Thursday, December 14, 2006

The Man I Adore

There are always people who inspire you or affect you strongly in some way. For me, Roger Waters has been much more than this.

The first time I started to know him, I was 19, knowing nothing about music, studying in our cold weary room, in the dormitory, with walls full of the pictures of "the dead" Persian poets and authors, me and my roommate used to cut or copy from magazines or books and pasted them on the wall. We had always something playing in my roommate's tape recorder, most of the time it was some Persian nostalgic sad pop song my roommate liked a lot. But suddenly out of nowhere there was a different tape in the tape recorder, that sounded extremely different. It was a very hysteric song that without knowing any English you could imagine that it's taking place in a court, there's a trial and somebody is being condemned. Wow, how can a song provide you such an image without understanding the lyric?

It was Trial, from The Wall Live In Berlin, I knew later. I had a chance that one of my friends, Ehssan, already knew the band. "It's Pink Floyd", he said. "They're great! The one with ugly voice is called Waters, the one who has the nice voice is Gilmour!", he continued, and he gave me the tapes of "The Division Bell", "A Momentary Lapse of Reason" and "Animals" respectively. That was the start.

I became a mad collector of their works, and the more I read Roger's lyrics and interviews, the deeper I penetrated to his songs. I mostly was affected by Animals (the one that Roger doesn't like a lot himslef). The ruthless way he categorised people with that strong raging music and singing. That was wonderful. From the other side, the way he complained his emptiness in "Nobody Home", always made me think about the way I was going to choose to live. In a word, he was my moral teacher, my big brother that was always in my head. The one who taught me many things. The one who made me have good vision and have great respect to him.
Thank you a lot Roger!

And that's really my passion: To spend an afternoon with him, talking, drinking, and playing music! I did so a couple of times in my dreams, but that was just a dream.

Whew! I feel better now that I took my time to say a simple thank you to him. I really owed it to him.

2 comments:

Gog said...

Hello.
I have accepted your invitation as contributor of this blog. Now, I don't have any excuses to have my own (but shared) blog running. So, thank you Monkey.

I really feel like you about Roger Waters. I was maybe 16 when I started listening to Pink Floyd. At that time, I used to play computer games, which usually had terrible music tunes, and so I listened to cds instead. Among the cds that I usually heard, my father had left three strange ones. Those three cds were 'The Division Bell', 'The Dark Side of the Moon' and 'A Saucerful of Secrets'. The last one was my favorite, as it was the most strange of all: I had never heard such intriguing songs like 'Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun' or 'Corporal Clegg'.

Later on I met a girl who also liked Pink Floyd (as a matter of fact, she had in her folder the Ummagumma cover), and I asked her to tell me something about them. She was who told me that Waters was the one with the ugly voice, and Gilmour the one who could sing beautifully. Later on I got from her a couple of strange cds: one of them had a terrible painting in the cover, that was focussed on the mouth of a shouting man. It was King Crimson's 'In the Court of the Crimson King', and the other one 'Islands'. Such a couple of amazing cds! I asked my father if he knew that band, and he told me: 'Yeah, that record with the man shouting is very good', and so said a friend of the family who was at home at that moment.

I really wish Monkey had talked a little bit about how can you get to meet people through music, or about how many impressions did we exchange dealing with Roger Waters and Pink Floyd's music. I'm proud of being the first person who told Monkey about King Crimson. I'm glad I spread the word. Music is much more than listening to a tune, music can give people the greatest friendship.

Thank you Monkey for writing about music. Thank you L. for leading me into Pink Floyd and King Crimson. Thank you dad for buying Pink Floyd cds.

H.B. said...

Scene One: I am watching a video cassette of "The dark side of the moon" with almost good sound and video quality. there is no Waters in the show.I like the work and astonished by the sound and lights and clips showing in background.
Scene Two: I get a cassette, a selection of Pink Floyd tracks. I hear the Time and Money Tracks. I enjoy "Wish you where here".
Scene Three: Now I am listening to "The Wall". My friend talks about Waters and I recognize the odd voice from Gilmore in the tracks. I enjoy the idea of an album as whole piece of art.
Scene Four: I am watching the amazing "The wall Live in Berlin". Waters is a genuine.
Scene Five: Is it really "Amused to Death"? who on earth can compose and perform such a marvelous loving album.
I adore this man too.