Nothing really sums it up more than this line from the Dark Knight:

So, there’s this line in the Dark Knight you may or may not have heard, it runs along these lines:

“You either die a hero or
live long enough to see yourself
become the villain.”

The reason I had been thinking about this of late was because I had come across some old Pink Floyd music. I was really quite the big Pink Floyd fan back in the day. I think it had something to do with the alienation I felt from everyone else, one of those running themes in my life.

For the people of my generation at least, there is something unique about Pink Floyd and their music. Between the years of 1973 and 1979 Pink Floyd produced some of the most hard to categorize music of the seventies.

They released the following over those years:

Dark Side of the Moon 1973
Wish You Were Here 1975
Animals 1977
The Wall 1979

That pretty much covers the decade of the seventies and the seventies were a time when radio listening (I know that sounds strange to all the people who are listening to Spotify now) went from big AM pop to FM AOR radio.

I had started this because I was going to touch the third rail that is Roger Waters. I can’t say I agree with all the man’s opinions but I do find myself fascinated by how ready people are to consign him to the garbage heap because he’s saying things they don’t like.

One of the things Roger Waters has done throughout his career is to be amazingly honest about his views on the world. If you go back and look at the very things he authored, the things he was the driving force behind in the Pink Floyd catalog of the late seventies and early eighties you can see some of the band’s best work.

I could put Dark Side of the Moon aside for the moment which truly is one of the greatest albums ever made… I mean, even now, 50 years later I can listen to that music and still find myself moved by it and still find it relevant to the human condition but we can go beyond that… we can look at Wish You Were Here which was so unique for its time and spoke so much to isolation and alienation while at the same time clearly talking about former band member Syd Barrett.

Then comes Animals which once again does so much about identifying the tribes people align too and was cast as a musical equivalent of Animal Farm.

Animals is heavily inspired by George Orwell's Animal Farm and uses similar animal metaphors to critique 1970s British society. While Animal Farm satirized Stalinism, Animals focuses on capitalism, with pigs representing greedy industrialists, dogs symbolizing ruthless businessmen, and sheep embodying the mindless working class, according to Live For Live Music. The album's lyrics, mostly written by Roger Waters, reflect social and political injustice through a dark and cynical lens.

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I’m coming back to this but again, Roger Waters is something of a dick which makes it so much easier to make him into a pariah without actually sitting down and analyzing some of the things he’s saying.

You do a quick search and you find things like this:

Roger Waters has been highly critical of the war in Ukraine, calling Russia's invasion "illegal" but also arguing it was “not unprovoked.” He has been a vocal critic of what he views as unnecessary wars and has called for a ceasefire, a stance that has drawn criticism from Ukraine and the United States, who accuse him of “victim-blame” and being a part of “Russian propaganda.” Waters addressed the UN Security Council in February 2023 at Russia's invitation, where he condemned the invasion but also strongly condemned the “provocateurs” of the war.

What’s funny is the reaction by people to Waters comments but when you start to dig deeper you begin to see just as Dick Cheney had been wrapped up with Halliburton who benefited from US actions in Iraq and Afghanistan with the Biden Administration we had a defense secretary in Lloyd Austin who was tied up with Raytheon who has made BILLIONS from the Ukraine war:

Raytheon (now RTX) hasn’t disclosed one single figure for “how much they made in Ukraine,” but they’ve secured billions in contracts to replenish U.S. and allied stockpiles with gear sent to Ukraine, including major deals for NASAMS, Patriot missiles, and Stinger/Javelin systems, generating significant revenue through replenishment, not direct sales to Ukraine for every item, though they do supply equipment.

So, some of the things Waters may be talking about shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand. I may not agree with him on his views on Israel but overall the thrust of his comments are in support of antiwar and equality.

It’s easy though just to fall into the binary that people so readily embrace these days because it’s just so simple. Perish the thought we give things some kind of nuance and what’s funny today is to see someone who earlier in his life was clearly an anti-establishment now watching the wheel come full circle and being painted a villain.