Roger Waters seems like the kind of lunatic who, at a distance of, say, 500 miles, is super awesome: charmingly cantankerous, espouser of countless stories about drinking into the wee hours with this or that sultan, and filled to the noseholes with theories about this our that economic condition of this or that country.

But then let’s say you get cornered by him at Thanksgiving. Somewhere between a lengthy comparitive essay on Muammar Quadhafi and Vicente Fox and an indicting history of the Yoo-hoo Chocolate company that eventually wanders into the untold racism of Yogi Berra, your curiosity warps into a throbbing panic and you begin mentally sketching increasingly elaborate suicide attempts that would ideally fail but get you onto a gurney and out the door or, at the very least, get you out the door.

So imagine a stuffy July morning when Waters reveals to what remains of Pink Floyd that the album they’re working on isn’t so much a supplement to their super popular The Wall, but rather an entirely refocused concept album that will twist a blade into the current British political war machine with alternating dips into the psychosis of a not-entirely-anonymous war veteran protagonist. Oh, also the album (The Final Cut) will be the nail in the coffin of the band itself. I think it would go something…like…this:

• A collage of shots, mostly pull-focus closeups, reveal a rock band preparing for a rehearsal. Murmuring British accents can be heard between guitar and drum head tunings, Hammond organ runs, and laughter. Finally a side CU on Nick, excitedly and animatedly telling a story, mid-narrative.
• Nick
• And at this point I hear nothing on the left side. The goddamned port engine has buggered off, and --
• David
• -- this in addition, now, to a dead gauge and a --
• Nick
• -- broken flipper and the cracked glass and the crimped fuel line, that's right, that's right.
• David
• So is it time to start thinking about...
• Nick
• Well, exactly. I'm suddenly having to decide if this bird is tanking or if I can point the nose to the sky and swing around toward Gashampton. See if I can save the plane, perhaps, but better still survive to see another day. The last thing I want to do is--
• Roger
• (interrupting)
• Nicholas, old friend. Your Squirrel is going down again? I thought you got out of that jam!
• Nick and David exchange glances, camera at acute angle showing both, but barely>
• David
• Mister Waters, you're late.
• Roger
• Good reason, dear boy. Good reason.
• Roger straddles Nick's drum throne.
• Our little project has been given a new life, gents. New life.
• Roger is beaming.
• Nick
• What is it, Roger?
• Roger
• Well, how do you boys feel about a Maggie Thatcher assassination fantasy album? It would be psychotic and political, just like The Wall, just as we planned, but we could easily sic on Argentina and The Falklands. We could even--
• quick-swing camera, the pull-focus on slamming door, out of which David has just exited
• camera cuts to Nick, head in hands
• slam-start title sequence

Anyway, there’s a strain of misogyny in this one, so listen critically (how many male world leaders’ clothes are described in any detail, ever, but certainly in reference to their bodies?). But still it’s a short, viciously beautiful, very Waters-ian track from an album that is vastly underrated in a lot of peoples’ opions and that easily geolocates to the titular Southampton Dock.

MAPPING IT

Not sure which specific dock, so all of em in Southampton.

HEARING IT