Roger Waters, The Final Cut And His Three Pounds Of Potatoes

       "I was just a child then, now I'm only a man..."

                                                          Pink Floyd, "Your Possible Past"

       A genius and absolutely one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Roger Waters (Pink Floyd bassist, singer and songwriter) celebrated his birthday yesterday and here’s one of my favorite stories about him:

       When The Final Cut (a very underrated anti-war album dedicated to Roger’s father, a soldier who died in World War II) came out, it didn’t sell as much as the other Pink Floyd albums, prompting David Gilmour (Pink Floyd guitarist and vocalist) to quip, allegedly, “I told you, it (the album) was a piece of shit and nobody bought it.”

       At that time, there had been bad blood between the two Pink Floyd  frontmen—Roger was accused of controlling the band creatively; he'd been writing all the lyrics and almost all the songs for the band and rejecting the other members' contributions.

      Roger Waters responded by recalling this little anecdote: “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. Anyway, 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.”

       It’s certainly one of the most rewarding perks of being a writer, being approached by random stranger/s and being told that what you created touched or moved them, that it helped them resolve some personal issues, although your work didn’t sell that much or that only few people appreciated it. Who cares about sales? That’s the publisher’s (or the record producers’ if you’re a songwriter) problem. LOL.  You’ve got to touch hearts, first. Of course, it’ll be better if your work sells, too.  Because you’ll be allowed to create more, and with more creations,  the more hearts you’ll be touched.

      Oh, and the woman in the greengrocery aptly described The Final Cut, it’s a very moving album, though a bit dark and depressing.