Roger Waters Considering Trump Protest Concert On U.S.-Mexico Border
Legendary Pink Floyd composer, Roger Waters, is perhaps best known for writing the classic 1979 concept album, The Wall, a surreal, disturbing, and sometimes political album centered around the idea of its main character building an “emotional wall” that winds up destroying him, psychologically. The album, though centered around the psychological decline of its protagonist, also routinely touches on political themes of war, xenophobia, and economic injustice.
In recent years, Roger Waters toured for the anniversary of The Wall, incorporating current political themes into the stage show. Even more recently, Waters has been vocal about his opposition to Donald Trump, woefully aware of how themes touched upon in The Wall are relevant to Donald Trump’s desire to build a border wall, and also to Trump’s divisive rhetoric, in general. According to Radio X, Roger Waters appeared at a new Pink Floyd exhibition in London on Thursday and had some choice words for Donald Trump and the emerging worldwide right wing, in general.
“Trump and Theresa May and the right wing as you know is raising its ugly head all around the world,” Waters said.
“The sewers are clogging with greedy powerful men as we speak and they are backing up and that is what is causing this stuff.”
Waters added that he is often asked if he’d ever play The Wall again, and said he’d do it if the context was significant enough.
“I get asked quite often if I’d do The Wall again, because I stopped a couple of years ago,” Waters said.
“I’ve always said I’d do it again if they ever figure out what to do about Israel and Palestine and get rid of that appalling security barrier. If there was a resolution and we could realise there is no ‘us and them’ and that we’re all human beings and we all need to figure out how to live together because at the moment… as an act of celebration, if that moved towards a humane way of organising ourselves, I would be only too happy to perform that concert in some place that was significant geographically. If that happened to be the border between the United States and Mexico then absolutely. But there needs to be an awakening period before something like that can happen.”
According to Rolling Stone, Roger Waters on inauguration day posted a video to his social media pages of him performing his song “Pigs (Three Different Ones)” that takes shots at Trump. The video was accompanied with the caption, “A note from Roger: The resistance begins today.”
The resistance begins today. Full video here: https://t.co/TLkzK0cTqe pic.twitter.com/hPW0gtQQ74
— Roger Waters (@rogerwaters) January 20, 2017
These are busy times for Roger Waters, and it seems like perhaps the political turmoil in the world is a key part of his motivation. According to Ultimate Classic Rock, Waters has announced the release of a new album in the coming future. The album, which will be titled Is This The Life We Really Want?, was teased on Waters’s social media accounts with a short video featuring what appear to mimic heavily redacted official documents, featuring phrases like “subprime loans,” “fear drives the mills,” and “big pharma wimps.”
New album from @rogerwaters, "Is This The Life We Really Want?” coming soon. Us + Them North American Tour on sale: https://t.co/1f2rcamerC pic.twitter.com/yepIXy2OCK
— Roger Waters (@rogerwaters) February 16, 2017
Roger Waters is no stranger to making powerful political statements set to music. His final album with Pink Floyd, The Final Cut, features some of the most poignant anti-war lyrics ever released. The album, which is heavily centered around World War 2, in which Waters’s father died as a soldier, indicts world leaders at the time of its release, specifically Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, for their warmongering ways, asking why the world has not learned its lesson after the tragedy of the second world war.
Whether Roger Waters winds up playing a border concert to protest Trump, and whatever the specific contents of his new album will be, it is apparent that the Pink Floyd legend intends to continue using his fame to fearlessly shine a light on political problems he sees in the world, whether anyone likes it or not. Whether most of his fans decide to be comfortably numb or take heed of his dream for a better world remains to be seen.
[Featured Image by Kevin Winter/Getty Images]
