Pink Floyd's Roger Waters Thinks 'Wish You Were Here' Is A Modern Protest Song

Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters Thinks ‘Wish You Were Here’ Is A Modern Protest Song

Words by Riley Fitzgerald
Graphic by Press

There is such a great degree of fluster surrounding Pink Floyd founder Roger Waters ahead of his upcoming US tour, it’s difficult to keep tabs on it all.

Where even, to begin?

Well to start off, in a recent Question and Answer session following the New York debut of Waters’ Us + Them documentary on Tuesday, Waters revealed that after watching the film he thinks he will struggle to sing the lyrics of one of Pink Floyd‘s most well-known singles, ‘Wish You Were Here’ in future.

“[Watching Us + Them I] was sitting there thinking, ‘Oh, Christ, if I ever have to sing ‘Wish You Were Here’ again, I’m gonna shoot myself,” Rolling Stone reports Waters to have told his audience.

“But, obviously, I will, because actually I really like the song,” he continued.

(Waters last sang the song in September 2019 in a London rally advocating the release of cyber activist Julian Assange.)

The reason Waters is deeply affected by the song, it seems, is it’s relevance to his view on the current state of the world.

“Yes, we did exchange a walk-on role in the war for a lead role in the cage,” he contended. “We all live in a f***ing cage, and it is a walk-on role. And it won’t become the opposite of that — which is to not remain enslaved — until we all, we the people, say, ‘No, this is fucking bullsh*t.’ … Obviously, somehow they’ve managed to convince enough of us that this is a good idea, that we’re prepared to support it.”

(The song is widely thought to have originally been written about Pink Floyd’s original bandleader Syd Barrett, a theory Waters has both confirmed and denied in past.)

Waters will no doubt continue to up the ante on his polemical political commentary at music industry festival conference SXSW when he provides the conference’s keynote speech on March 18.

While it has been known Waters will attend for some time it has now been announced he will be interviewed by acclaimed documentarian and director Micheal Moore.

Not everyone is pleased with the former Pink Floyd visionary’s appearance at the festival.

After convincing American Major Leauge Baseball to drop all advertising and promotion for Waters’ upcoming This Is Not A Drill tour, Pro-Isreal advocacy group B’nai B’rith Internationalis now putting pressure on SXSW’s organizers to remove Waters from the festival.

“By cloaking his anti-Semitic beliefs in anti-Israel invective, Waters apparently believes he has carte blanche to spew anti-Jewish tropes,” B’nai B’rith has stated. “It is unconscionable that Waters be given any platform to air his anti-Semitic views, much less the chance to be a keynote speaker at a major music festival. SXSW should remove him from its lineup immediately.”

Waters’ This Is Not A Drill tour commences this July.