Words by Riley Fitzgerald
Graphic by Press

“I am isolated,” Roger Waters shares in a new interview with podcast COVID-19 Chronicles, “I’ve been taking this seriously for a couple of weeks now. I see my missus and that’s about it.”

After expressing skepticism over any US media coverage of the pandemic, the former Pink Floyd visionary weighs in on how he thinks the US government is handling the crisis.

 “The United States is without question he least prepared country anywhere on the globe to deal with Covid-19,” he contends. “It has a completely incompetent government led by Donald Trump.”

“In the US, it’s been like living in a world peopled by the walking dead,” he laments, “The government doesn’t serve the people. The government serves the corporations and the politicrats. Everybody knows it, but nobody will say anything.”

Roger Waters also reveals he has not been idle during isolation.

“In my isolation here,” he confides, “and I’ve been here for a couple of weeks, one of the things I’ve done is finally learned to sing [famous Chilean protest song] ‘El Derecho de Vivir en Paz’ – Victor Jara’s great anthem.”

A poet, activist, and musician, Victor Jara was a leading figure in Chilean culture before being tortured, beaten, and executed following a political coup d’état in 1973.

‘El Derecho de Vivir en Paz’, known in English as ‘In Right To Live In Peace’, is one of Jara’s best known works.

“I’ve rerecorded it, with his first and last verse,” Roger Waters explains, “and I’ve written three verses in the middle.”

Waters did not confirm when the song might be receiving a formal release.

“What it means,” Waters shares of his time alone, “is [realizing] how beautiful this planet is. How incredibly beautiful it is when the sun comes up in the morning or you wake up in the morning and it’s blowing a gale and you can hear the wind howling around the chimney. It forces one to think, ‘WHY ARE THEY ALL FUCKING IT UP! Why can’t we just enjoy it?’”

“Imagine if there was a health service now,” he concludes, “so that people wouldn’t be dying in corridors.”

Roger Waters’ full interview here.

The news follows Roger Waters’ postponement of his forthcoming This Is Not a Drill US Tour until 2021.

Waters’ Pink Floyd bandmates David Gilmour and Nick Mason have also placed all public performances on hold.