Album: The Final Cut (1983)

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• Take all your overgrown infants away somewhere
  And build them a home, a little place of their own.
  The Fletcher Memorial
  Home for Incurable Tyrants and Kings.
  
  And they can appear to themselves every day
  On closed circuit T.V.
  To make sure they're still real.
  It's the only connection they feel.
  "Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome, Reagan and Haig,
  Mr. Begin and friend, Mrs. Thatcher, and Paisly,
  "Hello Maggie!"
  Mr. Brezhnev and party.
  "Who's the bald chap?"
  The ghost of McCarthy,
  The memories of Nixon.
  "Good-bye!"
  And now, adding color, a group of anonymous latin-
  American Meat packing glitterati.
  
  Did they expect us to treat them with any respect?
  They can polish their medals and sharpen their
  Smiles, and amuse themselves playing games for awhile.
  Boom boom, bang bang, lie down you're dead.
  
  Safe in the permanent gaze of a cold glass eye
  With their favorite toys
  They'll be good girls and boys
  In the Fletcher Memorial Home for colonial
  Wasters of life and limb.
  
  Is everyone in?
  Are you having a nice time?
  Now the final solution can be applied. Writer/s: ROGER WATERS
  Publisher: Sentric Music
  Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Comments: 20

• Giambattista Cossu from SassariA masterpiece, a history book to read from the first track.
• Laura Ressinger from Dekalb, IlListening to this song for the first time in a long time, I send my regards to all veterans who served in all wars and their families. I can’t believe people don’t understand this song’s meaning!
• Lisabela Marschild from Tyneside United KindomThis song always makes me think of something from a couple of years after the song was released. On 17th of April 1984 a 25 year old woman police officer who also happened to be pregnant was murdered standing in a road outside of the Libyan embassy in london. She was shot dead when a diplomat in the embassy used a sub machine gun to shoot at protestors across the road. The WPC was on duty doing crowd Control. Her name was Yvonne Fletcher. There is a memorial on the site today.
  
  For the idiotic person from the USA who left comments about how the residents of Waters Memorial home also stopped the cold war. You did’nt read or listen to the lyrics. Waters included Mr Brezhnev and Party as residents.
  
  Roger Waters song is about the insanity of all world leaders and it is a strange historic irony that his name for a home for tyrants and kings which he called after his father also was the surname of this Woman Police Constable murdered by a diplomat from a country run by a tyrant. For further proof of the insanity of tyrants, thatcher and her government allowed the murderer to return to Libya on a diplomatic passport. No trial ever took place.
• Garry from CorbyObviously about all the political leaders and warmongers roger would like to get into one room or building and gas or blow up, ironic metaphor and a view we all feel. The Final Cut was highly critical of the Falklands war, and had songs that never made it onto The Wall, Floyd were going through the motions of a break up at this point, you can almost feel the tension, especially though David's guitar, I mean he just tossed it off really, not his best work but ironically one of their best albums by a mile. More people should give this album a chance, it has so much to offer.
• Bob from Ny, NyThis song perfectly describes the consequences to the people who have to fight and die in these wars that only protect corporate interests and petty ideologies.
  Freedom through strength is code for installing dictators friendly to corporate greed.
  LAtin AMerican Meat Packing Glitiarti.
  I'm pretty surprised after all this time and the validation of history that anyone thinks that Ronald Raygun did anything great for this country. Except the 1% of course.
• Chris from Mclean, VaI find it ludicrous that so many people lack even basic respect for those who ended the Soviet Union and freed over a billion people trapped behind the Iron Curtain. Reagan, Thatcher and Haig were the saviors of so many, but their success enraged The Pink Floyd and other communist bands who can't get over the fact that freedom is a necessary part of everyone's lives and the sooner they get it, the better.
  
  Also, Israel would have likely been destroyed if it weren't for the works of Menachem Begin. If this song is against war, why does it hate peace through strength? the policy has obviously worked.
• Chris from Mclean, VaBasically, Waters is saying that the Cold War was nothing but a game (thus the hatred of Joe McCarthy, Dick Nixon, Alexander Haig, Ronald Reagan and The Iron Lady, who had the biggest part in ending the Cold War. I think with this direction they should've mentioned Charlie Wilson.) They also site their hatred of Israel by mentioning Begin, who was awarded the Nobel peace prize for a peace treaty with Egypt and Syria that ended the six-day war. They also think the IRA is justified and Northern Ireland would be better of without joining the U.K. (The Iron Lady, Rev. Ian Paisley.)
  
  In Conclusion, in comparing all of these people who ended major conflicts to the likes of Hitler, Stalin, and Napoleon, The Pink Floyd has lost all of my respect as a band, and I am
• Terry from Wickford, RiThis is *not* one of the songs leftover from The Wall, although it's easy to see why one would think so. The Wall songs are 1st-person character based, or have a narrator commenting on Pink's situation at any given point in that story. By that criteria "The Post War Dream" would seem to be from The Wall, but also is not. This song stands alone and is very specific in its subject matter. The political figures referenced date the song very much to its 1982-83 time frame, whereas The Wall was from 1979 and avoided specifics to be more "timeless" (in fact, Waters had The Wall originally set to make Pink even older than he was and it was suggested that the album would have more relevance to listeners if Pink was generically in his twenties, placing The Wall story more in the 1960's/early 1970's) Waters was over 30 when The Wall came out and was already an "older" rock star. More evidence that the song is not from The Wall sessions is the absence of any version of it on the original demos and the fact the Gilmour *likes* this song and it is well documented that he did *not* like any of the leftover Wall material. The only leftovers, really, are "The Hero's Return", some form of "Your Possible Pasts" and perhaps the title track. The rest was custom-penned for the album around 1982-83
• Kris from Wichita, KsI love this song so much. It just sounds so mello and yet it's beatiful. When i first heard about it i went n checked it out and was instantly hooked to it
• Michael from Oxford, EnglandI got the "Echoes..." CD recently, and when this song came round I thought it was horrible at first (doesn't rock)... then half-way through, suddenly it does - the whole thing's transformed. Great song!
• Steveb from Spokane, WaA biting criticism of the shallow minds of political figures, of their evil, and how they are nothing more than "colonial wasters of life and limb." He mocks them as children and belittles their wars into nothing but toddler games, which they are, and exposes all their false senses of grandeur and trivial skills(polish their knives and sharpen their smiles, and abuse themselves playing games for a while, boom boom, bang bang, lie down, you're dead) as simple misunderstandings of what life is truly about.
  
  Brilliant song, miles underrated. The video for his last tour consisted of Nixon, Reagan, Blair, Bush and I believe Thatcher among others.
• Strong Bad from London, EnglandIts one of the songs on my playlist...im 13 and i hate all this crap that comes on the radio these days, so i like to just sit in my room and close my eyes and listen to my ipod, which mostly consists of this song and other Pink Floyd songs...It really is a great song and the final cut is a great album and Pink Floyd is a GREAT BAND
• Jordan from Calgary, CanadaI love this song! The guitar solo is classic Gilmour.
• Bill from Erie, PaA music video was made for this song, which showed the long-time residents of the home, Hitler, Napoleon, Stalin and Churchill, welcoming some of the new residents, like Thatcher. They indeed watch themselves on a TV, and play cricket on the grounds outside and do such activities. The Royal Army portrait of Eric Fletcher waters is hung up in the main hall. You can watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5ZxbDMcB28&search=Pink%20Floyd
• Chris from Cape Town, SwedenLike most of Pink Floyd's music, this is an amazingly deep song, with a lot of hidden meaning. It's almost more about the words than the music, or would be if the band weren't so good at making music that brings out the meaning so well. A song for the ages...
• Michelle from San Diego , Cathis song sounds like it should have come from The Wall album because it was one of the assortments of songs that didnt make "the final cut" for The Wall album because the band rejected it.
• Jon from Columbus, Ohi love the instrumental section in the middle, great drum work, compliments the guitar solo excellently and flows with the mood of the song. i love how the song is ended, quite spooky when you know what the "final solution" meant (hitler's label for the holocaust, basically). lots of feeling of hate/remorse/uncertainty, which is evident in many other of the "war" songs in the album Final Cut. excellent song
• Bill from Erie, PaHere are the people Waters mentions by name in the song to send to the Fletcher Memorial Home:
  US President Ronald Reagan
  US Secretary of State Alexander Haig
  Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin
  UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher
  Revered Ian Paisley of Northern Ireland
  US Senator Joseph McCarthy
  US President Richard Nixon
  
  I wouldn't be so against sending these people to the Fletcher Memorial home myself.
• Sully from Clinton, MaWhen I first listened to it I thought is sounded like something that came off the wall, good song, great guitar solo.
• Phil from Niagara Falls, Canadaon the greatest hits cd "Echoes"

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