“Comfortably Numb 2022”

Before lockdown I had been working on a demo of a new version of ‘Comfortably Numb’ as an opener to our new show “This Is Not A Drill”. I pitched it a whole step down, in A Minor, to make it darker and arranged it with no solos, except over the outro, where there is a heartrendingly beautiful vocal solo from one of our new sisters Shanay Johnson.

It’s intended as a wakeup call, and a bridge towards a kinder future with more talking to strangers, either in “The Bar” or just “Passing in the Street” and less slaughter “In Some Foreign Field.”

Here it is. Love R. The video is by Sean Evans. The mix is by Gus Seyffert.

https://rogerwaters.lnk.to/comfortably-numb-2022

Dear German fans

I’ve heard there is a rumor going round that I may not be coming to Germany on my European tour, because of opposition from the Israeli Lobby. RUBBISH! I WOULDN’T MISS MY GIGS IN GERMANY FOR ANYTHING!

The Mayor of Munich and some members of the Green and SDP political parties and some other mouthpieces for the Israeli lobby have been slandering me, accusing me of being an anti-semite and also a Putin apologist. I am neither of those things. Never have been and never will be. I am however well-known for being a passionate supporter of peace movements in general and The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as signed in Paris on the 10th of December 1948 in particular. That document has 30 articles, they are readily available, if you haven’t read them please do. Particularly Olaf Scholz, and the Mayor of Munich and the rest of the German Political Ruling Class. What upsets these people is that along with the Universal Declaration to which I refer, I support equal human rights for all my brothers and sisters all over the world irrespective of their ethnicity or religion or nationality. That means I support basic human rights for you all, including Olaf Scholz and the mayor of Munich, to the same extent that I support basic human rights for all the peoples of the Levant, an area that would include what is now called Israel and Palestine and the Occupied Territories and Gaza. The problem is that whole area is being run by force as an apartheid settler colonialist enterprise by one ethno/religious group, the Jewish State of Israel, at the expense of basic human rights, including but not limited to the right to life and to own property, of all the people indigenous or not who make up the population of all those lands, but who are not of the Jewish faith. This is unacceptable. If your government thinks it is acceptable, or if you do, ask yourselves this, how would you feel if it were you? Your mother, your father, your son, your daughter, your house, your land, your olive tree that your great grandfather planted hundreds of years ago?

Your Ruling Class and your media want to ban me from bringing my message of love and peace and revolution to enrich your lives. WELL I’M COMING, and together we will raise the roof on this charade, this looking the other way, as one ethnic group commits slow genocide upon another. When Elie Wiesel, describing the holocaust, said, “To stand by silent and indifferent is the greatest sin of all.” Maybe he was wrong, maybe an even greater sin is to stand by and applaud.

WELL I’M NOT INDIFFERENT, I’M CERTAINLY NOT APPLAUDING, AND I WILL NOT BE SILENT AND, I AM COMING TO GERMANY!

LOVE

R.

2023 European tour

Mar 17 – Lisbon, Portugal – Altice Arena

Mar 18 – Lisbon, Portugal – Altice Arena

Mar 21 – Barcelona, Spain – Palau St Jordi

Mar 23 – Madrid, Spain – Wizink

Mar 24 – Madrid, Spain – Wizink

Mar 27 – Milan, Italy – Mediolanum Forum

Mar 28 – Milan, Italy – Mediolanum Forum

Mar 31 – Milan, Italy – Mediolanum Forum

Apr 01 – Milan, Italy – Mediolanum Forum

Apr 04 – Amsterdam, Holland – Ziggo Dome

Apr 06 – Amsterdam, Holland – Ziggo Dome

Apr 07 – Amsterdam, Holland – Ziggo Dome

Apr 11 – Oslo, Norway – Telenor

Apr 12 – Oslo, Norway – Telenor

Apr 15 – Stockholm, Sweden – Tele2

Apr 17 – Copenhagen, Denmark – Royal Arena

Apr 18 – Copenhagen, Denmark – Royal Arena

Apr 21 – Bologna, Italy – Unipol Arena

Apr 23 – Budapest, Hungary – MVM Dome

Apr 25 – Zurich, Switzerland – Hallenstadion

Apr 28 – Bologna, Italy – Unipol Arena

Apr 29 – Bologna, Italy – Unipol Arena

May 3 – Paris, France – AccorHotels Arena

May 4 – Paris, France – AccorHotels Arena

May 7 – Hamburg, Germany – Barclays Arena

May 9 – Cologne, Germany – Lanxess Arena

May 12 – Lille, France – Stade Pierre Mauroy

May 14 – Antwerp, Belgium – Sportpaleis

May 17 – Berlin, Germany – Mercedes Benz Arena

May 21 – Munich, Germany – Olympiahalle

May 24 – Prague, Czech Republic – O2 Arena

May 25 – Prague, Czech Republic – O2 Arena

May 28 – Frankfurt, Germany – Festhalle

May 31 – Birmingham, England – Utilita Arena

Jun 2 – Glasgow, Scotland – SSE Hydro

Jun 3 – Glasgow, Scotland – SSE Hydro

Jun 6 – London, England – The O2

Jun 7 – London, England – The O2

Jun 10 – Manchester, England – Manchester AO Arena

Tickets and information at: rogerwaters.com/tour

Response to Mrs. Olena Zelenska’s Tweet

TO QUOTE THE GREAT JOHN LENNON, “GIVE PEACE A CHANCE”

14th September 2022.

Roger Waters responds to Mrs. Olena Zelenska’s Олена Зеленська Tweet of 5th of September.

This is the text of Mrs. Zelenska’s tweet:

It is Russia that invaded Ukraine, destroys cities and kills civilians.

Ukrainians defend their land and their children’s future.

If we give up—–we will not exist tomorrow.

If Russia gives up—–war will be over.

Dear Mrs. Zelenska,

Please excuse my tardy reply to your Twitter response to my open letter. I am in the middle of a North American tour. I confess I never dreamed you would respond personally. I am bowled over, so thank you. I note what you say, but I’m fairly sure that ‘giving up’ just like that, is not an option that any side is considering. I feel I’m getting to know you a little, I see that you, like me, trained as an architect, so maybe we have a common interest in building things. That is good because we all need to focus on building something now, and obviously that something is peace in your country. My research leads me to believe that peace in the Ukraine is what the vast majority of the people of the Ukraine voted for when they elected your husband as President. And that majority, expected him to use his huge mandate to negotiate a settlement between the Ukraine and the Russian Federation that would meet the security needs of both nations and provide a credible alternative to this disastrous war.

I believe even after hostilities began, last April, two months into the war, such a settlement was on the table, it was in Istanbul wasn’t it? What happened?

You were so close to a ceasefire. I smell interference from Washington, I’m quite prepared to be wrong of course, but in my experience, if it smells like fish and looks fishy, it’s probably what passes for foreign policy in Washington DC. Anyway, it’s all water under the bridge now. What I am suggesting is that the only sane course is for all sides, and I say all sides, not both sides, because clearly this is a proxy war that involves the USA, so all sides need to agree to an unconditional ceasefire and the beginning of talks. I for one Olena will continue to bang the drum of peace, however unpopular that may be in these bellicose times. The mainstream media in the West seems intent on encouraging public support for escalation of the proxy war between the USA and the Russian Federation that is raging in the Ukraine, even to the point of contemplating playing nuclear chicken. Wow! How very irresponsible of the gentlemen of the press.

Back in 1962, we faced a very similarly deadly situation in the Caribbean. It was called the Cuban missile crisis. The whole human race came perilously close to extinction in a nuclear war, and we all knew it. That crisis came about because the USA, quite rightly, perceived an existential threat because the USSR was installing nuclear missiles in Cuba, only a stone’s throw from the US mainland. Today the roles are reversed, it is the USA that seeks, through NATO to install nuclear weapons in Ukraine, right on the Russian border only a stone’s throw from Moscow, and The Russian Federation perceives that as an existential threat. So Ukraine has become today’s Cuba.

That we all survived the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, if only just barely, can be partially explained by two things that happened. The first, and probably most important thing was that, unlike in the current crisis, in 1962 the Presidents of the USSR and the USA, Nikita Khrushchev and John Fitzpatrick Kennedy spoke to one another, repeatedly, soberly, politely and respectfully, on the telephone.

The second thing was just as crucial and is fascinating, and also, at least in the West, very little known.

It is the story of a Russian hero.

Vasily Aleksandrovich Arkhipov (Russian: Василий Александрович Архипов, IPA, 30 January 1926 – 19 August 1998) was a Soviet Naval officer credited with preventing a Soviet nuclear launch during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Such an attack likely would have caused a major global thermonuclear response.

As flotilla chief of staff and second-in-command of the diesel powered submarine B-59, Arkhipov refused to authorize the captain and the political officer’s use of nuclear torpedoes against the United States Navy, a decision which required the agreement of all three senior officers. After his death, Arkhipov has been widely recognized as someone who had ‘saved the world’ with his actions.

Wow! Vasily, on behalf of the whole human race, thank you for doing the right thing.

I have literally just now, this morning, received an email from MAPA (Massachusetts Peace Action) reminding me that back in 1962, the two Presidents resolved the crisis by compromising. Khrushchev agreed to remove the Russian missiles from Cuba and as a ‘quid pro quo’ Kennedy agreed to remove American missiles from Turkey! They spoke, they compromised, job done? It’s called diplomacy. What has happened to diplomacy? Why doesn’t President Biden do the right thing and speak to President Putin? Why have the powers that be in the USA steadfastly refused to address Russian concerns vis a vis the potential existential threat of a fully-fledged, nuclear armed, Ukraine joining NATO on Russia’s doorstep?

Though you and I, Mrs. Zelenska, are still trying to communicate to promote peace, albeit through the desperately unhelpful fog of partisan propaganda, every day more Ukrainian and Russian lives are tragically lost. Un-fathomably, the President of The United States of America, speaks publicly, in raucous and bellicose tones, of removing his opposite number in Russia from power. What! Mr. President the world is not a uni-polar Marvel Comic strip. What are you thinking? The Powers that Be who pull your strings and presumably tell you what to say, have a powerful echo chamber in the whole of the mainstream media, but ‘we the people’ have a voice too, and we will continue to use it, in spite of your efforts to subvert the law, ignore the constitution of the United States, and suppress basic human rights even to the point of imprisoning journalists who actually believe in liberty and democracy. Yes, Mr. President, I’m talking about Julian Assange.

More and more we are noticing that US foreign policy, as planned thirty years ago, by The Project For The New American Century, by Wolfowitz and Kagan, Kristol, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the rest of the neo cons, has increasingly become, the voice of the school yard bully, “Do as we say or we’ll kick your teeth in.” Really? Do you really think the American Empire should be trying to start a war with Russia? And then China? Are you crazy? ‘We the People’ don’t want that, because ‘We the People’ are not crazy. And the Russian and Chinese people don’t want that either, because they too are not crazy, but by God if you do start one, we better all get ready for a bloody nose because as I recall the Russian people didn’t want a war with the Germans either, but twenty six million of them died giving the Nazis a very bloody nose.

So where was I Mrs. Zelenska, I’m sorry I got a bit side tracked, oh yes, why don’t you prevail upon your husband to ‘do the right thing’, and ‘We the People’ in the USA will try to prevail upon poor old Uncle Joe Biden to do the right thing, and the Russian people will prevail upon the ‘stripped to the waist’ Vladimir Putin to do the right thing, and maybe, together, ‘We the People’ can prevail upon all our leaders to do the right thing, and maybe we can save the world from the imminent destruction upon which they seem hellbent. Maybe we can prevent The Powers that Be from sacrificing this, our beautiful planet home, on the altar of their deadly uni-polar warmongering.

Love

Roger Waters

An Open letter to Mrs. Olena Zelenska from Roger Waters

“Did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?”

An Open letter to Mrs. Olena Zelenska from Roger Waters

Sunday 4th September 2022

Dear Mrs. Zelenska,

My heart bleeds for you and all the Ukrainian and Russian families, devastated by the terrible war in Ukraine. I’m in Kansas City, USA. I have just read a piece on BBC.com apparently taken from an interview you have already recorded for a program called ‘Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg’ which is to be broadcast on the BBC today, September 4th. BBC.com quotes you as saying that “If support for Ukraine is strong, the crisis will be shorter.” Hmmm? I guess that might depend on what you mean by “support for Ukraine”? If by “support for Ukraine” you mean the West continuing to supply arms to the Kiev government’s armies, I fear you may be tragically mistaken. Throwing fuel, in the form of armaments, into a fire fight, has never worked to shorten a war in the past, and it won’t work now, particularly because, in this case, most of the fuel is (a) being thrown into the fire from Washington DC, which is at a relatively safe distance from the conflagration, and (b) because the ‘fuel throwers’ have already declared an interest in the war going on for as long as possible. I fear that we, and by we I mean people like you and me who actually want peace in Ukraine, who don’t want the outcome to be that you have to fight to the last Ukrainian life, and possibly even, if the worst comes to the worst, to the last human life. If we, instead, wish to achieve a different outcome we may have to seek a different route and that route may lie in your husband’s previously stated good intentions.

Yes, I mean the platform upon which he so laudably ran for the office of President of Ukraine, the platform upon which he won his historic landslide victory in the democratic election in 2019. He stood on the election platform of the following promises.

1. To end the civil war in the East and bring peace to the Donbas and partial autonomy to Donetsk and Luhansk.

2. And to ratify and implement the rest of the body of the Minsk 2 agreements.

One can only assume that your husband’s electoral policies didn’t sit well with certain political factions in Kiev and that those factions persuaded your husband to diametrically change course ignoring the peoples mandate. Sadly, your old man agreed to those totalitarian, anti-democratic dismissals of the will of the Ukrainian people, and the forces of extreme nationalism that had lurked, malevolent, in the shadows, have, since then, ruled the Ukraine. They have, also since then, crossed any number of red lines that had been set out quite clearly over a number of years by your neighbors the Russian Federation and in consequence they, the extreme nationalists, have set your country on the path to this disastrous war.

I won’t go on.

If I’m wrong, please help me to understand how?

If I’m not wrong, please help me in my honest endeavors to persuade our leaders to stop the slaughter, the slaughter which serves only the interests of the ruling classes and extreme nationalists both here in the West, and in your beautiful country, at the expense of the rest of us ordinary people both here in the West, and in the Ukraine, and in fact ordinary people everywhere all over the world.

Might it not be better to demand the implementation of your husband’s election promises and put an end to this deadly war?

Love

Roger Waters

Animals – New mix update

A note from Roger Waters to Pink Floyd fans:

As I am banned by Dave Gilmour from posting on Pink Floyd’s Facebook page with its 30,000,000 subscribers, I am posting this announcement here today and in full on rogerwaters.com.

First, a warm welcome back to our little band of brothers and sisters who have always kept an open mind, let’s hope some of the fans whose access to my words is suppressed by Gilmour find their way here and discover some truth.
What precipitated this note is that there are new James Guthrie Stereo and 5.1 mixes of the Pink Floyd album Animals, 1977. These mixes have languished unreleased because of a dispute over some sleeve notes that Mark Blake has written for this new release. Gilmour has vetoed the release of the album unless these liner notes are removed. He does not dispute the veracity of the history described in Mark’s notes, but he wants that history to remain secret. This is a small part of an ongoing campaign by the Gilmour/Samson camp to claim more credit for Dave on the work he did in Pink Floyd, 1967-1985, than is his due. Yes he was, and is, a jolly good guitarist and singer. But, he has for the last 35 years told a lot of whopping porky pies about who did what in Pink Floyd when I was still in charge. There’s a lot of “we did this” and “we did that,” and “I did this” and “I did that.” So, two things:

(1). I am agreeing to the release of the new Animals remix, with the sleeve notes removed. Good work James Guthrie by the way, and sorry Mark Blake. The final draft of the liner notes was fact checked and agreed as factually correct by me, Nick and Gilmour. Here they are, enjoy, there’s nothing controversial, just a few simple facts.

Mark Blake: Liner Notes
Pink Floyd: Animals
Despite being recorded in London during the long, summer heatwave of 1976, Pink Floyd’s Animals remains a dark album. Its critique of capitalism and greed caught the prevailing mood in Britain: a time of industrial strife, economic turmoil, The Troubles in Northern Ireland, and the race riots of Notting Hill. The album was released on January 23rd 1977, but the roots of Pink Floyd’s tenth studio album go back earlier in the decade. Following the success of 1973’s The Dark Side Of The Moon, Pink Floyd pondered their next move. During a two-to-three week jam session in early 1974, the band worked on ideas for three new compositions. From these sessions the band developed Shine On You Crazy Diamond, (A passionate tribute to Syd Barrett, words by Roger Waters. Added by me, sorry couldn’t help it.) which became the centrepiece of Floyd’s next album, Wish You Were Here, and Raving And Drooling (composed by Roger Waters) and You Gotta Be Crazy written by Waters and David Gilmour.

Raving And Drooling was a tale of violent social disorder, while You Gotta Be Crazy told the story of a soulless businessman clawing and cheating his way to the top. Both were performed live for the first time on the Floyd’s winter tour of 1974. They were both considered for the Wish You Were Here album, but Roger insisted that neither song was relevant to the overall idea, that “Wish You Were Here” was essentially about absence, and as neither song fitted his conception of the record’s overall theme, neither song should be included. The band eventually concurred. Scroll forward two years, and Roger had an idea for the next Pink Floyd album. He borrowed from George Orwell’s allegorical story, Animal Farm, in which pigs and other farmyard animals were reimagined anthropomorphically. Waters portrays the human race as three sub-species trapped in a violent, vicious cycle, with sheep serving despotic pigs and authoritarian dogs. You Gotta be Crazy and Raving And Drooling perfectly fitted his new concept. In the meantime, a year earlier, the group had bought a set of disused church buildings in Britannia Row, Islington, which they’d converted into a studio and storage facility. Prior to this every Pink Floyd studio release had been partly or wholly recorded at Abbey Road studios. Pink Floyd had also found a new recording engineer. Brian Humphries, an engineer from Pye studios, who they had met while recording the sound track for “More”, a movie directed by Barbet Schroeder. Brian had gone on to engineer Wish You Were Here at Abbey Road, and also helped them out on the road, so they had got to know him very well. Using their own studio marked a significant change in their working methods. There were setbacks and teething problems, but also a great sense of freedom.

Following Roger’s instincts about the new songs paid off, the songs had an aggressive edge far removed from the luxuriant soundscapes on Wish You Were Here. It was a timely change of direction. At Britannia Row, he renamed Raving And Drooling, Sheep and Gotta Be Crazy became Dogs. The narrative was completed by the addition of two new Waters songs: Pigs (Three Different Ones) and Pigs On The Wing.

On Pigs (Three Different Ones), the lyrics namechecked Mary Whitehouse, the head of the National Viewers And Listeners Association. Whitehouse was an outspoken critic of sex and violence on British television and a topical target for Roger’s ire. The subject matter was bleak, but Nick Mason recalled lighter moments over dubbing songs with special effects and barnyard noises. While Sheep also made room for Roger’s blackly comic variation on Psalm 23: “He maketh me to hang on hooks in high places/ He converteth me to lamb cutlets…” The music and the performance mirrored the intensity of the lyrics. Keyboard player Richard Wright’s eerie-sounding synths and Hammond organ cranked up the unease. While David Gilmour’s shared lead vocal on Dogs and his guitar playing throughout Animals offered a striking counterpoint to Roger’s brutal lyrics. In contrast, Animals began and ended on an optimistic note. The verses of Pigs on The Wing were split in two and bookended the album. Roger’s lyrics and vocal performance of acoustic intro and outro (“You know that I care what happens to you/ And I know that you care for me too…”) suggested hope for humanity. The idea for Pink Floyd’s flying pig was also Roger’s. He had already commissioned its building as a stage device for the next tour. Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey Powell of the design company Hipgnosis, had produced a number of design ideas for an Animals sleeve and presented them to the band but none of the band, liked them, and when Roger added his disapproval someone said, ”Well why don’t you come up with something better then?” So he did, on the drive from his house in South London to Britannia Row, he regularly passed Battersea Power Station. He was drawn to the imposing brick building, and by the number four. Four in the band, four phallic chimneys, and if the power station were turned upside down then it resembled a table with four legs. He pursued his idea and had a maquette made, a small scale model of the eventual full scale inflatable pig. He then took photographs of Battersea Power station and created a photographic mock up of an album sleeve. The rest of the band loved it. Storm and Po, who had designed all of the previous Pink Floyd album covers, graciously offered to source photographers for the photo shoot, and did. On the first day of the photo shoot, the pig failed to inflate. On the second day, it broke free of its moorings and disappeared into a beautiful brooding sky, prompting a frantic call to the police and a halt to all flights in and out of Heathrow. The pig eventually crash-landed in a farmer’s field in Kent.

The following day, the shoot went ahead without a hitch, great shots of pig in situ but no brooding sky. So Storm and Po stripped Day three Pig into Day two sky, bingo! History. Animals was a hit, reaching Number 2 in the UK and Number 3 in the US. Pink Floyd’s pig, Algie, made its live debut on their subsequent “In The Flesh” tour in 1977. At stadium shows in America, it was joined by another Water’s idea, an inflatable nuclear family comprising a mother, father and 2.5 children, surrounded by the spoils of a consumerist lifestyle: an inflatable Cadillac, oversized TV and refrigerator. Roger called it Electric Theatre. Both the album and the tour signposted the way to Pink Floyd’s next release, The Wall, and to Roger’s ever more ambitious ideas, both in terms of his music, narratives, politics and stage shows. But his themes and ideas explored on Animals have endured. More than 40 years on the album has been remixed in stereo and 5.1. In troubled times and an uncertain world, Animals is as timely and relevant now as it ever was.
Mark Blake

Thanks Mark, sorry you were redacted.

(2). I am in the middle of writing my Memoirs and inevitably some of it contains references to some of the content above. For anyone with a faint heart, I suggest you sit down, but anyone who likes a good laugh, sit back and fucking howl! 😂 🤣 ✊🏼 I’m going to sit back and howl along with you.

At the beginning of this post on the subject of porky pies, I say, “There’s an awful lot of “we did this” and “we did that,” and “I did this” and “I did that.” Right? So here’s a short extract from my memoir:

“As chance would have it I was doing a bit of delving in a book of press clippings and came across an interview David Fricke of Rolling Stone Magazine did with DG in a hotel room in NY in 1982, DG’s talking about the Cash register tape for the defining 7/8 rhythm on Money. The interview was published in Musician Magazine, so even back then DG was sowing the seeds of the false narrative. I quote this bit of the article verbatim:

David Fricke: “You recorded the sounds for ‘Money’ on a loop of tape.” Gilmour explains: ”You’re trying to get the impact from the cash register, ‘the snap, crack, crsssh,” You’d mark that one and then measure how long you wanted that beat to go, and that’s the piece you’d use. And you’d chop it together. It was trial and error. You just chop the tapes together, and if it sounds good, you use it. If it doesn’t, you take one section out and put a different one in. Sometimes we’d put one in and it’d be backwards, because the diagonal cut on the tape, if you turn it around is exactly the same. We’d stick that in and instead it would go ‘chung, dum, whoosh.’ And sound great so we’d use that.”
Well! The reason everything DG is saying here to David Fricke sounds like gobbledygook is because it is fucking gobbledygook. He has no fucking idea what he’s talking about. Why? Because unless he was hiding under the fucking chair, DG wasn’t there when I made that SFX tape loop for Money in the studio I shared with my wife Judy at the bottom of our garden at 187, New North Road, Islington, next door to the North Pole Pub where I used to play darts!

THE FULL STORY OF WHAT REALLY HAPPENED IS IN MY MEMOIRS!
So, I hope that whets your, and David and Polly’s appetites 😂
Love
R.

“The Gunner’s Dream”

Last night I watched the 2013 Documentary film
“The Man Who Saved The World”
The man’s name is Stanislav Petrov.
The year before Stanislav saved the World
In the year 1982 I wrote a song
“The Gunner’s Dream”
It’s weird to think that had Stanislav not been
In the right place at the right time
None of us would be alive
No one under the age of 37
Would have have been born at all.
It is acknowledged by all but the cretins amongst us
That nuclear arms have no value
It is also acknowledged that
They are a ticking bomb
And we ignore them at our peril
Accidents happen
The Stanislavs of this world are a rare breed.
We’ve been extraordinarily lucky.
If I ruled the world, I would heed the words of the wise
I would get rid of nuclear weapons
First thing tomorrow morning.
On Dr. King’s name day.
Of course no-one can rule the world
The world cannot be ruled
It can only be loved and respected and shared.
If we’re still here in the morning
So here is a new recording and video of
“The Gunner’s Dream”
As a gift from me and my lovely band and our friends
To you
With our love
R.

Roger Waters: Piano and Vocal
Dave Kilminster: Guitar
Joey Waronker: Drums
Lucius- Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig: Vocals
Gus Seyffert: Bass
Jonathan Wilson: Guitar
Jon Carin: Piano and Keys
Bo Koster: Hammond

Wrangled together by Sean Evans & Roger Waters
Mixed by Gus Seyffert
Mastered by Dave Cooley at Elysian Masters
Edited by Andy Jennison

Us + Them: Available Now in All Formats

Available now: https://rogerwaters.lnk.to/us-them

We are pleased to announce the release of ROGER WATERS: US + THEM on Blu-ray, DVD, CD and Vinyl. The ROGER WATERS: US + THEM concert film is currently available for digital rent and purchase and chronicles Waters’ acclaimed 2017-2018 tour.

Everything Under the Sun playlist

A note from Roger:

🎧 Here is the playlist of all my recorded songs with and without Pink Floyd:

LISTEN

A note from Roger: Just to be clear.

After speaking with Palestinian and Jewish colleagues and friends, I’ve come to understand that some remarks I made during a recent TV interview, about Palestinians suffering under decades of Israeli military occupation and apartheid, have caused some deep offense. Naturally, this is the last thing I would ever want to do, particularly within a justice movement which I care about so passionately.  

During the Interview, in expressing my total solidarity with and support for the Palestinian people, when referring to Sheldon Adelson’s support for the racist policies of both Trump and Netanyahu, I used words that evoked metaphorical imagery which, my friends said, were “harmful to Jewish people and to the movement for Palestinian rights” – and for this, I’m very sorry.
 
At the time, I had no idea that I was evoking an antisemitic trope. I regret any harm or hurt my use of words caused Jewish people, and also any ways it may have reinforced damaging lies about Jews. Nothing could have been further from my intentions. I have only respect and compassion for my Jewish brothers and sisters in our collective struggle for a more just and peaceful world. 

The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement for Palestinian freedom, justice and equality, which I strongly support, calls for full and equal human rights for everyone and rejects all forms of racism, including antisemitism. Obviously, I completely agree that in this Palestinian-led movement that is peacefully resisting Israel’s racist system of apartheid and military occupation, there is no room for any racism against any community.

So let me be totally clear, I have no doubt that Trump, Mike Pompeo, and the entire US government, with their extremist right-wing agenda, would support Israeli apartheid with or without the campaign backing of Mr. Adelson. 

On another matter, I suggested during the interview that Israeli Police working with US Police forces had introduced to this country the knee/carotid artery choking technique that was used in the murder of George Floyd. Two things. First, I was wrong about that. A friend I called for guidance on this, who is an acknowledged expert on the police exchange programs and connections between American and Israeli state violence, agreed that Israel’s militarizing influence on the U.S. and around the world is a grave and concerning fact. He also confirmed that law enforcement exchange programs with Israel facilitate the sharing of racist practices and repressive technologies that enhance and normalize mass surveillance, criminalization, racial profiling, and the violent repression of communities. But, he told me that Israel does not train US police in tactics, like those used to kill George Floyd. They don’t have to.

As we all know, the USA — a country built on the genocide of millions of Indigenous people, on the enslavement of millions of Africans and on the systemic racism which has persisted since the end of slavery — is clearly not waiting for Israel to teach it how to kill Black and Brown people. American police have been murdering Black people with impunity since the first slave patrols.

The current Black-led uprisings across the United States are a demand for real justice, for reparations, and for ending the brutal state violence and systemic racism against Black people that date back to this country’s founding. 

So, second: To my friends in the Movement for Black Lives, I apologize unreservedly for my slip. I fully support the Black led uprising against the systemic racism endemic across America, against the murderous functioning of the Police, and the whole broken and deeply racist justice/penal system. The words “except as a punishment for crime” should be excised from the 13^th Amendment to the Constitution. Those words are a license to a white supremacist system to perpetuate forms of slavery forever.

I have tried in my way to stand firm in support of, not just the Palestinian cause, but many other struggles for justice around the world. I shall continue to use my voice in our common fight for human rights, and I commit to trying to improve my awareness and sensitivity to strengthen my solidarity in pursuit of freedom from oppression and racism, and for justice and equality for all beings, everywhere. 

Love, 
R

“Two Suns In the Sunset”

When I proudly showed my partner Kamilah “Two Suns in the Sunset” on YouTube on Sunday morning, I freaked out because the acoustic guitar entry was a good 5db down in level.

This may seem like a small thing to you, but it’s not to me. Call me obsessive-compulsive, but I can’t watch it like that. So for anyone who’s interested, this is a re-post with that small glitch corrected.

Love
R.

—–

I had an idea to make an album of all the songs we did as encores on the US and Them tour.

We did “Mother” first.

Had to do it remotely because of Covid 19.

“Two Suns in The Sunset” is #2.

Hope you like it. I love it.

What a beautiful band they are.
Love
R.

PS. That we allow Nuclear Weapons to exist in a world controlled by deranged sociopaths is, in itself, a deranged arrangement.

We are many they are few.

We could just say no, to the whole MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) insanity.

It makes zero sense and is potentially omnicidal.

Roger Waters: Guitar and Vocal
Dave Kilminster: Guitar
Joey Waronker: Drums
Lucius- Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig: Vocals
Gus Seyffert: Bass
Jonathan Wilson: Guitar
Jon Carin: Piano and Keys
Bo Koster: Hammond
Ian Ritchie: Saxophone

Wrangled together by Sean Evans & Roger Waters

Mixed by Gus Seyffert
Assisted by Sean Cook

Edited by Andy Jennison

Us + Them: Digital Film Release

Available now: https://rogerwaters.lnk.to/us-them

Pre-order physical release here: https://www.shoprogerwaters.com/

ROGER WATERS: US + THEM, a film documenting the acclaimed 2017-2018 tour, comes to 4K, HD and SD Digital on June 16. Viewers on digital will have access to all-new post-feature content including two additional concert songs not included in the original feature (“Comfortably Numb” and “Smell the Roses”) as well as A Fleeting Glimpse, a documentary short featuring behind-the-scenes moments from the tour.

As the founding member, lyricist, composer and creative force behind Pink Floyd, US + THEM presents Waters’ powerful music in stunning form and highlights its message of human rights, liberty and love. Based around his acclaimed, sold-out US + THEM worldwide tour of 2017-2018, comprising a total of 156 shows to 2.3 million people across the globe, it features classic songs from The Dark Side of the Moon, The Wall, Animals, Wish You Were Here, as well as his most recent album, Is This The Life We Really Want?

#NoUNSC4Canada

A note to their Excellencies, the Members of the General Assembly of the UN.

An Irishman, a Norwegian and a Canadian go to a party for a game of Musical Chairs.

There are two vacant chairs on the UN Security Council at the party.

When the music stops let’s make sure the Irishman and the Norwegian are seated at the table where they belong.

And the Canadian kid is left a wallflower until such time as he learns what human rights are.

ART BY: https://twitter.com/Lin244

“Mother”

“Social distancing is a necessary evil in Covid world. Watching “Mother” reminds me just how irreplaceable the joy of being in a band is.”

ROGER WATERS 2020 TOUR POSTPONED

A note from Roger:

THE BAD NEWS: I’ve had to postpone my THIS IS NOT A DRILL tour until next year. Bummer, but if it saves one life, it’s worth it.

THE GOOD NEWS!!!! A federal Judge in Washington DC ruled on March 25, 2020 that Trump’s Dakota Access Pipeline Executive order was ILLEGAL and demands an E.I.S (Environmental Impact Statement). This is a huge victory for the STANDING ROCK SIOUX TRIBES. POWER TO THE PEOPLE!!! Love R.

 
 

Ticketholders are advised to hold onto their original tickets and await further information.

Austin Chronicle interview

Pink Floyd fanatics be warned: This document contains NO music. Every word, 7,900 or so, concerns politics. And not by some wonk.

Interviewed by phone Feb. 19 in London on the occasion of a keynote appearance at the subsequently canceled SXSW, Roger Waters should analyze global news on prime time. Televisions would melt. So, no soundtrack here, save for a mention of Meddle and its side-long “Echoes.” And The Wall.

Read full interview here.

Don’t Extradite Assange March, London – February 22, 2020

WE ARE HERE TODAY FOR JULIAN ASSANGE.

But I have four names on this piece of paper.

The First and last of course is Julian Assange, A Journalist, a courageous shiner of light into the dark places from which the powers that be would dearly like to have us turn away.

Julian Assange. A name to be carved with pride into any monument to human progress.

Julian is why we are here today, but this is no parochial protest. We are today part of a global movement, a global movement that might be the beginning of the global enlightenment that this fragile planet so desperately needs.

Ok. Second Name. Sent to me by my friend VJ Prashad.

Second name is Aamir Aziz, Aamir is a young poet and activist in Delhi involved in the fight against Modi and his rascist Citizenship law. 

Everything Will Be Remembered

Kill us, we will become ghosts and write
of your killings, with all the evidence.
You write jokes in court;
We will write ‘justice’ on the walls.
We will speak so loudly that even the deaf will hear.
We will write so clearly that even the blind will read.
You write ‘injustice’ on the earth;
We will write ‘revolution’ in the sky.
Everything will be remembered;
Everything recorded

This out pouring of the human spirit from India is taking place in a time of revolt, when the fetters of propriety are set aside.

As we meet here in London. Across the Atlantic in Argentina thousands of women are taking to the streets to demand the legalization of abortion from  President Fernández.

It’s not just Argentina. This last year we have seen major protests erupt across the whole world against neoliberal/fascist regimes. In Chile, The Lebanon, Colombia, Ecuador, Haiti, France and now, of course also in Bolivia fighting the new US imposed military dictatorship there..

When will we see the name of England appended to that noble list? I sense the scratching of heads in drawing rooms across the home counties, “What’s he talking about, the man’s a bloody pinko pervert, bloody anti semite, what’s he talking about? We don’t live in a dictatorship, this is a free country, a democracy, with all the finest traditions of fair play, pah!”

Well, I’ve got news for you Disgruntled of Tunbridge Wells. We’d like to think this is a free country, but are we really free? Why? When Julian Assange is brought to the dock in the tiny magistrates court inside Belmarsh prison are so many seats occupied by anonymous American suits, whispering instructions into the attentive ear of the prosecution’s lead barrister, James Lewis QC?

Why?

Because we don’t live in a free country we live in a glorified dog kennel and we bark and/or wag our tails at the bidding of our lords and masters across the pond.

I stand here today, in front of the Mother of Parliaments, and there she stands blushing in all her embarrassment. And just up stream from here is Runnemede, where in 1215, we, the English, laid out the rudiments of common law. Magna Carta, ratified in 1297 article 29 of which gave us Habeus Corpus. Or did it? It stated:

“The body of a free man is not to be arrested, or imprisoned, or outlawed, or exiled, or in any way ruined, nor is the king to go against him or send forcibly against him, except by judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.”

Sadly, Article 29 is not enforceable in modern law. Magna Carta is only an idea, and in this propaganda driven modern world, it provides no check in principle to Parliament legislating against the rights of citizens.

We do however have an extradition treaty with the USA and in the first paragraph of article 4 of that treaty it states. “Extradition shall not be granted if the offense for which extradition is requested is a political offense.” Julian Assange has committed no crime but he has committed a political act. He has spoken truth to power. He has angered some of our masters in Washington by telling the truth and in retribution for the act of telling the truth they want his blood.

Yesterday in front of Battersea Power Station I did a TV interview for SKY news to promote this event, there was no visual link, so my only contact with the lady asking me questions was via an ear bud on a curly wire. I learned something about telling truth in the phrasing of her questions to me. She came at me like some crazed Don Quixote every question laced, thick with the smears and innuendo and the false accusations with which the powers that be have been trying to blacken Julian Assange’s name. She rattled off the tired, but well prepared narrative, and then interrupted constantly when I made reply. I don’t know who she is, she may mean well. If she does, my advice would be to stop drinking the Kool-aid, and if she actually gives a fig for her chosen profession get her sorry ass down here and join us.

So England. I call upon our prime minister, Boris Johnson, to declare his colours, does he support the spirit of Magna Carta? Does he believe in, democracy, freedom, fair play, free speech, and especially the freedom of the press? If the answer to those questions is yes, then come on Prime Minister be the British Bulldog you would have us all believe you are? Stand up to the bluster of American hegemony, call off this show trial, this charade, this kangaroo court. “The evidence before the court is in-controvertible.”  Julian Assange is an innocent man. A journalist doing very important work for “we the people” by exposing the crimes of powerful sociopaths in the corridors of power.

I call on you to free him today.   

I cannot leave this stage without mention of Chelsea Manning, who provided some of the material that Julian published.

Chelsea has been in a federal prison for a year incarcerated by the Americans for refusing, on principal, to give evidence to a grand jury specifically convened to make an example of Julian Assange. What courage. They are also fining her $1,000 a day. Chelsea your’s is another name to be carved in pride, I’ve been reading the latest on your case, it looks as if your legal team are finding light at the end of the tunnel, please god, you get out soon back to your loved ones, you are a true hero. You exemplify the bulldog spirit that I was talking about a few moments ago.

Also Daniel Hale

Daniel is a whistle-blower you may not know yet. He was in a great documentary movie National Bird, made by my good friend Sonia Kennebeck. He was part of the US drone program targeting Afghans in their own country from some mobile command center in Navada. When his stint in the USAF was over.  Daniel’s good heart refused to edit out the burden of remorse he carried and he very bravely decided to tell his story. The FBI/CIA have pursued Daniel remorselessly ever since and he is now in prison awaiting trial. Daniel’s is another name to be carved in pride. Those of us who have never compromised our liberty in the cause of freedom, who have never picked up the burning torch and held it trembling over the crimes of their superior officers, can only wonder at the extraordinary courage of those who have.

There are other speakers here, so I will make way, I could stand here all day railing against the dying of the light should we not stand Bulldog like, with arms linked, ranks closed in front of our brother and comrade Julian Assange. And when the lackies of the American Empire come to take him, to destroy him and hang him in the hedge as a warning to frighten future journalists, we will look them in the eye and steadfast with one voice we will intone.

“Over our dead bodies.”

Roger Waters Feb 22^nd 2020

Eric Clapton & Friends, A Tribute to Ginger Baker

Eric Clapton assembled an incredible roster of musicians on Sunday evening to honor the late Ginger Baker at the Eventim Apollo Hammersmith in London: Roger Waters, Nile Rodgers, Ron Wood, Steve Winwood and Paul Carrack, along with Baker’s son Kofi.

The show was centered around songs by Cream and Blind Faith; Clapton and Waters kicked it all off with “Sunshine of Your Love.”

Read more: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/watch-eric-clapton-roger-waters-honor-ginger-baker-sunshine-of-your-love-954130/

MEXICO CITY DATE ADDED

MEXICO CITY! WE ARE COMING.

Wednesday 7th October 2020
Palacio de los Deportes

Tickets on sale 10th February 2020 at 11:00am CST
https://www.ticketmaster.com.mx/promo/rhfagy

ROGER WATERS: THIS IS NOT A DRILL – 2020 NORTH AMERICAN TOUR ANNOUNCED

THE CREATIVE GENIUS OF PINK FLOYD RETURNS TO NORTH AMERICA

FOR AN AUDIO VISUAL EXPERIENCE IN THE ROUND
Tickets on sale beginning Friday, January 31 at 10:00am

“…the most striking cinematic theatrics ever employed on a rock stage. There should be Oscars for this kind of work.”

– Billboard

Los Angeles, CA – January 23, 2020 – Roger Waters returns to North America in 2020 with an all-new tour, and for the first time, In The Round.

Challenging, thought-provoking, the tour continues Waters’ message of Love.

“It’ll be a new show. It will be no-holds-barred. My work is to think, ‘Well, how can I make rock & roll more interesting or theatrical or exciting or visual or musical or whatever?’  That’s what I’ve spent the last 50 years doing, expressing myself,” said Roger Waters of the upcoming tour in his September 2019 interview with Kory Grow, Rolling Stone.

This Is Not A Drill will play 31 cities across the US and Canada starting in Pittsburgh on July 8, 2020 at the PPG Paints Arena and playing venues not seen on the 2017 Us + Them tour, including New York City, Cincinnati, Raleigh, Orlando, Minneapolis, San Francisco, and Salt Lake City.

Roger Waters: This Is Not A Drill marks Waters’ return to the US following his extraordinary performances at the 2016 Desert Trip music festival and his worldwide Us + Them tour in 2017 and 2018.

Tickets for Roger Waters: This Is Not A Drill North American tour go on sale Friday, January 31 at 10:00 am local time.

Roger Waters: This Is Not A Drill is promoted by AEG Presents’ Concerts West.

SXSW 2020 Music Keynote

“Roger Waters is a true creative visionary, and we’re pleased to have him participate for 2020,” said Hugh Forrest, Chief Programming Officer. “SXSW continues to be a unique destination for innovation and discovery, and we’re excited about the addition of the many groundbreaking pioneers, influential voices and business leaders that we’ve added to this year’s lineup.”

March 18th, 2020 – Austin, TX

More information: https://schedule.sxsw.com/2020/events/PP1134785