Roger Waters

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4. For rights reasons the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

Presenter0:10

For more information about the programme, please visit bbc.co.uk/slash radio four.

Presenter0:34

My castaway this week is the musician Roger Waters. It's more than forty five years since he and some mates formed a band. The Screaming Abdabs never made it, and nor did the Mega Deaths, but as Pink Floyd they became one of the most critically acclaimed and successful groups of all time. Their groundbreaking albums included The Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall, but they're equally well known for their extraordinary live shows with towering sets, vast inflatables, and monstrous cartoons. Much of the inspiration for that came from the dark side of Roger Waters. He was only months old when his father was killed at Anzio, and he poured out the grief and sense of abandonment he suffered into his work. Years of extraordinary success were followed by even more of legal wrangling. But in two thousand and five Pink Floyd were reunited for Live 8 in a performance that their fans thought they'd never live to see. Of his own career he says, I've been very lucky. A lot of people die before anybody takes their work seriously. The problem, indeed, as an artist, when you talk about the things that are important to you, is that you expose yourself, and you expose yourself to criticism and judgment on your feelings. How comfortable are you with that?

Roger Waters1:46

Well, that's been my whole career. There's no other way that I can do it. All I can do is paint what I see and, you know, hope people buy the picture.

Presenter1:55

And you're still painting, it's still important to you that you express yourself through your music.

Roger Waters1:58

It is, yeah. I I still express myself. I I continue to write songs um quite a lot. Uh I I can't believe I haven't made an album since nineteen ninety two, but um

Roger Waters2:08

I keep meaning to pull myself together and organise some of the songs that I've written over the last 20 years into a format that would satisfy me.

Presenter2:18

Um i is it a problem with your creativity that maybe you're just a bit happier now, a bit more contented and so

Roger Waters2:23

And so you see, there you go. Delving.

Roger Waters2:27

Um

Roger Waters2:28

Yeah, m I think there's some truth in that. I certainly am.

Roger Waters2:32

A lot happier than I was. I'm content, but I'm not sure that I'm not sure that's entirely what it is.

Presenter2:38

Come on.

Presenter2:39

I mentioned Live Eight. I mean, we can't go much further without talking about that. Bob Geldoff, Sir Bob, in his own searingly eloquent way, said it was it was a joy to see four old geezers playing so beautifully. How did it feel to be one of the old geezers playing so beautifully?

Roger Waters2:42

Yeah.

Roger Waters2:53

Yeah, it was splendid. You know, we went and we did a run-through on the Friday night and

Roger Waters3:00

So it all clicked into place because we know the music so well and there's this huge empty space in front of the stage with about 60 people working on the site, you know, putting out rubbish bins or whatever it was that they were doing and they all stopped and then at the end they all applauded. So it was rather sweet. That was actually a very moving moment.

Roger Waters3:20

And the day itself was indescribably moving.

Presenter3:24

You did sort of tentatively embrace on the stage at the end of the set, but can you tell me what happened off stage?

Roger Waters3:30

That didn't feel tentative to me. Um

Roger Waters3:34

Well, we di yeah, we embraced and, you know, we'd had dinner the night before and uh

Roger Waters3:39

I'm just so glad that we did that before Rick died.

Presenter3:43

Yeah.

Roger Waters3:43

Yeah.

Roger Waters3:45

If that was the last time that the four of us were going to do something together, I think it was a beautiful way to underline what had been a long...

Roger Waters3:52

And wonderful collaboration.

Presenter3:54

Your music list today is um you know, it's a it's a wonderful list, I think, but it's also it's a very tender list, quite an emotional list. Is that where you find yourself now at this stage in your life?

Roger Waters4:05

Well, maybe it's a reflection of that because I didn't think about this list at all. I thought if I start thinking about this, I'm going to be here for months, you know.

Presenter4:12

Yes. Are you happy with it now, looking at it?

Roger Waters4:13

Yeah, absolutely, yeah. All of the things that um that are on there are great favourites of mine, so I'm perfectly content with it.

Presenter4:18

Yeah.

Presenter4:20

So tell me, Roger, about the first choice, what are we going to hear?

Roger Waters4:23

Um

Roger Waters4:25

Well Neil Young is singing helpless. There is a um

Roger Waters4:29

an honesty and a truth in everything that he's done. You feel the man's integrity and passion. I can feel the hairs standing up on the back of my neck now, remembering the purity with which he hits the first notes of this song. It's extraordinarily moving and eloquent.

Presenter4:52

There is a town in North Ontario.

Speaker 15:00

Dream comfort memory despair

Speaker 15:09

In my mind, I still need a place to go.

Presenter5:17

Uh

Speaker 15:17

Uh

Speaker 15:18

Oh my change.

Presenter5:21

That was Neil Young and Helpless. So you're on the road a lot now, Roger Waters. And the wall, just to remind people, of course, is I mean, it was at the time hugely successful for Pink Floyd. And it was really the visuals and the scale of it along with the music that really captured the world's attention. As a stage show, a wall is literally built. And it is the story, it's your story, the wall. It's the story of a young man who sort of builds an emotional barrier between himself and the rest of the world because of the damage he feels as a little boy when he loses his father in the war.

Roger Waters5:53

That is very well put. It certainly was that in 1979 when we made the record and first did the shows.

Roger Waters6:00

The show now is very political. There's a very, very powerful anti-war statement in this new production of The Wall that we're doing. I invited people to send in photographs of loved ones lost in conflict, political unrest, demonstrations, anything, it didn't really matter, with a story and we use images of some of those people during the show. It's an homage to that loss of life and to the pain that goes with it, which I expressed in the thing because of the loss of my father when I was five months old, and which I like to think maybe gives me a better chance than some people to empathise with those in a similar situation today.

Presenter6:46

Do people personally come up and talk to you? If you know, you encourage this sort of soliciting of of people's experiences to use in the show. Do you are there any particular personal things that you've been struck by?

Roger Waters6:55

Often the thread is this is a picture of my grandfather. He was a Republican and he was shot by Franco's army in 1938 or whatever, Spanish Civil War. And it's interesting that people connect with

Roger Waters7:10

Previous generations, you know, across quite large barriers of time. But also at this show, I invite veterans to come to the show. At half time, I go into a a room and talk to them. And it's it's deeply moving. There was one

Roger Waters7:27

particular guy though was standing in one of the shows.

Roger Waters7:30

and he was an older guy, just as I was going out.

Roger Waters7:34

He said to me, um

Roger Waters7:36

He said, I'm sorry.

Roger Waters7:38

For the loss of your father.

Roger Waters7:40

And I said, Oh, well, thank you very much. I appreciate that.

Roger Waters7:43

And then he looked me in the eye and he said he would have been proud of you.

Roger Waters7:47

And I just went.

Roger Waters7:48

I was bursting into tears and I had to leave the room because it was so moving. This guy was saying this to me when you know, so the the strange thing of the circle being completed in a in a very emotional way.

Presenter7:54

Yeah.

Presenter8:00

Let's have some music then. Your second disc today

Roger Waters8:02

Watch a What is its what?

Roger Waters8:04

Uh this is Endless Flight from the movie uh Babble and uh there is something mysterious and um sort of tragically m moving about this thing. I like it.

Presenter9:17

That was Endless Flight from the soundtrack to the film Babble. Um so let's go back, Roger Waters. You were born in Surrey in nineteen forty three, but you moved early on to Cambridgeshire. What what are your earliest memories?

Roger Waters9:30

The earliest memory is Vj9.

Roger Waters9:33

I described it to my mother. I remember a room, and I remember there was a door with a latch, and when you opened it, there were some stairs behind it, and in the room there was a brown sofa, and beyond the sofa, there was a window, and then there's a road, and across the road, there are people, and they're dancing round a bonfire, and she looked at me, and she said, that's Vijay Night. That was your grandmother's house in Cherry Endon Road, in Cambridge.

Roger Waters9:57

So I was only like eighteen months old or something at the time.

Presenter10:01

And you had did you already have uh an older sibling? You

Roger Waters10:04

Yeah, my brother John here is two years older.

Presenter10:07

And so, as you've told us, your father was killed at Anzio when you were a matter of five months old. Did your did your mother talk to you about your father, about the kind of man he was?

Roger Waters10:12

And what

Roger Waters10:16

Yeah.

Roger Waters10:17

She did. She spoke about him a lot because she was, a, inordinately proud of him and what he'd done. And b she felt she was always rather down on herself, my mother, and she she felt that she'd been very, very lucky to meet this man.

Presenter10:31

Uh

Roger Waters10:31

Why was he done? Yeah.

Presenter10:31

Yeah.

Roger Waters10:31

Herself, what what? She never my mother, extraordinarily enough, she never thought she was very attractive. She didn't have much kind of physical self-confidence.

Presenter10:39

And she was, but'cause I've seen a photograph of her. I thought she was a very sort of handsome, striking woman.

Roger Waters10:41

She was a very sort of handsome

Roger Waters10:44

Yeah, yeah, she was. I mean, my mother became political because she went up north to do her teacher training. She did it in Bradford, and it was a hard winter. And it was the sight of English kids walking to school through a Bradford winter with no shoes or socks on that made her think there's something wrong with this picture. You know, we need to share things out a bit more fairly. And my father's story was extraordinarily heroic, really. At the beginning of the war, he was a very devout Christian, and so he was a conscientious objector.

Roger Waters11:22

So he drove an ambulance all through 1940 and 41, through the Blitz. He was working in London.

Roger Waters11:29

And that's where he met my mother and they both became very politically involved and they both joined the Communist Party.

Roger Waters11:37

Once he'd joined the Communist Party, he decided that the need to fight the Nazis trumped his Christianity. So he went back to the conscription board and said, oh, excuse me, I've changed my mind.

Roger Waters11:50

And I went, I say jolly good, and uh boshed off to Anzio in January and uh he was killed on february the eighteenth.

Presenter11:59

And there is a a very striking image in the film, the original film that was made to go with the wall of of the little boy looking in the mirror and and trying on one of course assumes it is his father's um uniform. Did did you ever touch your own father's uniform?

Roger Waters12:08

Scam.

Roger Waters12:11

Oh yeah, that's me. That's me. My father's uniform was in a chest of drawers, you know.

Presenter12:13

Right.

Roger Waters12:18

in our house. And the sand brown and the I can still see the fusilier, you know, um flashes.

Presenter12:25

Time for some music then, Roger. We're on disc three. Tell us about it.

Roger Waters12:29

Well, Leonard Cohen Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan maybe were the two men who allowed us to believe that there was an open door between poetry.

Roger Waters12:39

and song lyrics. And this song of his, Bird on a Wire, is so simple. You know, the couplets are so simple and so moving and so brilliant. I love it. Bird on a Wire.

Speaker 312:54

Like a bird.

Speaker 312:58

On the wire.

Speaker 313:02

Like a drunken age

Speaker 313:04

Midnight Choir

Speaker 313:07

I have tried.

Speaker 313:10

In my way.

Speaker 313:13

To be free.

Speaker 313:19

Like the worm

Speaker 313:22

Uh

Presenter13:24

That was Leonard Cohen and Bird on a Wire. You've described yourself, Roger Waters, as a is it a balshy teenager? You were quite, you know, a bit stroppy.

Roger Waters13:31

That one's very strappy, yeah.

Presenter13:33

Yeah, who did you t

Roger Waters13:34

Take it out on him. What did you do?

Roger Waters13:35

Uh any any kind of authority, really.

Roger Waters13:38

There was a whole generation of us who refused to take school seriously at all. The grammar school this is I'm talking about.

Presenter13:44

So you were a bright a bright boy, but you were kind of openly rebelling. Were you? Was your mother worried about this bright boy who didn't seem to respect authority?

Roger Waters13:50

I'm not sure that I've re really spoke to my mother much about it. You know, my mother was very busy earning a living. My day started with Roger, it's twenty three minutes to nine and that was the start of my day.

Speaker 114:05

A

Roger Waters14:06

And I would get up and somehow make myself a cup of tea and the school was only about a ten minute walk away, but I was supposed to be there at 10 to 9 and I never was. But I had a route where I could go through a couple of gardens and down a side road to get into the f the form room while everybody else was in morning assembly, you know, saying prayers and singing songs and whatever they did.

Presenter14:27

Yeah, funny you mentioned songs. Were you what was played at home? What what were you listening to as a

Roger Waters14:31

There was no music at home at all.

Presenter14:33

Why was that?

Roger Waters14:34

I don't know. My mother always claims to be tone deaf.

Roger Waters14:37

There's a poem that I wrote which I can't recite to you, but it's about being hunkered, hunkered against the hot creosotes. It's about sitting in dust against a fence and hearing Ruby Murray singing a song. I said it came across the tops of hollyhocks mingled with the news. And in that moment I felt the magic touch, the tingle down the spine. You know, that was the first time that anything ever really got to me.

Roger Waters15:01

Wow, what an extraordinary feeling that is. How did that happen?

Presenter15:05

Yeah.

Roger Waters15:06

It was Ruby Murray.

Presenter15:07

And were you learning to play any instrument where you s

Roger Waters15:09

No. One of my aunts gave me a guitar when I was thirteen or fourteen years ago and and I did try and learn to play that, but I found it way too painful and difficult, so I gave up.

Presenter15:18

Painful on the fingers.

Roger Waters15:19

Yeah.

Presenter15:20

This is such an inspiration to all these people.

Roger Waters15:22

It's a steel strung guitar and it was really difficult.

Presenter15:23

On guitar no

Presenter15:26

And y y were you close to your big brother? I mean, you not that much?

Roger Waters15:29

No, we weren't. We were never close, John and I.

Presenter15:32

And would he have had much I mean, I know if he if they must have been distant, but did he have any m memory of your father? Was he able at all? Yeah.

Roger Waters15:38

Yeah, he remembered him, yeah.

Presenter15:40

Did he? Yeah.

Roger Waters15:40

Yeah.

Presenter15:41

Do you think that's maybe one of the differences between the two of you? You don't sh

Roger Waters15:43

I think he paid a higher price than I did.

Presenter15:47

Yeah.

Roger Waters15:47

I think the eldest pays the eldest takes the responsibility. I mean

Roger Waters15:53

I have recurrent dreams and there's a dream that I no longer have, which was a dream that I've murdered somebody and that I'm going to get caught.

Roger Waters16:03

And I had this dream over and over and over again for mumpteen years, until after a ton of therapy I suddenly one day realized

Roger Waters16:10

I think uh it's about me feeling I'd killed my father.

Presenter16:13

Uh

Roger Waters16:13

And as soon as I had that realization, that's it, I've never had that dream again.

Roger Waters16:18

It went.

Presenter16:19

How long ago was that?

Roger Waters16:21

About twenty years ago.

Presenter16:23

Right.

Presenter16:24

So when you had that dream about your father, you would have been fifty. That's a long time to have a recurring dream that you're murdering somebody. Yeah. Yeah. Do do you think you've have have you come have you come late to a lot of those emotional realizations, do you think? Yeah.

Roger Waters16:29

Yeah.

Roger Waters16:30

Yeah.

Roger Waters16:37

Yeah. Yeah.

Presenter16:37

Yeah.

Roger Waters16:39

I think I did.

Presenter16:40

Yeah. Why do you think that's taken so long?

Roger Waters16:42

Oh, that's a very good question.

Roger Waters16:46

But I think it took me a very long time to understand that as a man it was okay to have power.

Presenter16:52

A gate of power.

Roger Waters16:53

Yeah. I think for many, many years, because I'd grown up

Roger Waters16:58

entirely in the company of women, my mother and all her sisters.

Roger Waters17:03

I think I just intuitively believed that the correct thing was for for the woman to have all the power, and in consequence I involved myself in all kinds of disastrous relationships where I gave away all my power to women.

Presenter17:17

For now is some music, that seems.

Presenter17:21

Let's have some music, Roger. What are we going to hear next?

Roger Waters17:24

Oh well, dear it's perfectly apposite. Chet Baker, My Funny Valentine. Not just a great song. Uh Laurie's The Love of My Life and Soon to Become My Wife. We had a thing about Chet Baker. We listen to Chet Baker all the time when we're playing Jinrummy. All the time. That's all we play. And I actually met him.

Roger Waters17:43

Fleetingly. When I was a student studying architecture in London,

Roger Waters17:49

We were living in a squat in uh Chaney Gardens and it w the whole block was full of squats and Chet was squatting three doors down and this must have been nineteen sixty two maybe.

Presenter18:03

So by then he'd be on his upper as a bit, was he?

Roger Waters18:05

Absolutely, yeah. I mean, being a junkie and he'd got no teeth and he couldn't play any whatever. And I've seen films made of him after that time when he got himself together again. And what a remarkable man, what an extraordinary talent.

Presenter18:09

Yeah.

Presenter18:19

My funny Valentine

Presenter18:25

Sweet Comic Valentine

Presenter18:32

You make me smile with my heart.

Presenter18:42

That was Chet Baker and My Funny Valentine, and you said, Roger Watson, that's for Laurie, the love of your life. And you're getting married then. When do you know when you're getting married?

Roger Waters18:49

I'm not quite sure when I'm wearing the ring, but we'll see.

Presenter18:51

What

Presenter18:53

I did notice you were wearing a wedding ring there.

Roger Waters18:54

Yeah, getting used to it.

Presenter18:56

Yeah, because it you have been married before.

Roger Waters18:59

I have.

Presenter18:59

Yes.

Presenter19:01

And so you feel

Roger Waters19:03

It's a bit of a habit.

Presenter19:05

Yes, how many times we've been made?

Roger Waters19:06

Uh three.

Presenter19:07

Right.

Roger Waters19:07

I'm I'm not prepared to go any further into that, Kirsty.

Presenter19:10

Absolutely, I understand. So let's then move on.

Roger Waters19:14

Yeah.

Presenter19:15

Let's see, it was nineteen sixty six. Pink Floyd had been formed and of course famously it was formed with Sid Barrett at its helm. But in those very, very early days, what are your strongest memories of of making music together?

Roger Waters19:28

Well actually Sid and I knew he's two years younger than me so we knew each other in Cambridge. The band was already sort of happening and he came up to go to Campbell School of Art and we we always said that when he came up to London to go to college, which he inevitably would, we would start a band together. And suddenly we got a contract with EMI and I turned pro in February 1967.

Presenter19:51

And i is it indeed the case that you were recording at Abbey Road at the same time that the Beatles were recording in a studio next door?

Roger Waters19:56

We were, yeah, we were doing our first album.

Presenter19:58

Do you ever bump into them?

Roger Waters20:00

Yeah?

Roger Waters20:01

Yeah.

Roger Waters20:02

Paul McCartney used to come in quite often'cause he used to come down to UFO and and watch us perform. And um I went in I think twice when they were in there and it was terrifying, you know.

Roger Waters20:13

John Lennon and he was always a bit seemed a bit grumpy, you know.

Presenter20:16

Were you on the end of his grump? Did he?

Roger Waters20:18

No, not really. I not really. Um it's one of my um great regrets, you know, that I never really met Len and I sat down. I think I think we'd have had a quite a lot to say to one another.

Presenter20:28

Really? But what because of your experience?

Roger Waters20:30

I don't I don't know. I I just feel a great um fellow feeling for him.

Presenter20:34

Of course, we we look back now in a sort of social history way and say, well, that was the point at which Britain changed. Are you aware when you're there and you're creatively beginning to explore yourself and listen to what's going on around you, that everything is changing, that the rules no longer apply?

Roger Waters20:51

Not really. I I I certainly wasn't. I was just getting on with what I was getting on with and trying to make ends meet, you know. I mean, I made seven quid a week.

Presenter20:52

Yeah.

Roger Waters21:00

between 1967 and 1970, which even in those days was not really enough to live on.

Presenter21:07

And when when would you first then have appeared on on Top of the Pops?'Cause that w that must have been a sort of significant and important moment in your career.

Roger Waters21:13

Yeah, well, yeah, um, C M Lee Play, I suppose, which was sixty seven.

Presenter21:16

BAMS

Presenter21:17

Right, and that was when Sid Barrett sort of pretty much backed away. He he said, I don't I don't w I don't want this

Roger Waters21:20

Yeah, back to we.

Roger Waters21:22

Yeah, he was he was going a bit strange by then.

Roger Waters21:25

John Lennon doesn't have to do top of the pups, he would say.

Roger Waters21:29

Sid, are you crazy? This is what we've been working for, man. Come on, let's go for it.

Roger Waters21:36

You know, I shouldn't laugh because um it was very sad what happened, but he was just not making very much connection with anything that you and I would consider to be real.

Presenter21:45

Okay. The beautiful song Shine On You Crazy Diamond was was written as a a tribute to Sid Barrett many years uh later. It's very it's very unusual for a band to acknowledge the thing that's missing within it. How did that song actually come about? Did you sit down together and talk about writing it, or did?

Roger Waters21:58

Yeah.

Roger Waters22:02

No, no, I wrote it. It's very moving to play, you know. It's like he's there again. Like he was so beautiful, Sid. He was so vibrant and and so talented. Very special, I think.

Presenter22:16

He died in it was two thousand six, I I think, and you said very notably that at the time that he died you felt as if you'd done your grieving a good two decades before.

Roger Waters22:18

Yeah.

Roger Waters22:26

Hmm.

Roger Waters22:27

Yeah, because he he wasn't accessible.

Presenter22:30

Yeah.

Roger Waters22:31

He didn't want to see anybody from his past ever.

Presenter22:35

Let's have some music then. What are you gonna hear?

Roger Waters22:36

I w you know earlier I was talking about um

Roger Waters22:40

I used to routinely, after my mum had gone to sleep, I would climb out of my first floor window and go literally shinned down a drain pipe. And about twenty doors down lived this remarkably wonderful woman who was the first bohemian I ever met in my life. She was called Eleanor O'Connell and she had a son.

Roger Waters23:00

called Seamus O'Connell.

Roger Waters23:02

And we

Roger Waters23:04

That's me, my best friend at school who was called Willa and Seamus, would stay up all night, almost every night, listening to music.

Roger Waters23:11

And we listened to everything. I remember her with such joy and it was it was great for us three boys. This was one of the records that we would listen to a lot. This is Ray Charles, Georgia on My Mind. We haven't even put it on yet. I've got goosebumps.

Speaker 323:27

George

Roger Waters23:28

Uh

Speaker 323:31

Georgia

Speaker 323:35

The whole day

Speaker 123:41

Just an old sweet song.

Speaker 323:46

Keeps Georgia on my mind

Speaker 123:49

Georgia George.

Presenter23:57

Ray Charles and George are on my mind. So let's go then, Roger Waters, from seven quid a week to well, we're sort of spooling forward by six years. There were albums and albums that are very well regarded, but the one that really broke through and made you, I think, big money in America was uh Dark Side of the Moon. Um when did you begin to notice that life was changing?

Roger Waters24:16

Well, as soon as we finished the record, I was absolutely certain that, you know, this was the big breakthrough. But it, yeah, it changed everything. We changed everything.

Presenter24:18

Yeah

Presenter24:22

Bye.

Presenter24:26

How did you feel about being a known person, about being a rock star, in those early days?

Roger Waters24:31

I I you know, I I think uh I was so um

Roger Waters24:34

fundamentally um frightened in almost every possible way that I really shied away from it in a big way. So I was always that kid who only ever dressed in black and I you know, at at a party I would be found skulking in the corner, you know, and not being friendly.

Presenter24:52

But you see the Brooding Rock star, of course, is even more magnetic.

Roger Waters24:57

Well, whatever.

Presenter24:57

Are you fighting off the girls with a great big sort of

Roger Waters25:01

Sta.

Roger Waters25:02

Really? No, I never went through any of that.

Presenter25:02

Really?

Roger Waters25:06

I thought of maybe one or two.

Presenter25:10

Is that true? You never went through and is that not part of the fun of being a rock star?

Roger Waters25:13

Well, it should be, yeah, but again, we can't possibly go into all the, you know, the awful details of my balling love life. But I'd attached myself by that time and had been attached for some considerable amount of time to the girl next door who I married. I married the girl next door, literally the girl next door. Right.

Roger Waters25:32

And notwithstanding the fact that I di I strayed from Teitedheim, it wasn't a glorious loving. I love you, I know, I'm sorry. Oh God, I regret it so much.

Presenter25:40

Love you.

Presenter25:45

Do I mean actually do you? Do you look back and think about it?

Roger Waters25:45

They should do

Roger Waters25:47

Oh, absolutely, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah.

Presenter25:50

And given that you you were all boys with an education, you know, young men who were going to go into professions, it's you know, it's interesting that you suddenly all found yourself rock stars. Was there a little bit of all of you that, you know, you weren't quite sure what to do with it?

Roger Waters26:02

Um, no. It was an enormous relief, you know, not to have to go to work.

Roger Waters26:09

I only went into architecture'cause my mum said you've got to do something. You must have an education and you mu and and so I went, All right, mum, I will.

Presenter26:17

And and what did your mum then make of of, you know, the success? Did she begin to be a little bit more?

Roger Waters26:22

Oh yeah, she loved it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. She could see what was going on. Yeah.

Presenter26:27

And they were and she was ninety-six when she finally passed away.

Roger Waters26:29

She was, yeah, last year.

Presenter26:30

Last year. Was there a sort of final commentary on this extraordinary journey that you'd made to Superstart? And did she talk to you about it?

Roger Waters26:38

No, not towards the end. The only thing she said about my career was she said she said, you know, darling, I'm going to leave everything to John, because I have a feeling you'll be all right.

Presenter26:51

Wise words.

Roger Waters26:52

Yeah. Yeah. No, she was great. She was such a great woman.

Presenter26:52

Yeah.

Presenter26:56

Let's have some more music then. Before we go any further, tell us about your sixth choice today then, Roger.

Roger Waters27:02

Uh not recently, but a few years ago, I wrote an opera. And I became then much more interested in opera than I ever had before. And I also worked with um opera singers, one of whom was Bryn Turville. And um

Roger Waters27:16

Brennan one day he said to me

Roger Waters27:19

Gotcha, have you ever listened to Corelli? And I went, No, who's he?

Roger Waters27:24

The next day he came in and he gave me this. He said, this is mine, but you can have it. And I banged it in the car and I was just blown away.

Presenter27:33

Funny

Roger Waters27:33

Uh

Presenter27:33

Before some place on your meal.

Speaker 127:39

Yeah.

Presenter27:39

Uh

Speaker 127:39

Oh, Damon.

Presenter28:11

My mental heart, but God

Presenter28:22

Beloved Lord.

Presenter28:31

That was Franco Corelli singing Eluce von Lastelle, How the Stars Seemed to Shimmer from the Third Act of Puccini's Tosca. You've said of yourself, I know I can be an oppressive personality because I bubble with ideas. It was easier for the others to go along with me. So I'm wondering at what point you realized whilst you were making music with Pink Floyd that it it doesn't quite feel as good as it once felt, that that personalities were rubbing uh abrasively up against each other.

Roger Waters29:01

I think and it's not just me, I think everybody would agree it was

Roger Waters29:05

Really immediately after Dark Shadow of the Moon. So we would argue furiously about almost everything.

Roger Waters29:10

And but having said that, you know, Dave's a a fantastic guitar player and he's got an incredibly beautiful voice, you know, and and Rick was still doing great things on keyboards and coming up with great ideas. And so we were still we were still coming up, you know, with the goods, but there was a lot of um tension.

Presenter29:28

So you left the band famously, Roger Waters, in nineteen eighty five. So much has been written about the split and the acrimony. There were many words that passed between you and Dave Gilmour, um many of them unpleasant. But I'm wondering now, with a bit of perspective, how you look back on that period when it all blew up in your face?

Roger Waters29:47

Well, it was a lot of uh a great deal of wasted energy. I famously thought that we should retire.

Roger Waters29:56

And they f famously didn't. But

Roger Waters29:59

Where people have got the wrong end of the stick as it got reported is the idea that we fought about this in court. We never went anywhere near a court.

Presenter30:06

But lawyers were involved, let's say.

Roger Waters30:07

Lawyer lawyers gave advised both of us, you know.

Roger Waters30:11

Right, and they said, listen, um

Roger Waters30:13

You can't retire the name. You can fight to get it for yourself and you probably get it.

Roger Waters30:18

And I went, I don't want it. And they said, this is a valuable piece of property. So you can't just say, I've decided to throw it away.

Presenter30:26

Right.

Roger Waters30:26

It's worth money.

Roger Waters30:28

So it has to exist.

Presenter30:31

And there was a point, I think, were were you playing in Cincinnati, I think, if my memory serves me correctly, and you were playing on your own, doing your own work. You were playing to an audience of two thousand in a six thousand seater stadium, and Pink Floyd were playing where to how many?

Roger Waters30:38

Yeah.

Roger Waters30:46

They were playing in the Colts football stadium to 70,000 people either the same night or the next day, I think, and that that was very character forming.

Presenter30:54

I bet.

Roger Waters30:54

Yeah.

Roger Waters30:55

Yes, that's all right.

Presenter30:57

How did it form your character? What formed your character?

Roger Waters30:59

I think it was really good for me.

Presenter31:01

Was it?

Roger Waters31:01

Was it?

Roger Waters31:02

The bit of failure is very

Roger Waters31:05

character forming and you know makes you think about what's really important and what isn't.

Presenter31:10

Do you feel um like you're a man who's come a long way? Do you feel like you've made an enormous sort of emotional progression in your life?

Roger Waters31:19

I do.

Presenter31:19

Yeah.

Roger Waters31:21

Yeah, I do. I feel

Roger Waters31:23

So much more comfortable with who I am now and where I am now than I did forty years ago, certainly.

Roger Waters31:30

I'm really glad that I was in that band for the 20 years I was in it and I really enjoyed it and I think we did some great work together but I had no wish to do it ever again.

Presenter31:40

Does Laurie come on tour with you?

Roger Waters31:42

Uh most of the time, yeah.

Presenter31:43

Right.

Roger Waters31:43

And actually one of one of my sons is on the road with me. He plays keyboards in my band, so Harry, my Harry. And he's got two sons now.

Presenter31:48

Harry

Presenter31:51

Right.

Roger Waters31:51

Grandpa gets them to come and visit.

Presenter31:54

Okay.

Roger Waters31:54

Okay. So it's all good.

Presenter31:56

Right, it's time then, Roger, for another piece of music. Tell me about what we're gonna hear.

Roger Waters31:59

For me, it was a sort of toss-up between Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday. Billie Holiday, as you know, is a sort of tragic figure, and this is a recording of God Bless the Child made quite near the end of her life. The vulnerability of this woman is so moving in ways that I don't have the prose to even begin to describe it. You know, when we listen to this track, you just...

Roger Waters32:23

It tears your heart out.

Speaker 132:25

Them that's got shall have, them that's not shall lose.

Speaker 132:31

So the Bible said

Speaker 132:35

And it still is news mama may have

Speaker 132:43

Papa may have

Speaker 132:45

But God bless the child that's got his own.

Speaker 132:52

Let's got his zone.

Presenter32:54

That was Billy Holiday, and God bless the child. You were lost in that there, Roger Waters, you seemed.

Presenter33:01

Is that all I'm getting?

Speaker 133:02

Yeah.

Presenter33:02

And was that an impersonation of my voice? No, no. Good. I'm glad. And do you ever become, if not blase, then a little bit matter of fact about the fact that you can attract tens of thousands of people to to pay for a ticket to come to see you on stage?

Speaker 133:06

It's not

Roger Waters33:18

No, I'm not no, I'm never blasé about it. So I'm extraordinarily gratified that some of the work that I've been involved with has had the longevity that it has to the point that it's moved generation after generation after generation and it means something to them. So that in a way being the permission that I got from Leonard Cohen and the Beatles and Neil Young and people, other people are getting the same permission from me. And that's extraordinarily gratifying. It's just great. But I'm not blasé about it.

Presenter33:21

So what's the sensation for

Presenter33:51

So you're going to go to an island, and I'm going to send you away.

Roger Waters33:53

Yeah.

Presenter33:54

Um, how will you survive? You'll be fi will you be fine with your own company?

Roger Waters33:58

Probably not. No, I'm quite... I like the company of others. Particularly one other.

Roger Waters34:04

I won't do very well on mine.

Presenter34:06

Let's hear your final piece of music, then, Roger Waters. What are we going to hear?

Roger Waters34:10

This is part of the fourth movement of Marla's Fifth Symphony. I made a movie of the Dark Side of the Moon tour that I did, and this is the music that opens that film. It's to a very, very slow-motion picture of a milk bottle flying up in the air, which is a reference to a game I used to play with the guys I stayed up all night with in Cambridge when we were hooligans. We used to play a game where you threw milk bottles up into the air to see how many you could get in the air before the first one hit the ground. Unbelievably stupid.

Roger Waters34:46

I was just thinking it's sounding quite good. So and so anyway, when you if you listen to this music, imagine milk bottles tumbling in slow motion.

Presenter35:52

That was part of the fourth movement of Mahler's Symphony No. Five performed by the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Sir Simon Rattle.

Presenter36:00

So, Roger, it's time to give you the books first of all: the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare, and what's your book going to be?

Roger Waters36:07

Uh All the Pretty Horses, which is um the first of uh the Crossing trilogy by Cormac McCarthy. Right, it's yours.

Presenter36:16

And a luxury too.

Roger Waters36:18

Well, I lived in North London in 1968 and 1969. First of all, in a girlfriend's flat very near Highbury Stadium, and I've become addicted really to Arsenal Football Club. And so if I'm allowed a satellite dish, that's what I want. I want to be able to watch the Arsenal Games.

Presenter36:36

Do not allow the satellite dish.

Roger Waters36:38

In that case grand piano, a Bosendorfer.

Presenter36:40

Right. You I certainly allowed that. I give it to you with pleasure.

Presenter36:45

It's you, Ross Roger. And um if you had to pick just one of the eight discs, which one would you pick to save? Oh my goodness.

Roger Waters36:52

Al the Mala

Presenter36:54

Okay, the mana is yours. Roger Waters, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Roger Waters36:59

Thank you very much for having me.

Presenter37:44

You've been listening to a download from the BBC.

Presenter37:47

You'll find more information on the Radio 4 website bbc.co.uk slash Radio 4.