The title track, Is This The Life We Really Want?, begins with some words from our current (cough, cough) president. This is one that’s grown on me after repeated listens. The serenity of the song is twice interrupted by a brief bombastic chorus (Roger yelling again – and I’d be hard pressed to understand what he’s saying if I didn’t have the lyrics). This is a very simple melody, also in 3/4 time, supported by his guitar and some more lovely orchestration reminiscent of Southampton Dock from The Final Cut. My other issue is the disjointed, seemingly random unrelated lyrics even though some are wonderful (Follow me filming myself at the show/On a phone from a seat in the very front row).Ī coyote howls, Roger clears his throat and an acoustic guitar introduces Broken Bones. This one should have ended with a bang! This is one of the first instances where I had difficulty understanding a good deal of the lyrics because his voice was buried in the mix. The final 2+ minutes of the song are wasted on a syncopated rhythm track and the same limp keyboards as the song refused to end gracefully. Think Sheep (which this song has been compared to). If there was one track just begging for a rocking guitar it’s this one. My problem with the song is that the synch/keyboard in between vocals is to “light” for such a heavy song. The vocals are raw and angry, a nearly 7-minute purge. Picture That could have really been a scorcher, the highlight of the album. Waters soothing vocals give way to him straining his voice into uncomfortable territory at times (as he does throughout the album) but the song never really goes anywhere, as pretty as it is for most of the time. An opening percussive beat accompanied by piano chords similar to Bowie’s Five Years are the sole instruments for most of the song. It’s a very “light” song in ¾ time, with not much going for it musically. Next up is the familiar (by now) The Last Refugee. I’m still not thrilled with the verbosity of the first couple of lines but I’ve gotten used to it. It’s beautifully orchestrated (as is much of the album) and structured. It gets right to the point in three verses each from a distinct point of view. Godrich convinced Roger edit the lyrics from his poem Lay Down Jerusalem (he wouldn’t allow any Israeli politics on the album since it was deemed “unproductive’) and it serves the song well. This leads directly into Deja Vu, my favorite track on the album.
The opening track, When We Were Young, is a short spoken collage by Roger (that slowly drifts into focus) over a pulsating synth/bass line with a clock ticking in the background. It’s a hit-n-miss effort with lush orchestrations to rival Michael Kamen’s previous work with Roger and Pink Floyd. It’s a very different kind of album for Waters mostly due to a production controlled by Radiohead’s Nigel Godrich. After about a dozen spins I’m mellowing a bit to Roger’s first release in 25 years.
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