The Final Cut: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

The Final Cut
LP by Pink Floyd
Released	March 21 1983
Recorded	July - December 1982 various studios
Genre	Rock
Length	43 min 27 sec
Record label	Columbia Records
Producers	Roger Waters, James Guthrie and Michael Kamen
Professional reviews
RollingStone review	5/5	link
Pink Floyd Chronology
Works (1983)	The Final Cut (1983)	A Momentary Lapse of Reason (1987)

The Final Cut is a rock album by Pink Floyd recorded at several studios in the UK from July to December 1982.

Introduction

The LP was released in the UK on March 21, 1983 and then in the US on April 2. The Final Cut reached #1 on the UK album charts and #6 in the US. On May 23, 1983, The Final Cut went Gold and Platinum and then Double Platinum on January 31, 1997.

Originally scheduled as the film soundtack for the band's movie The Wall, it evolved into a new concept album, railing against war, and subtitled A Requiem for the Post War Dream.

"Not Now John" was released as a single (with the chorus' "fuck all that" overdubbed as "stuff all that"), backed by an extended version of "The Hero's Return". There was also a video EP, with film accompaniment for four of the songs, directed by Waters' then brother-in-law.

In 1986, the album was released on CD. A digitally remastered CD was released in 1994. A remastered and repackaged SACD was released on March 19, 2004 in Europe and April 20, 2004 in the U.S. to commemorate the album's 20th anniversary. The track When the Tigers Broke Free, previously only available as a single, or on the soundtrack to the movie version of The Wall, was added.

On the original release

1. "The Post War Dream" - 3:02
2. "Your Possible Pasts" - 4:22
3. "One of the Few" - 1:23
4. "The Hero's Return" - 2:56
5. "The Gunner's Dream" - 5:07
6. "Paranoid Eyes" - 3:40
7. "Get Your Filthy Hands Off My Desert" - 1:19
8. "The Fletcher Memorial Home" - 4:11
9. "Southampton Dock" - 2:13
10. "The Final Cut" - 4:46
11. "Not Now John" - 5:01
12. "Two Suns in the Sunset" - 5:14

On the 20th anniversery re-release

1. "The Post War Dream" - 3:00
2. "Your Possible Pasts" - 4:26
3. "One of the Few" - 1:11
4. "When the Tigers Broke Free" - 3:16
5. "The Hero's Return" - 2:43
6. "The Gunner's Dream" - 5:18
7. "Paranoid Eyes" - 3:41
8. "Get Your Filthy Hands Off My Desert" - 1:17
9. "The Fletcher Memorial Home" - 4:12
10. "Southampton Dock" - 2:10
11. "The Final Cut" - 4:45
12. "Not Now John" - 4:56
13. "Two Suns in the Sunset" - 5:23

All songs composed by Roger Waters.

• David Gilmour - guitar and vocals
• Roger Waters - guitar and vocals
• Nick Mason - drums
• Michael Kamen - piano harmonium
• Andy Brown - hammond organ
• Ray Cooper - percussion
• Andy Newmark - drums on "Two Suns..."
• Raphael Ravenscroft - tenor sax
• The National Philharmonic Orchestra conducted and arranged by Michael Kamen

"The Final Cut was absolutely misery to make, although I listened to it of late and I rather like a lot of it. But I don't like my singing on it. You can hear the mad tension running through it all. If you're trying to express something and being prevented from doing it because you're so uptight...It was a horrible time. We were all fighting like cats and dogs. We were finally realising - or accepting, if you like - that there was no band. It was really being thrust upon us that we were not a band and had not been in accord for a long time. Not since 1975, when we made Wish You Were Here. Even then there were big disagreements about content and how to put the record together [...] It sold three million copies, which wasn't a lot for the Pink Floyd. And as a consequence, Dave Gilmour went on record as saying, "There you go: I knew he was doing it wrong all along." But 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."

- Roger Waters, June 1987, to Chris Salewicz

"Well, this has been my beef for years, I mean always has been one of my beefs about what we do is that the balance has to be maintained. I've said it hundreds of times, ad nauseam I've said it - it's the balance between the words and the music I think is a very important thing and that's what I think we lost very much on The Final Cut."

- David Gilmour, Australian Radio, February 1988