender over here
Two more shots
And two more beers
Sir turn up the TV sound
The war has started on the ground
Just love those laser guided bombs
They're really great
For righting wrongs
You hit the target
And win the game
From bars 3,000 miles away
3,000 miles away
We play the game
With the bravery of being out of range
We zap and maim
With the bravery of being out of range
We strafe the train
With the bravery of being out of range
We gained terrain
With the bravery of being out of range
With the bravery of being out of range
We play the game
With the bravery of being out of range
08 Too Much Rope (05:47)
When the sleigh is heavy
And the timber wolves are getting bold
You look at your companions
And test the water of their friendship
With you toe
They significantly edge
Closer to the gold
Each man has his price Bob
And yours was pretty low
History is short the sun just a minor star
The poor man sells his kidneys
In some colonial bazaar
Que sera sera
Is that your new Ferrari car
Nice but I'll think I'll wait for the F50
You don't have to be a Jew
To disapprove of murder
Tears burn my eyes
Moslem or Christians Mullah or Pope
Preacher or poet who was it wrote
Give any one species too much rope
And they'll fuck it up
And last night on TV
A Vietnam vet
Takes his beard and his pain
And his alienation twenty years
Back to Asia again
Sees the monsters they made
In formaldehyde floating 'round
Meets a gook on a bike
A good little tyke
A nice enough guy
With the same soldier's eyes
Tears burn my eyes
What does it mean
This tearjerking scene
Beamed into my home
That it moves me so much
Why all the fuss
It's only two humans being
It's only two humans being
Tears burn my eyes
What does it means
This tender TV
This tearjerking scene
Beamed into my home
You don't have to be a Jew
To disapprove my murder
Tears burn my eyes
Moslem or Christian Mullah or Pope
Preachers or poet who was it wrote
Give any one species too much rope
And they'll fuck it up
14 Amused to Death (09:07)
Doctor, Doctor, what is wrong with me
This supermarket life is getting long
what is the heart life of a color tv
what is the shelf life of a teenage queen
Ooooh western woman, Ooooh western girl
News hound sniffs the air, when Jessica Hahn goes down
He latches on to that symbol of detatchment
Attracted by the peeling away of feeling
The celebrity of the abused shell, the belle
Ooooh western woman, Oooooh western girl
Ooooh western woman, Oooooh western girl
And the children of Melrose strut their stuff
is absolute zero cold enough
and out in the valley, warm and clean
the little ones sit by their tv screen
no thoughts to think, no tears to cry
all sucked dry, down to the very last breathe
bartender what is wrong with me,
why am i so out of breathe
the captain said excuse me ma'am
the species has amused itself to death
amused itself to death
it has amused itself to death
amused itself to death
we watched a tragedy unfold
we did as we were told
we bought and sold
it was the greatest show on earth
but then it was over
we ohhed and awed
we drove our racing cars
we ate our last few jars of caviar
and somewhere out there in the stars
a keen eyed look out
spied a flickering light
our last hurrah
our last hurrah
and when they found our shadows
grouped round the tv sets
they ran down every lead
they repeated every test
they checked out all the data on their list
and then the alien anthropologist
admitted they were still perplexed
but on eliminating every other reason
for our sad demise
they logged the only explanation left
this species has amused itself to death
no tears to cry, no feelings left
the species has amused itself to death
amused itself to death
Loading comments slowly
