Roger Waters – Amused to Death
When this man has something to say, you better listen. Roger Waters gave us the lyrics and large portions of the music to one of the greatest band of all time – PINK FLOYD. There has been hardly any topic in society and politics that he hasn’t uttered his opinion on. In recent years, he has been in the public eye for his large scale concert tours, his open criticism for Donald Trump and his interest in Palestinian freedom. His support for a group named BDS got him accusations of antisemitism. If you know Waters and his stance in politics, you might know that nothing could be further from the truth. He is a very passionate musician and sometimes a bit rough around the edges of his views but still, his criticism of Israeli politics does not mean that he has a problem with Jewish people. I disagree with most of the things Donald J. Trump and his Republican posse regurgitate upon the political stage but that does not make me anti-american. I might be mostly situated in Middle Europe or the South Pacific, but still I do like American people and culture.
But I disgress and this is supposed to be about music, isn’t it? With „Amused to Death“ (the title taken from a Neil Postman novel) Roger Waters created the greatest piece of his solo career and one that lyrically not only reaches similar heights to masterworks such as „The Dark Side of the Moon“ or „The Wall“, with how media has changed our culture and our perception of reality, he also touched a subject that is still surprisingly relevant. Since its publication in the early 1990s, so much has changed, but his views of how we percieve our world no longer with our own eyes but via cameras and screens were real then and even more so now.
„And when they found our shadows, grouped around the TV sets,
they ran down every lead, they repeated every test,
they checked out all the data on their lists.
And then the alien anthropologists admitted they were still perplexed.
But on elimininating every other reason for our sad demise,
they logged the only explanation left,
this species has amused itself to death…“
A few days ago, Waters has announced another tour dubbed „This is not a Drill“. If you have the chance to see it, do! His voice is important, and even if you disagree with some of his views, they are always worth considering. And having talked about ist lyrical contents so much, just this: The music is awesome, too.