1 Overlooked Gem Song From Every Pink Floyd Album
12. The Fletcher Memorial Home - The Final Cut
The Final Cut is one of the least loved entries in Pink Floyd’s back catalogue and you can see why. The album is a laser focused (and deeply personal) collection of songs about war. It’s filled with angst and anger (having lost his father to WWII, Waters was utterly unable to approach the subject of war dispassionately) but it falls a little flat.
With Richard Wright out of the picture and Nick Mason and Dave Gilmour reduced to sidemen there’s just something missing. Plus of course, the album lives in the shadow of Waters’ masterpiece The Wall.
The album does include some captivating moments however, including The Fletcher Memorial Home, named after Waters’ dead father. The lyric paints a dark fantasy of locking up world leaders in a rest home before applying a “final solution.”
Despite the darkness of the words, the music is the album’s most beautiful, the backdrop of keys and strings by turns ominous, rousing and resigned. Then a dramatic drum fill ushers in Dave Gilmour to deliver a gorgeous, empathetic solo which makes a strong case that he should have had more influence over the finished record.