Part of Me Died

Roger Waters

Feeling Roger again today — who’s most political songs are still mostly about love, or lack of love. And he doesn’t hold back on his latest record which is already (!) five years old, which is mind blowing because this masterpiece feels like it came out a year ago.

This pandemic has really played with my sense of time — like it managed to push three years into one. Still, this might be my favorite album title of the new millennium, IS THIS THE LIFE WE REALLY WANT? It’s a great question and one Roger isn’t afraid to ask or contemplate.

This terrific song rails on the evil in the world and how it is putting everything we hold dear at risk. And hopefully in the end we’re still clinging to love, even if we lose everything.

The part that is envious, cold hearted and devious
Greedy, mischievous, global, colonial
Bloodthirsty, blind, mindless and cheap
Focused on borders and slaughter and sheep
Burning of books, bulldozing of homes
Given to targeted killing with drones
Lethal injections, arrest without trial

Monocular vision, gangrene and slime
Unction, sarcasm, common assault
Self-satisfied heroic killers
Lifted on high

Piracy adverts, acid attacks
On women by bullies and perverts and hacks
The rigging of ballots and the buying of power

Lies from the pulpit
Rape in the shower
Mute, indifferent
Feeling no shame
Portly, important
Leering, deranged

Sat in the corner watching TV
Deaf to the cries of children in pain
Dead to the world
Just watching the game

Watching endless repeats out of sight, out of mind
Silence, indifference
The ultimate crime
But when I met you, that part of me died

Bring me a bowl to bathe her feet in
Bring me my final cigarette
It would be better by far to die in her arms than to linger
In a lifetime of regret