Roger Waters says the death of his father during the Second World War had a “consolation” to it depsite the tragedy.
The Pink Floyd bassist and songwriter would share his thoughts on what his father means to him during an interview celebrating thirty years of The Wall. Waters‘ deeply personal writing for The Wall formed one of the band’s most popular albums, and Waters is seemingly still proud of his efforts there. During an interview with Jim Ladd in 2011, Waters shared what the songs meant to him, and what it made him realise about his father after writing up a character that embodied much of his beliefs on war, peace, and the music industry in the late 1970s.
He said: “Writing The Wall was a very important and therapeutic process for me. Also, it was a very important part of making sense of my feelings. Not only the trauma of losing my father, but also trying to make sense of the fact that I felt alienated from other people. Music can be hugely therapeutic on all levels. Just making a noise can be a good thing.”
Waters would go on to say the “only consolation” for his father’s death is that he died defending the world from Nazis. The bassist added: “That is the only consolation in his death. There is no question that Adolf Hitler and the rest of the Nazi gang were a huge danger not just to the rest of Europe, but also to the whole world potentially and they had to be stopped. They were a real, real danger, and I think it was absolutely necessary.”
A separate song on the album, Comfortably Numb, was inspired by a gruesome hotel stop. Waters, explaining the origins of Comfortably Numb, said: “We were in Philadelphia years before, doing a gig in The Spectrum, I think there. And I had a terrible stomach bug of some kind and I had awful stomach pains and I didn’t think I was going to be able to go on.
“So I got the quack from the hotel, and he came up to the room and he said, ‘Oh we can sort that out, I’ll just give you this shot.’ And I have no idea what it was like… And I had to do the whole gig like that, I could hardly move. It was the weirdest feeling. And that was a sort of kick-off for writing that song.”
The song received further praise for featuring what many believe is the “best guitar solo in rock history”, with fans pinpointing a particular performance that still sticks out to them.
An upload of the performance to YouTube saw fans flock to the comments and heap praise onto David Gilmour, the band’s guitarist and vocalist for the song. Gilmour received plenty of praise from fans who suggested it was the very best solo he had given the song, and that it was also a “beautiful” vocal performance.
The song is featured on the Is There Anybody Out There live album, as well as The Dark Side of the Moon. Though the song was seven years old at this point, it was featured on The Wall setlist.
