The Final Cut

The Final Cut is an album released in 1983 by English progressive rock band Pink Floyd. It was the last album that featured longtime bassist/vocalist Roger Waters, for he would leave the band after the release of this album due to lingering creative differences that plagued the band throughout the late 70s, as well as at least one potentially ruinous lawsuit. It was also the only album to not feature keyboardist Richard Wright.

Originally planned as a soundtrack album for the 1982 film adaptation of their previous album The Wall (early name Spare Bricks), Waters instead opted to change the overall direction in light of The Falklands War, turning it into an anti-war concept album exploring what he considered the betrayal of his father, who died serving in the Second World War. As a result, some of the tracks in this album, including “Your Possible Pasts,” “One of the Few,” “The Final Cut” and “The Hero’s Return,” were originally meant for The Wall but were designated as not good enough for an album by guitarist David Gilmour, who was also vocally against the new political direction of the album.

Despite reaching #1 in the UK charts, The Final Cut ended up being one of the band’s lowest selling albums in the world since Meddle, going only 2x Platinum in the US as opposed to The Wall’s 23x Platinum. Accompanying this underwhelming commercial performance is the mixed critical response, with some considering it to be more of a Roger Waters solo album than a full-on collaboration by all members of Pink Floyd, and the overall quality suffering as a result.

Indeed, the album is subtitled on the back cover as A Requiem For The Post War Dream by Roger Waters and is the only Pink Floyd album to only have one person credited for its entire writing.

The original release did not feature “When The Tigers Broke Free” as one of its tracks. The song, initially a part of The Wall Movie’s soundtrack, was added to all subsequent releases of The Final Cut since 2004.