Roger Waters has shared why he was booed for performing Leaving Beirut during a gig in the United States.
The Pink Floyd bassist would perform the song in New Jersey and did not receive a warm reception when he finished the track. Waters has since shared he believes the pointed political part of the song was enough to rub the audience the wrong way at the time of the performance. Leaving Beirut, released in 2004 as a digital download, is a twelve-and-a-half-minute song which documents Waters’ hitchhiking through Lebanon. In true Waters fashion, controversy followed the release of the song, with lyrics criticising at the time President of the United States George W. Bush. Reactions to the song when performed were mixed, with a performance of it at Madison Square Garden receiving plenty of boos. The track was better received at the Hollywood Bowl in California.
This split in crowd reaction has since been explained by Waters. Speaking to Uncut Magazine in 2007, he said: “Of course. There was nothing negative about the response to the song in England, because even when we invaded Iraq in 2003, 75% of the British population was against the invasion. Two million people demonstrated on the streets of London. How Blair is still in power, I’ll never know.
“The first gig I did in the States was in Holmdel, New Jersey and there were a few boos when we got to the end of it. Somebody late told me that there are several US army bases close to Holmdel and maybe there were some military in the audience. A lot of people have made the mistake of thinking that song attacks the US servicemen.
“Nothing could be further from the truth. My heart goes out to those guys, who are out there doing their duty as best they can under very difficult circumstances. And my heart goes out to their families. The fact I think it’s a useless, senseless war is neither here nor there. I wouldn’t dream of criticising the foreign police of the Administration.”
Waters would continue on with an anecdote about meeting with a pair of fans who tried to tell the bassist he could not criticise the United States as he himself was not from the country.
He said: “Other people in the audiences in the US have written to me. There was one fabulous couple who came to the show in the Hollywood Bowl and wrote saying, ‘We paid 600 bucks for our tickets. My wife has been a huge fan of both of you work and of Pink Floyd. How could you ruin our evening by turning it into a political rally?’
“They went on, ‘How dare you criticise our president. You’re not even an American citizen.’ Give me a break. I can’t criticise Bush because I’m not a US citizen? Does this mean you have to be German to criticise Hitler, or Iraqi to criticise Saddam Hussein or Chinese to citicise the genocidal policies of Mao Tse-Tung? The idea is ludicrous. They’ve attacked Neil Young on the same grounds. He’s a Canadian. Clearly, it’s nonsense.”
