(citations récupérées sur le défunt site.voila.fr/rogerwaters2/ — serait dommage que ça se perde)

* ‘I had no idea that I would ever really write songs, and in the early years, I didn’t have to ‘cause Syd was writing all the material and it was only after he stopped writing that the rest of us had to start trying to do it. I’d always been told, at school anyway, that I was absolutely bloody hopeless at everything, so I had no real confidence about any of it.’ (The Source, 1984)

* ‘But Syd as a writer was a one-off. I could never aspire to his crazed insights and perceptions. In fact, for a long time I wouldn’t have dreamt of claiming any insights whatsoever. But I’d always credit Syd with the connection he made to his personal unconscious and to the collective, group conscious. It’s taken me fifteen years to get anywhere near there.’ (Interview with Chris Salewicz, 1987) –>

* ‘Yes, It was straight after we had split up with Syd. I’m sure you would get arguments about that from the other ‘boys’, but I simply took responsibility, largely because no-one else seemed to want to do it, and that is graphically illustrated by the fact that I started to write most of the material from then on, I’m perfectly happy being a leader. In fact, I know I can be an oppressive personality because I bubble with ideas and schemes, and in a way it was easier for the others simply to go along with me. We rarely used to see each other socially, although I used to get on with Nick Mason alright. For a limited time, in the early days of the group, we did mix socially. Because there is something rather appealing about a group together on the road. But that soon palls. And things like families make sure that cycle comes to an end.’ (Interview with Chris Salewicz, 1987)

* ‘I have always made cold concept albums.. and that’s what interests me, and that’s the form within which I work and will continue to work hopefully…’ (Kaos Rehearsals, 1987)

* ‘Music is only mathematics anyway. It is another way of interpreting maths.’ (Interview with Chris Salewicz, 1987)

* You can draw a line between what I’m interested in and what I’m not interested in. On one side you can name Dylan and Lennon, who observe the world and have feelings, and write songs directly from those feelings. On the vapid side you have pop groups who need material and write songs to fill the hole, rather than getting somebody else.’ (Musican Interview, 1992)

* ‘But I confess that I harbour a fantasy that there might be enough in my writing - because my writing is so passive - that has something to do with some sort of group unconscious that I might make another record that would appeal to millions. I always feel it is a kind of extraordinary coincidence that it happened twice with the Pink Floyd, with Dark Side Of The Moon and The Wall.’ (Interview with Chris Salewicz, 1987

* Journalist : What do you make of the theory that your input was based around organizing ideas and frameworks, and Dave contributed his intuitive musicianship?

Roger Waters : ‘That’s crap. There’s no question that Dave needs a vehicle to bring out the best of his guitar playing. And he is a great guitar player. But the idea, which he’s tried to propagate over the years, that he’s somehow more musical than I am, is absolute fucking nonsense. It’s an absurd notion, but people seem quite happy to believe it.’ (John Harris, A brainchild born of insanity, 2003)

* ‘Dave and I never wrote together. I don’t ever remember writing with Dave. Sometimes he’d bring in a chord sequence and I’d then make a song out of it. Or he’d bring a guitar riff in and I’d make a song out of it, like ‘Wish You Were Here.’ I love that riff, it’s fantastic. But we never wrote together, ever. Never. And Dave was never interested in drama, ever. In my experience. He never showed any interest at all, ever, in drama. Of any kind. Certainly not.’ (Musician, 1992)

* ‘I always question stuff I do. There’s a moment after making a demo of a song and sticking it on in the car when I really get off on it, but it doesn’t last very long. And then when it’s in a finished record and you listen to it once or twice, it’s there, but again, it doesn’t last. I think it is in the nature of all people who do these things - in the Lennon, the Dylan, the Pete Townshend manner, that come from the heart - that the gratification doesn’t stay with you and you feel compelled to go start the process all over again.’ (Musican Interview, 1992)

* ‘I just hope, if I move people and they listen to something and they get a shiver down their spine, then I’ve fulfilled my function. If I make them think about something, about their lives and about the way they relate to other human beings then that’s an added bonus.’ (Rockline, 1993, Roger Waters, Interviewed by B. Cockburn)

* ‘I thought that out there in record land, that people did kind of identify me with quite a lot of the work that went on with the Floyd but… they don’t!’ (Omnibus Documentary, 1989)

* ‘As far as I’m concerned, Wish You Were Here was the last Pink Floyd album. The Wall was my record and so was The Final Cut, and who played or didn’t play on it - though I don’t want to belittle Dave’s contributions to The Wall. He played some great stuff, and wrote a couple of great guitar riffs as well: ‘Run Like Hell,’ the intro to ‘Young Lust.’ But by and large, those records were nothing to do with anybody but me. And certainly Ezrin’s contribution to The Wall was far greater than anybody in the band. He and I made the record together. And he was a great help. You know, Rick had drifted out of range by that point.’ (Musician, 1992)

* ‘I guess (with Dark Side of the Moon) we’d sort of achieved everything that we set out to achieve.. that was it.. and we kind of hung around for many years after that, but we really kinda done it..’ (Behind the Wall Documentary, 2000)

* The Piper at the Gates of Dawn- All that stuff about Syd starting the space-rock thing is just so much fucking nonsense. He was completely into Hillaire Belloc, and all his stuff was kind of whimsical, all fairly heavy rooted in English literature. I think Syd had one song that had anything to do with space, ‘Astronomy Domine’, that’s all. That’s the sum total of all Syd’s writing about space and yet there’s this whole fucking mystique about how he was the father of it all. It’s just a load of old bollocks, it all happened afterwards. There’s an instrumental track which we came up with together on the first album, ‘Interstellar Overdrive’, that’s just the title, you see, it’s actually an abstract piece with an interstellar attachment in terms of its name’ (Source unknown, from Pink Floyd & Co.)

* Obscured by Clouds- ‘Giving what we put on it, I don’t find it bad.’ (Through the eyes of… by Bruno Macdonald)

* Dark Side of the Moon- ‘It’s very well-balanced and well-constructed, dynamically and musically, and I think the humanity of its approach is appealing. It’s satisfying. I think also that it was the first album of that kind.’ (Interview with Chris Salewicz, 1987)

* Dark Side of the Moon- ‘Dark Side’ was done much more with us all working together. We all sat in a room for ages and ages – we’d got a whole lot of pieces of music and I put an idea over the whole thing and wrote the words. Having laid lyrics on the different bits we decided what order to put them in, and how to link them. It wasn’t like the concept came first and then we worked right through it. (WYWH Songbook, October 1975)

* Dark Side of the Moon- ‘We thought we could do a whole thing about the pressures we personally feel that drive one over the top…the pressure of earning a lot of money; the time thing, time flying by very fast; organised power structures like the church or politics; violence, agression. It’s a musical version of that kind of truism, ‘Today is the first day of the rest of your life’. It talks about the illusion of working towards ends which might turn out to be fool’s gold…’ (Cliff Jones, Another Brick in the Wall)

* Wish you were Here- '..actually some of the lyrics to ‘Wish You Were Here’ came first. Just lyrics on a piece of paper, several couplets and pairs of words. That was kind of shelved, then ‘Have A Cigar’. When we changed the plan we had a big meeting – we all sat round and unburdened ourselves a lot, and I took notes on what everybody was saying. It was a meeting about what wasn’t happening and why. Dave was always clear that he wanted to do the other two songs – he never quite copped what I was talking about. But Rick did and Nicky did and he was outvoted so we went on. (WYWH Songbook, October 1975)

* Animals- ‘I was trying to push the band into more specific areas of subject matter, trying to be more direct. Visually, I was trying to get away from the blobs…there isn’t much left for you to interpret.’ (pinkfloydfan.net)

* Animals-‘Yeah, well it’s using characteristics as we perceive them of different animals in the same way (as Orwell).. animals are very easy metaphors to use.’ (Interview by Phil Rose, Which one’s Pink, 1999)

* The Wall- ‘Yeah it is it is partially uh autobiographical… I’ve taken ..it’s… it’s a lot about my early life… I mean my father being killed and all that stuff, and… and some of it’s about Syd and some of it’s drawn from other experiences, you know… writing a piece like that’s a bit like… I suppose writing a novel, or writing anything - you draw largely from your own experience, but also from other people that you know well.’ (Interview with Kevin Hillier, Australia, 1988)

* The Final Cut- ‘The Final Cut was absolutely misery to make, although I listened to it of late and I rather like a lot of it. But I don’t like my singing on it. You can hear the mad tension running through it all. If you’re trying to express something and being prevented from doing it because you’re so uptight…It was a horrible time.’ (Interview with Chris Salewicz, 1987)

* The Final Cut- ‘I was in a greengrocer’s shop , and this woman of about forty in a fur coat came up to me. She said she thought it was the most moving record she had ever heard. Her father had also been killed in World War II, she explained. And I got back into my car with my three pounds of potatoes and drove home and thought, good enough.’ (Interview with Chris Salewicz, 1987)

* The Pros and Cons of Hitchiking- ‘Some of the ideas have come from my own dreams and also there are bits and pieces of other people’s dreams. In fact, the third verse of the album’s title track talks about standing on the wing of an aeroplane, looking down at the Eastern Seaboard of the United States and Yoko Ono being there, and telling me to jump; that everybody’s got to die some time and the manly thing to do is to end it all now.’ (Source unknown, 1984)

* Radio Kaos- ‘I think on ‘Radio K.A.O.S.’ I got sidetracked slightly by the available technology and the imposed notion that I ought to get a bit more with it..Maybe the record business and my own insecurities (made me do it)– you have to remember it was right in the middle of all the Pink Floyd [litigation] and I guess I got a bit insecure about what I was worth and who I was and all that… I let [people] push medown roads that I shouldn’t have gone down really…’ (Roger Waters’ Dark Side of the Tube, by Richard Cromelin, no date, around 1992)

* The Wall-Live in Berlin- ‘I’m in no sense going to Berlin to celebrate what I consider to be a victory of capitalism over socialism, or The West over the East, or anything like that. I’m going there to celebrate the victory of the individual over the bureaucracy and specially, a victory of the East German individual to rise up against some of the more uncomfortable layers of dogma under which he [sic] was living…’ (Phil Rose, Which one’s Pink, 1990)

* Amused to Death- ‘Well, all i can say really is that the album has come out five years of me wondering about what is going on in the world and getting my information by sitting up late at night watching tv. So the theatre of the album is characterized as a gorilla or some other primate, like you (laughter) possibly, or carter. Umm, checking out the idiot box and taking in the information and wondering what the bleep is going on.’ (Westwood One, 1992)

* Is There Anybody Out There- ‘The tapes have been gathering dust in boxes for some 20 year, so I guess it’s legitimate to at least get them in a form where they won’t disappear forever. Because there are people in the world, I am sure, who would be interested in live recordings of those shows.’ (pinkfloydfan.net)

* Is There Anybody Out There- ‘As to the actual recording and shows, I think they were the best we did together as Pink Floyd. I’m inordinately proud of the work. It has great musical and narrative shape, good tunes and it’s a well-crafted piece of rock ‘n’ roll theatre. Who knows, I’m only 56, but it may well turn out to be the best thing I ever did.’ (ITAOT Abum Sleeve)

* Favourite Album- ‘The Wall. Because it has… well actually, no, I don’t… YES… I s’pose I said that without thinking, so it probably is. I dunno, its very complete. It’s got… its, its, its got great form, I believe.’ (Interview with Kevin Hillier, Australia, 1988)

* About songs he doesn’t like- ‘Umm… possibly ‘Take Up Thy Stethoscope and Walk’ from the very first album…, but… but most of it I err… quite like… I’m not very keen on Atom Heart Mother, for students of… uhh… of the old Pink Floyd catalogue - I thought that was rather a… a - I thought the err… instrumental piece that takes up side one was rather dull, in retrospect.’ (Interview with Kevin Hillier, Australia, 1988)

* The Wall on video- ‘I have consistently stamped on any moves to get that video out because it does not do justice to what was a very theatrical event. Maybe in twenty years time, as sort of archive material, I might be prepared to release it. But I quite like the fact that the people who went to the shows copped it for what it meant to be, where it was meant to be, and nobody has been allowed to sell a third-rate, tacky version on video.’ (Interview with Chris Salewicz, 1987)

* What God Wants video- ‘Uh, I had an idea at the beginning of the making of that video which was the idea that uh, visually the album hangs on which is this idea of a gorilla who is a metaphor for the human race sitting watching television and trying to work out what his relationship is with the t.v. set and with all the other gorillas. Insofar as there is a gorilla and a television set in it, yeah it was my idea but the rest of it is down to Tony Kaye who’s the man who made it.’ (Rockline, 1993, Roger Waters, Interviewed by B. Cockburn)

Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun ‘Set the Controls…’ is about an unknown person who, while piloting a mighty flying saucer, is overcome with solar suicidal tendencies and sets the controls for the heart of the sun… I managed to get hold of a book of chinese poetry from the late T’ang period - and I just ripped it off. Except for the title. I’ve no idea where that came from. It came from…within me.’ (Through the eyes of…. by Bruno Macdonald)

A Saucerful of Secrets ‘A Saucerful of Secrets’ allowed you to think of anything that you wanted and, because it had echo, people thought it was science fiction, but it could be anything..’ ( Through the eyes of…. by Bruno MacDonald)

Several Species of Small Fury Animals.. ‘That was a very light-hearted and easy exercise. It’s really just speeding up and slowing down tape, and using a bit of echo and imagination. It’s just voices and me beating on myself with my bare hands….In fact, if you slow it down, you’ll hear it’s somebody gibbering - probably me.’ (Through the eyes of… by Bruno Macdonald)

Atom Heart Mother ‘I wouldn’t dream of performing anything that embarrassed me. If someone said to me now, ‘Right, here’s a million pounds , go out and play “Atom Heart Mother”, I’d say, “You must be fucking joking. I’m not playing that rubbish.’ (Through the eyes of…by Bruno Macdonald)

One of these Days ‘I think that the simplest sound effects are often the best. For example, just the sound of wind at the beginning of ‘Cut You Into Little Pieces’ is bloody effective..’ (Through the eyes of….by Bruno Macdonald)

Echoes ‘I look back to a song like ‘Echoes’, which has the lines ‘Two strangers passing in the street/By chance two passing glances meet/And I am you/And what I see is me.’ It’s that connection that is central to all my work – not just with other men, women and children, but with whatever you want to call God.’ (The Different Shades Of Roger Waters, July, 1999 The Tribune)

Speak to Me ‘God, I resent giving that to him (Mason) now. ‘Cos he had nothing to do with it…it was a gift. It was all right at the time.’ (Through the eyes of… by Bruno Macdonald)

Speak to Me

‘It’s a kind of classical overture, a standard device used for hundred of years- put some elements of the work together at the beginning, as a taster.’ (Uncut Magazine interview, May 2003)

Breathe ’..Lines like ‘Breathe in the air, don’t be afraid to care’ are easy to attack as puerile, adolescent, head-in- the-clouds nonsense, but on another level, it’s a very straightforward exhortation to be here now and to live, something we all need help with. I still do.’ (USA Today, Roger Waters Knows What He Wants, 1999)

On The Run

‘It’s about fear of flying, which we all developed at some time.’ (Uncut Magazine interview, May 2003)

Time ‘Listening back, the thing that most surprised me was how long the intro to ‘Time’ is. I got this feeling that there was a serious lack of panic about losing the listener’s interest.’ (Through the eyes… by Bruno Macdonald)

Breathe Reprise

‘It’s about our attachment to the idea of being productive. Also how about religion can divert us from our potential to have empathy with other people.’ (Uncut Magazine interview, May 2003)

The Great Gig in he Sky (About the title) ‘I couldn’t say .. I can’t recall. It sounds like me. But it sounds like anybody really. I think it’s a phrase that had been used quite a lot. I mean … the Happy Hunting Ground … the great whatever-it-is in the sky.. just to put ‘gig’ it sounds like my kind of humour, but I wouldn’t swear to where that came f rom really.’ (Phil Rose, Which one’s Pink?, 1999)

The Great Gig in the Sky

‘It was something that Rick had already written. It’s a great chord sequence. “The Great Gig in the Sky” and the piano part on “Us and Them,” in my view, are the best things that Rick did – they’re both really beautiful. And Alan [Parsons] suggested Clare Torry. I’ve no idea whose idea it was to have someone wailing on it. Clare came into the studio one day, and we said, “There’s no lyrics. It’s about dying – have a bit of a sing on that, girl.” I think she only did one take. And we all said, “Wow, that’s that done. Here’s your sixty quid.” Years later, I moved house, and she lived just round the corner. I used to run into her all the time, walking her dog.’ (John Harris, A brainchild born of insanity, 2003)

Money

‘Although it’s based around a bass line, I wrote it on an acoustic guitar. Occasionally, I would do things and Dave would say, “No, that’s wrong. There should be another beat. That’s only seven.” I’d say, “Well, that’s how it is.” A number of my songs have bars of odd length. When you play “Money” on an acoustic guitar, it’s very much a blues thing. That’s how the demo was. There’s a very bluesy feel to it.’

(About the tape loops)

‘I made those recordings in a shed at the bottom of the garden, throwing coins into a big industrial bowl that my wife used for mixing clay. I recorded those sound effects on my first proper tape recorder, chopped them up and glued them together, stuck them in the machine, put a mike stand there to hold tape taut, and off we went.’ (John Harris, A brainchild born of insanity, 2003)

Us and Them ‘I was brought up on Friends Meeting Houses and British China Friendship Association and all that stuff, the people’s struggle…(‘Us And Them’) is also about being in London at that time - there were already people living on the street. Are they on the streets because they’re worthless, shifty, no good, useless, anti social ingrates? No, they’re on the streets because they can’t cope. They’re displaced and need looking after…’ (Cliff Jones, Another Brick in the Wall)

Us and Them

‘I like the lyrics, the chord sequence is beautiful and the sax solo’s is great’. (Uncut Magazine interview, May 2003)

Any Colour you Like (About the title) ‘So, metaphorically, ‘Any Colour You Like’ is interesting, in that sense, because it denotes offering a choice where there is none. And it’s also interesting that in the phrase ‘any colour you like, they’re all blue’, I don’t know why, but in my mind it’s always they’re all blue, which, if you think about it, relates very much to the light and dark, sun and moon, good and evil. You make your choice but it’s always blue.’ (Phil Rose, Which one’s Pink?, 1999)

Brain Damage ‘It would be easy to say this song was influenced by what happened to Syd, but I guess it’s more particularly about the real human living inside the outer being that the rest of the world sees. In other words, the lunatic is really us, here, that we’re trying to keep in this box. An awful lot of us stop being able to respond to the child in us, because the adult takes over and holds sway of the controls, and we obey those instructions,’ (Another Brick in the Wall by Cliff Jones.)

Brain Damage ‘The line ‘I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon’ is me speaking to the listener, saying ‘I know you have these bad feelings and impulses , because I do too and one of the ways I can make direct contact with you is to share the fact that I feel bad sometimes.’ (Through the eyes of…by Bruno Macdonald)

Eclipse ‘There was no riddle here. It’s saying that all the good things in life are there for us to grasp, but that the influence of the dark forces in our nature prevents us from seizing them. The line ‘I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon’ acknowledges that all humans share these feelings but can conquer them by coming together.’ (Another Brick in the Wall by Cliff Jones.)

Shine on you Crazy Diamond ‘I wrote that song, above all, to see the reactions of people who reckon they know and understand Syd Barrett. I wrote and rewrote and rewrote and rewrote that lyric because I wanted it to be as close as possible to what I felt - and, even then, it hasn’t altogether worked out for me. But none the less there’s a truthful feeling in that piece…that sort of indefinable, inevitable melancholy about the disappearance of Syd. Because he’s left, withdrawn so far away that, as far as we’re concerned, he’s no longer there.’ (Through the eyes of… by Bruno Macdonald)

Shine on you Crazy Diamond ‘It’s too long ago to remember exactly why I was thinking about Syd…I think it was a guitar line of Dave’s that sparked me off, a very plaintive phrase you hear at the beginning of ‘Shine On’. It’s actually the signature tune from the radio show ‘Take It From Here’. You can’t tell from the album, but in terms of my lyrics, it is the first use I make of memories of childhood, the juxtapositions and interplay between memories of childhood and feelings I have now.’ (Through the eyes of… by Bruno Macdonald)

Have a Cigar ‘I think it was a bad idea, now. I think I should have done (sing) it…Not that I think Roy did it badly - I think he did it very well. It just isn’t us anymore.’ (Through the eyes of… by Bruno Macdonald)

Have a Cigar ‘You can’t really generalise. For example, ‘Have a Cigar’. The verses, (tune and words) were all written before I ever played it to the others. Except the stuff before and after the vocal, that happened in the studio. – (WYWH Songbook, October 1975)

Welcome to the Machine ‘The same with ‘Welcome to the Machine’ – the verses were done, but the run up and out was in the studio. – (WYWH Songbook, October 1975)

Wish you were Here ‘I guess a song like “Wish You Were Here” might be a good case in point; that can be about almost any absence, thought I guess even that song has pretty specific lyrics about “exchanging walk-on parts for lead roles in cages.” But, nevertheless, it’ s kind of a song about loss.’ (After the Wall, by Gary Graff, 2000)

Dogs ‘Those are statements… (sings) ‘Who was told not to spit in the fan. Who was told what to do by the man.’ Yeah… l’m sure they’re statements.’ (Phil Rose, Which one’s Pink?, 2000)

In the Flesh-part 1 ‘At the end of ‘In The Flesh?’ you hear somebody shouting ' Roll the sound effects’, etcetera, and the sound of bombers. It gives you some indication of what’s happening. So it’s a flashback.’ (Through the eyes of… by Bruno Macdonald)

The Thin Ice ‘I think it’s about how parents start inducing, almost inject, their own fears and worries into their children from a very early age’ (Interview w/Jim Ladd, 1980)

Another Brick in the Wall-part 1 ‘It is personal for me , but it’s also meant to be about any family where either parent goes away for whatever reason , whether it’s to go and fight someone or to go and work somewhere. In a way , it’s about stars leaving home for a long time to go on tour…and maybe coming home dead , or more dead than alive. (Through the eyes of… by Bruno Macdonald)

The Happiest Days of our Lives- Another Brick in the Wall-part 2 ’…it’s not meant to be a blanket condemnation of teachers everywhere, but the bad ones can really do people in – and there were some at my school wo were just incrediblly bad and treated the children so badly, just putting them down, putting them down all the time. Never encouraging them to do things, not really trying to interest them in anything, just trying to keep them quiet and still, and crush them into the right shape, so that they would go to the university and do well.’ (The Wall - song by song By T. Vance, 1979)

Mother ‘Over-protective; which most mothers are. If you can level one accusation at mothers it is that they tend to protect their children too much. Too much and for too long. That’s all. This isn’t a portrait of my mother, although some of the, you know, one or two of the things in there apply to her as well as to I’m sure lots of other people’s mothers. (The Wall - song by song By T. Vance, 1979)

Goodbye Blue Sky ‘The best way to describe this is as a recap of side one. It’s remembering one’s childhood and then getting ready to set off into the rest of one’s life.’ (Through the eyes of… by Bruno Macdonald)

What Shall we do now ‘It’s just about the ways that one protects oneself from one’s isolation by becoming obsessed with other people’s ideas. Whether the idea is that it’s good to drive…have a powerful car, you know, or whether you’re obsessed with the idea of being a vegetarian…adopting somebody else’s criteria for yourself.’ (The Wall - song by song By T. Vance, 1979)

Young Lust ‘When I wrote this song, the words were quite different. It was about leaving school, wandering about town, hanging around outside porno movies and dirty bookshops and things like that: being very interested in sex but too frightened to get involved. Now it’s completely different. That was a function of all of us working together on the record, particularly Dave Gilmour and Bob Ezrin.’ (Through the eyes of… by Bruno Macdonald)

One of My Turns ‘And ‘One of My Turns’ is supposed to be his response to a lot of aggro [aggression] in his life and not having ever got anything together, although he’s married, well, no he has got things together, but he’s been married, and he’s just had a…he’s just splitting up with his wife, and in response he takes another girl up to his hotel room.’ (The Wall - song by song By T. Vance, 1979)

Don’t Leave me now ‘Then comes a period in ‘Don’t Leave Me Now’ when he realizes the state that he’s in, he still feels, if you like, aggressive, completely depressed, thoroughly paranoid, and very lonely, and but very lonely, to the point of suicide.’ (The Wall - song by song By T. Vance, 1979)

Another Brick in the Wall-part 3 ‘That’s the moment of catharsis. (Gleefully) Isn’t that where we break the TV sets?’ (Through the eyes of… by Bruno Macdonald)

Goodbye Cruel World ‘That’s him going catatonic if you like, that final and he’s going back and he’s just curling up and he’s not going to move. That’s it, he’s had enough, that’s the end.’ (The Wall - song by song By T. Vance, 1979)

Hey You ‘Well, within his mind, because ‘Hey You’ is a cry to the rest of the world, you know saying hey, this isn’t right, but it’s also, it takes a narrative look at it, when it goes.’ (The Wall - song by song By T. Vance, 1979)

Is there Anybody out there ‘Really just a mood piece.’ (The Wall - song by song By T. Vance, 1979)

Nobody home ‘but part of him that’s you know, making all his arms and legs, that’s making everything work doesn’t want anything except just to sit there and watch’ (The Wall - song by song By T. Vance, 1979)

Bring the Boys back Home ‘For me, (this) is the central song of the whole album. It’s about not letting anything become more important than friends, wives, children, other people…’ (Through the eyes of… by Bruno Macdonald)

Comfortably Numb ‘Comfortably Numb is about his confrontation with the doctor.’ (The Wall - song by song By T. Vance, 1979)

In the Flesh-part 2 ‘This is him having a go at the audience, all the minorities in the audience. So the obnoxiousness of ‘In the Flesh’ and it *is* meant to be obnoxious, this is the end result of that much isolation and decay.’ (The Wall - song by song By T. Vance, 1979)

Run Like Hell ‘No, ‘Run like Hell,’ is meant to be *him* just doing another tune in the show. So that’s like just a song, part of the performance, yeah…still in his drug-crazed state.’ (The Wall - song by song By T. Vance, 1979)

Waiting for the Worms ‘Waiting for the Worms in theatrical terms is an expression of what happens in the show, when the drugs start wearing off and what real feelings he’s got left start taking over again, and he is forced by where he is, because he’s been dragged out his real real feelings. (The Wall - song by song By T. Vance, 1979)

Stop ‘at the end of ‘Waiting for the Worms’ it gets too much for him, the oppression and he says ‘stop’.’(The Wall - song by song By T. Vance, 1979)

The Trial ‘But the penalty…after all this that society has done to the guy, the penalty is to tear the wall down and expose him as a real person to all these other people behind the wall.’ (Interview w/Jim Ladd, 1980)

The Trial ‘at the end of it all, when his judgment on himself is to de-isolate himself, which in fact is a very good thing.’ (The Wall - song by song By T. Vance, 1979)

The Trial ‘No … absolutely no. ‘The Trial’ from The Wall is just, you know, an internal self-examination. It’s not based on any model…’ (Phil Rose, Which one’s Pink?, 1999)

The Trial ‘If you look at the credits from the album, you’ll see that that track is credited as being co-written by Ezrin. Thats the track where he’s key. Most of the Kurt Weill influence came via him … so you’d need to ask him which particular thing he ripped it off from [laughing]… because give him credit for that. It’s very much in style anyway.’ (Phil Rose, Which one’s Pink?, 2000)

Outside the Wall ‘No, I like it and I….I like it as enigmatic. And I like that about it and I wouldn’t care to discuss it. I don’t even really want to think about it myself.’ (Interview w/Jim Ladd, 1980)

The Post War Dream ‘…We’ll get into a great big down and somebody somewhere, by some mistake, or just because they think it seems like a good idea, will press the button ant that’ll be the end.’ (Another Brick In The Wall, by Cliff Jones)

The Post War Dream ‘…Economic cycles still override everything, with the best intentions, the cycle of economic recession followed by resurgence, still govern our actions’ (Another Brick In The Wall, by Cliff Jones)

Your Possible Past ‘Yeah (the woman standing in the doorway is a prostitute), that’s the image. It’s about lack of contact… not connecting.’ (Phil Rose, Which one’s Pink?, 2000)

Gunner’s Dream ‘…The gunner’s dream is about powerlessness… The door opens suddenly and you find you’re face to face with blokes in jackboots in a country like South America or Algeria or France during The Occupation…you cry, ‘No you can’t do that to me - I’ll call the police!’ and they reply, ‘We are the police’.’ (Another Brick In The Wall, by Cliff Jones)

Gunner’s Dream That’s a fictional character.. hang on, let me think [sings the words]. Maybe Max… it must be the gunners parents. The father must have had medals as well … or somebody.. its about medals. I don’t know why I used the name Max, its a strange name to use. It’s very interesting because it’s a Jewish name, isn’t it? But it also sounds like Baron Richtofen in some strange way.. or maybe thats because there was a movie called The Blue Max that was about First World War fighter pilots. l’m not saying that’s where it came from but… I don’t know. I don’t know where that name came from, but anyway he’s not a real person. Sometimes, you see, when I write songs-I write them in a consciously engendered state of complete passivity so that I try to put as little into the song as possible, and allow as much to come out as possible. And so words and names and things come out sometimes, and if they scan and sound alright, I’ll leave them there even if I don’t know what they are or where they come from really.’ (Phil Rose, Which one’s Pink?, 2000)

Not Now John ‘…It’s a very schizophrenic song, because there’s this one character, singing the verses, who’s irritated by all this moaning about how desperate things are, and doesn’t want to hear any of it anymore. There’s part of me in that. Then there’s this other voice which keeps harping back to earlier songs, saying ‘make them laugh, make them cry, make them dance in the aisles’, which is from ‘One Of The Few’. So It’s a strange song.’ (Another Brick In The Wall, by Cliff Jones)

Two Suns in the Sunset ‘…We all sit around and talk about the possibility of accidents, or as I put it in the song, people just getting so bloody angry that finally somebody pushes a button. Well, the songs’s all about that moment when suddenly it happens, you know, it’s the end, you’re dead, and it’s the end of the world, and that you’ll never see your kids again or your wife or anybody that you love, and it’s over’ (Another Brick In The Wall, by Cliff Jones)

Two Suns in the Sunset “…It’s very easy to go, ‘Oh yes, well, there may be an accident and the holocaust may happen’, without having the feeling of what it might be like… And that’s why it says in the song, ‘Finally I understand the feelings of The Few’, which is supposed to be a reference to the bomber and the gunner and all those people, my dad, and all the other war casualties. That song, I suppose, in a way, is going back to the second song where there’s a line, ‘a warning to anyone still in command of their possible futures to take care’.’ (Another Brick In The Wall, by Cliff Jones)

Go Fishing (Is there an intentional musical quotation from ‘The Fletcher Memorial Home’ in Clapton’s slide guitar intro to the song ‘Go Fishing’?) ‘No. I don’t think there’s any intention… it’s just that people who write music tend to write the same thing over and over again [laughs]. I’m sure Eric wouldn’t know ‘The Fletcher Memorial Home’. (Phil Rose, Which one’s Pink?, 2000)

The Pros and Cons of Hitch-Hiking ‘Yeah, I’ll tell you who that was. Andy Newmark … drummer.. That was his dream… terrible dream. He’s actually from Bermuda so… eastern seaboard is actually closer to his geographical origins than it is to mine. My dream was just about driving about in eastern Europe… the sort of sense of forebo-ding. The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking and the dreams that I can remember…the actual dreams that triggered the thing… and triggered the idea of writing a piece that was about forty-five minutes of sleep…the actual dreams have long been consigned to bits of memory that I don’t care to gel at -or can’t get at- and am not interested in getting at anyway really.. because they’re not fundamental.’ (Phil Rose, Which one’s Pink?, 2000)

The Moment of Clarity ‘That particular lyric was written within the terms of reference of a microcosm of a man and a woman in bed together on their own, you know, so to take it into the large arena of the way we all view the rest of humanity.. we all recognize those moments of clarity when they happen, you know. And we all understand their quicksilver nature and the way that they slip away from us and that moment when it seems so right, you know, we know there’s more to the way the human mind works than looking to the bottom of the sheet and seeing if we made a profit or a loss. Because we’ve all walked in from dreams and felt that we’ve made a connection that is more meaningful than that..’ (Rockline, 1993, Roger Waters, Interviewed by B. Cockburn)

Towers of Faith (who are the lonely boys?) Anybody who is involved in political or religious dogma to the extent that they lock themselves away from other human beings… that’s who I’m getting at really..’ (Interview with B. Cockburn, Rockline, 1987)

Who Needs information ‘It’s a narration about the mining strike in 1985 in South Wales, in Great Britain, and the story of this striking minor who throws a concrete block of a motorway bridge.. he killed a taxi driver who was taking a working minor to work’ (Interview with B. Cockburn, Rockline, 1987)

Going to Live in L.A. ‘Just another bit in the narrative of the story..’(Interview with B. Cockburn, Rockline, 1987)

Home (about the white glove thumb) ‘It is a reference to the soldier in the white cravat who turns the key in spite of the fact that it is the end..’ (Interview with B. Cockburn, Rockline, 1987)

The Tide is Turning ‘Modern technology of communication can be used for people to feel better about each other rather than just as a selling tool or an instrument of propaganda or the other negative ways that these technologies can be used’ (Interview with B. Cockburn, Rockline, 1987)

The Ballad of Bill Hubbard ‘Um, I don’t know, what struck me about Alf Ruzzell was the extraordinary humanity of his story in that he had been living with his concern, having left his friend in no-mans-land 74 years before and that he had carried this kind of burden with him and I guess it struck me that we help each other little to sort out those burdens that each of us individually has. Though, I have to say that if I am optimistic about the future, which I am, it is largely because, um, I dunno, through modern tele- communications, and this is the positive side of telecommunications, we seem to be getting better at understanding each other and helping each other personally with our individual problems.’ (Rockline, 1993, Roger Waters, Interviewed by B. Cockburn)

What God Wants-part 1 ‘And it is written in response primarly to the notion that human beings can own God, whoever God may be. And that changes depending upon whether you are a muslin, or a christian, or a bhuddist, or a hindu although we all have our different notions of who God is and what he does. And this song was written, I suppose, as a sort of irritable response to the idea that God can be on somebody’s side and not on somebody else’s side… If god exists my suspicion is that he’s not interested whether the democrats or Republicans win the next election or whether it would be right or wrong for the allies to go and bomb Baghdad right now, or any of those questions. His mind is on other things. And that is what this song is about in the ludicrous nature of people’s adherence to the idea that God can be incorporated in our side.’ (Westwood One, 1992.)

Perfect Sense-part 2 ‘The last time we saw it was during the fall of the Roman empire. When they used to fill the coliseum with sea waters and have galleons fighting each other. I have a suspicion that both the attack on Tripoli, which I describe elsewhere in the album in ‘Late Home Tonight,’ and also Desert Storm has something to do with that. It’s an uneasy feeling I have that is has something to do with the arms industry and / or with creating foreign policy that is convenient in terms of the domestic situations of our leaders at home. And does not have anything to do with…just let me spit this out before I run out of breath…supressing a brutal dictator. Why aren’t we in Tibet?’ (Westwood One, 1992.)

The Bravery of Being out of Range ‘The first two verses were written in the mid-‘80s and are an evocation of Ronald Reagan. But the third verse used to be about Berlin - ‘Berlin babies sing this song’ - and that’s gone. So this is the only bit specifically to do with Desert Storm…the theatre of the people in the bar watching television and enjoying us winning is what that third verse is about.’ (Through the eyes of… by Bruno Macdonald)

Too much Rope ‘The reference when I actually put the word down on tape was to Bob Dylan because at the time, I was going through a kind of Bob Dylan sound-alike period to amuse myself in the studio. Uh, so I would be singing (Dylan style) ‘Each man has his price Bob’, like that. For a joke. But afterwards it seemed to me a rather appertain for Bob Ezrin so I left it in because of Ezrin as a little gift for Bob Ezrin. Yeah.’ (Rockline, 1993, Roger Waters, Interviewed by B. Cockburn)

What God Wants-part 3 ‘Yeah well, I’m a little bit worried that the free market has become our God.’ (Westwood One, 1992.)

Watching TV ‘it’s about one individual girl who is killed in Tianmen Square and the fact that her death is important because it occurs on television and therefore moves a large number of people and in that way as I say in the second chorus at the end of the song she’s different from the unknown Nicaraguan, or the Rosenbergs or the unknown Jew because she died on T.V.’ (Rockline, 1993, Roger Waters, Interviewed by B. Cockburn)

Watching TV ‘No, Don Henley. I love everything that he’s done and it was great working with him on ‘Watching TV.’ He sang good. Don, you’re ok with me. Andrew Lloyd Weber on the other hand, who I mentioned, is not ok with me. This is unfortunate.’ (Westwood One, 1992.)

Three Wishes ‘that one was one of the early songs, so it was some time ago. Well, it’s the old three wishes story, you know, the Genie comes out of the bottle and before you know it you’ve had your three wishes and you never got ‘round to the thing you really wanted. In this case true love.’ (Rockline, 1993, Roger Waters, Interviewed by B. Cockburn)

Amused to Death ‘I had at one point this rather depressing image of some alien culture seeing the death of this planet - coming down in their spaceships and sniffing around; finding all our skeletons sitting around our TV sets and trying to work out why our end came before its time - and they come to the conclusion that we amused ourselves to death.’ (Through the eyes of… by Bruno Macdonald)

Each Small Candle ‘Each small candle lights a corner of the dark.’ The idea implicit is that we each have within us a flickering flame that’s capable of lighting a little bit of darkness – that remains to be lit in the more general sense of the way human beings organize themselves, and that we’re all as important as one another and we all have a personal responsibility to maybe make one significant’ (After the Wall, by Gary Graff, 2000)

Each Small Candle ’.. I guess the thing that I’m feeling compelled to write about is the idea of personal responsibility and personal worth and personal power in that, you know, everybody counts, I think. I mean, that may seem pretty self-evident to a lot of people, but it’s very easy for us to see goods rather than individuals. Nationalities, colors, creeds rather than individuals and responsibility lies with the individual, not with the nation.’ (Roger Waters Interview, 1999)

* ‘I still can’t play very well, I’ve never been able to play an instrument much, actually I have a reasonable sense of time though..’ (Kaos Rehearsals, 1987)

* ‘I’ve never been interested in playing the bass. I’m not interested in playing instruments and I never have been.’ (Musician, 1992)

* ‘I know I’m not gonna sing every note in tune, I know the notes I play on bass will not be perfectly expressed or played in perfect time, but what will I happen is I’m gonna be there, really be there, the real me, not something I pretend to be’ (Columbia Pre-Tour Interview, 1999)

* ‘Pink Floyd has no feelings - it’s two words. I mean, it only exists as a label to describe something. I would prefer that it was used to describe what happened between 1965 and 1977, but that’s not the case. It is being used to describe other things.’ (Musician, 1992)

* ‘There was always a great battle in the band, we were divided in the architects and the musicians, Nick and I were at the inferior position of the architects, and Dave and Rick, the musicians (laugh).. there was a lot of resistance from the musicians to do something theatrical’ (Pros and Cons documentary, 1984)

* From the early Seventies on, I’d say, from Meddle on, I made all the decisions – how often we’re going to tour, how long the tours should be, which cities, when should our next record be, those kinds of things. (Super Seventies Rock Site, no date)

* ‘You know, Rick had left long before the summer of ‘79 - long, long before. He was gone. We split up years before. And it wasn’t the unilateral and heinous, wicked thing that gets described in the unofficial histories.’ (Musician, 1992)

* ‘Ezrin was the person to first call Rick during Rick’s odd little vacation that fall to Greece – just as The Wall was being completed – and said, `You’re no longer pulling your weight.’ And Rick told him, ‘Fuck off!’ It was then we all discussed the matter, and Gilmour said, ‘Let’s get rid of Nick Mason, too!’ Eventually Rick did some ‘Wall’ shows, but he only received a wage, and then in 1980 we fired him for good.’ (Penthouse, 1988)

* ‘How can they find it within themselves to go on stage and do my songs - songs from The Wall? I wrote The Wall as an attack on stadium rock - and there’s ‘Pink Floyd’ making money out of it by playing it in stadiums! Oh well, that’s for them to live with. They have to bear the cross of that betrayal. They have to live with the denial of what the work was about’ (Q Magazine, 1992)

* ‘With all due respect to the people who bought them, the albums they put out after I left have been rubbish. It’s been about trying to write songs that sound like Pink Floyd, without the ideas. On the last record, Gilmour got his wife to help write the lyrics – that’s pure ‘Spinal Tap’. Eric Stewart of (British band) 10cc told me he got a call from Gilmour saying, ‘We’re trying to make a new record and we need a concept. Got any ideas?’ It’s funny now, but it really pissed me off then… that no one saw through that at the time. But I think history is starting to show that none of that stuff is really lasting. (The Different Shades Of Roger Waters , July, 1999, The Tribune)

* The working relationship I had with Dave and Nick and even Rick up to and including ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’ (1973) was very exciting and interesting and worthwhile, but after that it became very problematic. We’d done everything we had set out to do, and we kind of clung together from that point on in a very uneasy marriage because of the name, because it was easy and we’d created an enormous audience. Dave did some great work after ‘Dark Side,’ but I provided the philosophy, the politics, the heart behind those records.’

* ‘When I went to rock’n roll, the idea that most appealed to me was not having to get up in the morning..lol’ (Kaos Rehearsals, 1987)

* ‘The idea of contrivance in order to make money is something that I find silly, it’s nonsense. It doesn’t mean anything to me..’ (Kaos Rehearsals, 1987)

* ‘Because after the 1977 tour I became seriously deranged - or maybe arranged - about stadium gigs. Because I do think they are awful. They are about statistics. For the public, it seems to me, the enjoyment comes from two things. I think it’s partly that they are in the presence of the legend - whether it’s Bruce Springsteen or another proven brand name doesn’t really matter so long as it’s the presence of someone you can identify as being ‘legendary’. There’s also the statistical thing of being able to say, Yeah, there were 85,000 of us here: you couldn’t move. You couldn’t get to the bar (guffaws with laughter). We all had to piss standing up, crushed together. It was fucking great! And, of course, onstage and backstage all that’s going on is, Do you know how much we’ve grossed, boys, how many T-shirts we’ve sold? That’s absolutely it. That’s all it’s about - money. And you go down in the Guiness Book Of Records for having played before the biggest audiences ever blah-blah-blah. And…oh dear, fuck that, I mean, alright, I can understand that motivation. But I don’t like it.’ (Interview with Chris Salewicz, 1987)

* ‘What’s interesting, I think, is the fact that we will always be remembered for the number of weeks Dark Side of the Moon remained on the Billboard charts, and not for anything we did, because of what makes good copy and what doesn’t.’ (Super Seventies Rock Site, no date)

* ‘Roger was the pushiest person, certainly he was the main driving force behind what was going on, yes.’ (Dave Gilmour, Omnibus Documentary, 1989)

* ‘Maybe Roger statement at the time (of the Wall), should have been to leave the band, it would have been his catharsis’ (Dave Gilmour, Behind the Wall Documentary, 2000)

* ‘I think that Roger had a moment of irrational thinking at that period of time, and maybe he will get over it.. he had something driving him within himself that was making do it, to a way not being able to compromise’ (Dave Gilmour, Musi-Max Documentary, 1989)

* ‘There’s a lot of… devices that Roger uses (for writing music), that I’m not very… that I don’t know how to do… Roger has owned his craft to a very fine point’ (Dave Gilmour, Musi-Max Documentary, 1989)

* ‘The most remarkable thing is the way he did take over when Syd left, I mean his one song on Piper.. is not a great song, but he applied himself to becoming a song writer, and became a terrific one.’ (Nick Mason, Omnibus Documentary, 1989)

* ‘There’s not many people (other than Roger) that I would have liked to work with in the last 20 years’ (Nick Mason, Omnibus Documentary, 1989)

* ‘I haven’t really had one ‘best’ male friend since Roger left the band. My best female friend is my wife. I enjoy her company… and if I said anyone else she’d kill me.’ (Nick Mason, Q Magazine, 1996)

* ‘It was difficult. It was 1977 and that was when Roger really began to start believing that he was the sole writer of the band. With regards to that album, it was partly my fault, because I didn’t have much to offer. Dave, who did have something to offer, only managed to get a couple of things on there. I like my playing on the album, but it wasn’t a fun record to make. Compared to, say, Wish You Were Here, where we were really pulling together as a band - we had our disagreements but it was still a nice creative process - Animals was a slog. But I didn’t have anything to offer, material wise, so I was in a difficult situation.’ (Rick Wright, August 1996, by Mark Blake)

* ‘It felt horrible. The whole point about my leaving the band in the first place, was because Roger (Waters) was assuming control. He had written the whole of The Wall. It was his piece and he had the right to withdraw it and that was what he was threatening to do unless I left the band. There was this big personality clash between me and Roger, and at the end of the day I realised that I couldn’t work with this person anyway - so I left’ (Rick Wright, August 1996, by Mark Blake)

* ‘I don’t have hard feelings anymore…um, I did at the time, obviously. I just think he was wrong, very wrong, to do what he did. (Rick Wright, Entertainment Now’, 1998)

* ‘There’s always a chance (that he came back with PF). Everyone who loves Pink Floyd wants it to happen. But I don’t feel I need it, not musically and not personally. Maybe if Roger comes back as a different person (laughing), charming and nice, with really good ideas. But Roger still lives on the Wall. Until his wall falls down, I can’t see him coming back.’ (Rick Wright, 1996, By M. Kriteman) Les Collaborateurs

* ‘I think Roger had a good balance, at the time, of passion and intelligence.’ (Ron Geesin, Omnibus Documentary, 1989)

* ‘Roger was very, very good at timing, at that kind of timing (referring to the Shine on piece), he was not particularly good at playing the rythms, but he’s good as saying now, now that is the time.. now’ (Ron Geesin, Omnibus Documentary, 1989)

* ‘I think Roger is brilliant, but he’s a tough guy to disagree with, and he can be overly passionate and uncompromising. It’s those qualities that go into making him a great artist, but neither Dave nor I would ever consider ourselves great artists. We’re more interested in creating something that’s popular and fun. Actually, I hate the word artist, but I would definitely concede that Roger is a great artist – as well as a total obsessive and a psychiatrist’s dream. I love Roger, and I truly love most of what he does, but not enough anymore to go through what’s necessary to be a part of his process. It’s far easier for Dave and I to do our version of a Floyd record.’ (Bob Ezrin, Penthouse, 1988)

* ‘The possessive with a movie is with the director, the possessive with Roger is always with his project, whatever he does in life..’ (Alan Parker, Behind the Wall Documentary, 2000)

* ‘In many ways I regard Roger as a kindred spirit. We seem to share the same healthy, amused cynicism. He was also extremely respectful of my work. He remarked to me once that when you employ an artist to work for you you don’t tell him what to do. You employ him precisely because you approve of his vision and because you have faith in it. Roger aided and abetted and encouraged me, but he never disagreed with what I was doing. It was wonderful, really, because he let me loose which is the only way I like to work.’ (Gerald Scarfe, ITAOT sleeve, 2000)

* ‘One of his great strengths is that he’s very good at deleting things: he’s not concerned that something may have taken three days to produce, nor that he loves it. If it isn’t appropriate, or if it serves no purpose to the overall sound or narrative, it goes. For me, that’s a very important rule of production. You need to be able to be ruthless when necessary.’ (James Guthrie, ITAOT sleeve, 2000)

* ‘Yeah, he’s a hard taskmaster. I mean, I’ve also got a great deal of professional respect for Roger. I mean, I think he’s very, very clever.. Roger has a particular talent for the big picture, the vision, of the whole thing. And it does mean, at times, he’s got no fear about coming in and saying, ‘Well, that’s no good. It’s got to go.’ Even though it may have taken days and days of work. He’ll just through it away unceremoniously. He’s got no fear of that at all. (Laughs)… And that’s quite disconcerting when you first start working with him! When you think, “God, what can we do that’s right, here?..’ (Andrew Jackson, FloydianSlip, 2001)

* ‘It was pretty clear, when the Wall came out, that the PF was one man band, well that’s unfair, but Roger Waters was ruling the band fairly tightly at that point’ (Robert Sandall, Behind the Wall Documentary, 2000)

* ‘The thing with Roger is, that with all the success that he’s had, and all the money he has made with Pink Floyd and everything, I don’t know that he’s still not recognized for how great of a writer he is. In other words, because of the Pink Floyd, you know, banner, and because he was so inaccessible during those days, I don’t know that enough focus has been placed on what a great writer he is. I mean I think he is certainly in the rarefied league of Bob Dylan, and John Lennon, and people like that. You know there are very few of those born in a generation, and Roger Waters is one of them.’ (Jim Ladd, Reg Magazine interview, Reg #11)

* ‘I feel really privileged to know Roger, and to call him my friend. And for those of you who are reading this article, you should know that this is a good person who cares very deeply about the things that he writes about, it’s not something…I mean it should be obvious to anybody that’s a fan of Roger’s that he really cares about this stuff, and I don’t know that I’ve ever met another artist who is more intent on really making the music absolutely as perfect as he can do it. You know, he accepts absolutely no’oh well that’s good enough,’ that don’t…that phrase has never come out of Roger Waters mouth, you know, it’s done right or it doesn’t make the record.’ (Jim Ladd, Reg Magazine interview, Reg #11)