Requiem for a Band
The back of the sleeve of The Final Cut carries the subtitle, A Requiem for the Post War Dream by Roger Waters, and on the line below, performed by Pink Floyd. That says it all. The album, more than just a requiem for a dream, becomes something of a requiem for a band (now no more than a trio), for which it sounds an unmistakable death knell. The band’s first album without Rick Wright—who was replaced on the keyboards by Michael Kamen and Andy Bown—was also the last that Roger Waters, David Gilmour, and Nick Mason worked on together. The Final Cut is no longer a collective work, but the product of a personal initiative by Waters, almost a solo album. The bassist-singer-songwriter composed all thirteen of the songs and sang them all himself (with the exception of most of the verses of “Not Now John,” performed by David Gilmour). “I could hardly fail to sympathise with these political sentiments,” Nick Mason wrote in his book, “but I think David’s view was that it was becoming unsuitable as a band album. David wanted time to produce some material of his own. Roger, now totally motivated [by his project], was not interested in waiting.”5
Even more revealing of the discord that reigned from that point on within the band was Waters’s announcement to Nick Mason, before the recording sessions got started, that the latter, as merely the drummer, could not expect to claim any extra credits or royalties. And indeed, Gilmour and Mason were relegated to mere accompanists supporting Waters, on a par with Andy Bown and Ray Cooper. David Gilmour later commented with a touch of irony that if Waters ever needed a guitarist, to give him a call.
Gilmour was also unhappy at the new direction in which Waters had been driving Pink Floyd since The Wall, or even since Animals, putting the lyrics—highly politicized ones at that—above all else, to the detriment of the music. And at the way Waters was systematically resurrecting the pieces he had composed that had been rejected by the group. “Songs that we threw off The Wall, he brought them back for The Final Cut—same songs,” David Gilmour complained. “Nobody thought they were that good then; what makes them so good now? I bet he thought I was just being obstructive.”53 Roger Waters, meanwhile, seemed to have already moved on to the time after Pink Floyd: “By the time we had gotten a quarter of the way through making The Final Cut, I knew that I would never make another record with Dave Gilmour and Nick Mason. We just didn’t agree on anything anymore.”137 In an interview with the Guardian in 2002, Gilmour would sum up the situation with a touch of humor, declaring that the album should have been called not The Final Cut, but The Final Straw… And for the first time in the band’s history, they had no plans whatsoever for a tour to promote the album.
In the end, three producers shared the credits for The Final Cut: Roger Waters, James Guthrie, and Michael Kamen. Bob Ezrin and David Gilmour didn’t feature. The former was already in disgrace after he clumsily disclosed confidential information to the press ahead of the tour for The Wall. Waters had had no qualms in sweeping aside an exceptional collaboration, even though this was what had enabled him to get the concept for The Wall off the ground. The latter, David Gilmour, would himself ask for his name to be removed from the credits. In 1983 he explained it this way: “It’s very very much Roger’s baby, more than any one [of the band’s albums] has been before and I didn’t… it’s not the way I’d have produced it and we did have an argument about the production on this record—several arguments, and I came off the production credits because my ideas of production weren’t the way that Roger saw it being.”138 Although Gilmour still received his production royalties, his radical attitude was a sign that they had reached the point of no return.
Only the highly talented Michael Kamen succeeded in earning his stripes as a producer. Obviously he played a vital role, though he would never erase the memory of Bob Ezrin. At one point the tensions in the recording studio were getting to him, and he became involved in quite a funny altercation related by Nick Mason. During a recording session where Roger Waters was having some difficulty with his lead vocal and needed repeated takes, Michael Kamen, sitting in the control room and visibly paying little attention to Waters’s efforts, started scribbling incessantly in a notebook. After a while, Mason reports, Roger, distracted by Michael’s apparent lack of interest, “stormed into the control room and demanded to know what Michael was writing. Michael had decided that he must have done something unspeakable in a past life, something he was now karmically paying for by having to endure take after take of the same vocal performance. So he had written over and over on his legal pad, page after page, line after line, ‘I must not fuck sheep.’”5
A Qualified Success with a Bitter Taste
Roger Waters’s requiem, his final legacy as part of the band, came out in the United Kingdom and continental Europe on March 21, 1983, and then in the United States on April 2. Regardless of the criticism, notably the comments by critic Lynden Barber, who regarded this opus as nothing but “a series of outtakes from an Alan Price LP” and “a milestone in the history of awfulness,”139 the British public gave The Final Cut a very favorable reception, and it reached number 1 on the charts, something that both The Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall had failed to do. The album likewise made it to number 1 in several other European countries including France, the West Germany, Sweden, and Norway. In the United States, on the other hand, it peaked at only sixth place, despite the fact it was certified Platinum in May, and despite the fact that the rock critic Kurt Loder of Rolling Stone gave it a five-star review, hailing it as a masterpiece of art rock and elevating Roger Waters to the status of Bob Dylan, the great poetic observer of the world’s political order.
Internationally, Pink Floyd’s twelfth album remains their lowest-selling album since Meddle in 1971, at three million copies. David Gilmour took the chance to comment on this outcome with some irony, to Roger Waters’s annoyance: “Dave Gilmour went on record as saying, ‘There you go: I knew he was doing it wrong all along.’ But it’s absolutely ridiculous to judge a record solely on sales. If you’re going to use sales as the sole criterion, it makes Grease a better record than Graceland [by Paul Simon].”140 However, Waters himself was not completely happy with it. The homage to his father was not as successful as he had hoped, and he had “… a sense that I might have betrayed him, because we haven’t managed to improve things very much.”9
The Sleeve
For The Final Cut, as for The Wall, Storm Thorgerson was passed over for the cover design. The Hipgnosis studio had, it is true, been booked during the recording of the album, but Waters’s decision was above all prompted by a desire to break with the past. So it was Roger Waters himself, helped by his brother-in-law Willie Christie (who took the photos), who took charge of the sleeve artwork for this new opus, an austere design on a remembrance theme. On a black background (the color of mourning?) we see, on the top left, a Remembrance Day poppy, traditionally worn in the United Kingdom on November 11 in remembrance of servicemen killed in combat. At the bottom is a row of four medal ribbons from the Second World War: from left to right, the 1939–1945 Star (awarded for six months’ service or more), the Africa Star (awarded to those who had fought in the African campaigns), the Defence Medal (for those who had contributed to the defense of the country in a nonoperational capacity), and the Distinguished Flying Cross (a decoration awarded to air force personnel).
On the back cover, also on a black background, we find the track listing and various credits, as well as a photograph of a soldier standing in a field of poppies with a knife protruding from his back and a reel of film under his arm. The interior gatefold features three more photographs: on the left, a hand holding three poppies and, in the background, a soldier in a field (seemingly standing at attention); in the middle, a welder’s mask emblazoned with the imperial flag of Japan; and on the right, a (nuclear) explosion seen from inside a car with poppies in front of the windscreen.
The Recording
The time when Pink Floyd used to record all their albums entirely at Abbey Road Studios was long past. Alt
hough the band returned there for The Final Cut, seven other studios were also involved in the production of the new album: the Billiard Room, the Hook End Studios, Mayfair Studios, Olympic Studios, Eel Pie Studios, RAK Studios, and Audio International Studios, all of them located in London itself or on the outskirts. The recording sessions took place between May 1982 and February 1983. This fragmented approach was testament to the lack of unity, each member very often recording separately to avoid confrontation, particularly between Roger Waters and David Gilmour. Andy Jackson, one of the two sound engineers (the other being James Guthrie), recalls: “So the time that Dave—Dave in particular—and Roger were in the studio together, it was frosty. There’s no question about it.”141 The two sound engineers each tended to work for one of the musicians: Andy Jackson worked with Waters, recording his vocals, while James Guthrie assisted Gilmour, capturing the guitar parts. “And we’d occasionally meet up again,” Jackson would chuckle, “and swap what we’d done!”141 But this lack of communication in no way hindered the effective production of the album, as the multitrack techniques made up for this physical absence, with Waters and Gilmour each having their own personal recording studio. All the same, Waters was not very happy with his vocals: “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. We were all fighting like cats and dogs.”140
Eight Studios for the Final Cut
So work kicked off in May 1982 in Roger Waters’s own studio, the Billiard Room, its name chosen due to his passion for the game. It was here, in Sheen, in the London suburbs, that many of the songs were knocked into shape. Recording took place from June to October, with other sessions held, in the meantime, in different studios, such as the Hook End Recording Studios. Located near Checkendon in Oxfordshire, these had been set up by Alvin Lee, the leader of Ten Years After, who in the early seventies bought this magnificent country house, where he would go on to record On the Road to Freedom (1973) and Rocket Fuel (1978). He then sold it to David Gilmour—which is why part of The Final Cut was produced there in June and October (before Trevor Horn eventually acquired it). It was partly here that Gilmour recorded his guitar parts for the album (as well as at Mayfair and RAK Studios).
After that, the production of the album continued mainly at Mayfair Studios in Primrose Hill, London, the internationally renowned studios where artists such as the Clash, the Bee Gees, and the Smiths would record their respective works. The Floyd booked the studios for June and October 1982 and then for January and February 1983 (for final mixing and mastering).
In June, September, and October, the legendary Olympic Studios in London (117 Church Road, Richmond upon Thames) also played host to the band, and it is here that the majority of Nick Mason’s drum parts were thrashed out. These studios are among the most famous in the history of rock, with not only the Rolling Stones, but also David Bowie, Elvis Costello, Jimi Hendrix, Jethro Tull, the Beatles, and Queen having recorded some of their most famous albums here.
On July 22 and 23, Pink Floyd returned to Abbey Road Studios for the first time since Wish You Were Here in 1975. This is where the National Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Michael Kamen, recorded all the orchestral parts.
In September, it was the turn of Eel Pie Studios, which became the venue for the recording of Michael Kamen’s piano parts (which took one or two days). The studios were owned by Pete Townshend, the Who’s songwriter and guitarist. It was here that the Who recorded Quadrophenia (1973), The Who by Numbers (1975), and Endless Wire (2006), and Pete Townshend his solo albums, from Who Came First (1972) to White City: A Novel (1985). Also worth mentioning are Graham Parker (The Real Macaw, 1983), Siouxsie and the Banshees (Hyæna, 1984), the Damned (Phantasmagoria, 1985), and a certain Roger Waters (The Pros And Cons of Hitch Hiking, 1984).
Production continued at RAK Studios (42-48 Charlbert Street, near Regent’s Park in London), founded by the producer Mickie Most in 1976. Andy Bown recorded his Hammond organ parts there. The four studios housed in this Victorian former school building has been a studio of choice and place of inspiration for the likes of Yes and the Cure, Michael Jackson and Radiohead.
The final leg of Pink Floyd’s journey took them to Audio International Studios (18 Rodmarton Street, London), from January 26 to 30, 1983. These studios, dating back to 1937, are where Radio Luxembourg’s public broadcasts were recorded. From the seventies, rock artists were also drawn there by the studios’ special relationship with the record company Chrysalis Records, from Gilbert O’Sullivan (the single “Nothing Rhymed,” 1970) to Japan (Adolescent Sex, 1978) to Suzi Quatro (Quatro, 1974). James Guthrie had been the assistant sound engineer there (just after his apprenticeship at Mayfair Studios).
The Musicians and the Technical Team
Eight studios, then, and an extended team supporting the three Pink Floyd band members. Michael Kamen, who had already been part of the team for The Wall, provided various arrangements and, as Rick Wright’s replacement, played the keyboards on several songs, as did Andy Bown, who had begun his career working with Peter Frampton, before joining Status Quo, after which he spent some time as a session musician (and took part in The Wall tour). The drummer and percussionist Ray Cooper, who became part of the Rolling Stones’ inner circle (It’s Only Rock’n’Roll [1974] and She’s the Boss [1985] by Mick Jagger, Willie and the Poor Boys [1985] by Bill Wyman) and who collaborated with other giants of the rock scene, like George Harrison, Eric Clapton, and Elton John, played a part in many of the songs. Andy Newmark, who had the delicate task of standing in for Nick Mason on “Two Suns in the Sunset,” also deserves a special mention, as does the tenor saxophonist Raphael Ravenscroft, whose name will forever remain associated with Gerry Rafferty (the album City to City [1978], from which the hit “Baker Street” is taken), but also with Pink Floyd, as well as Marvin Gaye and Robert Plant. Finally, two female singers provided the backing vocals on “Not Now John”—the only track that would be released as a single. These were probably Doreen and Irene Chanter.
On the technical side, James Guthrie was still in charge of the recording, but he had a second sound engineer helping out (although, strangely, he was not credited on some CD versions). This was Andy Jackson, who worked on projects for artists as diverse as Spandau Ballet and Humble Pie, but also on the Roger Waters and David Gilmour solo albums and the future Pink Floyd albums. There were three assistant sound engineers: Andy Canelle, Mike Nocito (the Cure, XTC), and Jules Bowen (Naked Eyes, Pete Townshend).
Technical Details
Eight studios, eight different setups! Here is a summary of the equipment available in each:
The Billiard Room, Roger Waters’s own studio, was equipped with a custom Trident Series 80 console and a twenty-four-track Studer A80 tape recorder. Apparently Waters was no longer using the MCI console from Criteria that had been used for the recording of The Wall.
We don’t have any information for Hook End Studios, owned by David Gilmour, but chances are he also possessed a twenty-four-track Studer A80, which was standard at the time.
The Mayfair Studios were equipped with an AMEK M3000 console and the inevitable twenty-four-track Studer A80, with JBL monitors.
Olympic Studios (comprising three independent studios) offered Raindirk Series 3 consoles, and the one in Studio Three was equipped with EQ from the much-vaunted Helios consoles designed by Dick Swettenham. The monitors were Tannoy/Lockwoods, except in Studio Three, which had Tannoy Super Reds.
Eel Pie Studios featured all-new equipment: an SSL 4048E console and a twenty-four-track Studer A800, a DeltaLab DDL delay, a Lexicon 224 reverb, UREI 1176 compressors, and instruments including a Bösendorfer grand piano.
RAK Studios were set up with thirty-two-channel API consoles and Lyrec TR532 twenty-four-tracks.
Audio International Studios, meanwhile, came with a Neve A210 console with Cadac modules and a twenty-four-tra
ck Studer A80.
And finally, Abbey Road Studios were also equipped with a custom Neve console, a twenty-four-track Studer A80, and JBL monitors.
The Holophonics Story
Another interesting feature of The Final Cut was that a holophonic recording system was used. This was a revolutionary method invented by the Argentinian Hugo Zuccarelli in 1980, and Pink Floyd, always keen to make use of the very latest recording and audio transmission technology (remember their experiments with quadraphonics, for example), were quick to adopt it when approached by the Argentinian. The main benefit of this technique is that it gives the listener the impression of an object moving all around him—it works best when wearing headphones. David Gilmour tried to explain: “The secret of this Holophonic thing is that it actually fools your brain; it’s not what is actually on the tape or on the record, that isn’t all of it—it’s actually making a reaction with your brain; it’s very hard to explain but it alters how you perceive the sound.”138 It was Nick Mason who got to try out the new equipment for the first time: “We immediately decided to use the system for all the sound effects on the album, and I was volunteered to escort the holophonic head (which answered to the name of Ringo) to various locations to capture the sound of church bells or footsteps.”5 It has to be said that the quality of the various recordings is remarkable, thanks to the skilled use of the technique on each of the songs on the album. This process would be used again by Roger Waters on his 1984 solo album, The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking.
Pink Floyd All the Songs Page 62