Loading ...Rock Legend Roger Waters’ New Album Includes Track Influenced by Palestinian Poet Mahmoud Darwish
Photo: Roger Waters
BY: Diego Reyes, Contributing Writer
Everyone knows the iconic band Pink Floyd, an English band formed in London with their progressive and psychedelic music who became one of the most influential rock groups in the history of popular music.
Now, former Pink Floyd iconic lead singer, Roger Waters, most recently known for his pro-Palestinian stance, is working on a new album to be released in June (his first album in a quarter of a century) and it features a track inspired by a renowned Palestinian poet.
His new album “Is This the Life We Really Want?” features 12 new tracks from the singer-songwriter and one of those tracks is based on a poem by renowned Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish. The album has been described as a “forthright commentary on the modern world and on uncertain times.”
The song “Wait for Her” was inspired by an English translation of “Lessons from the Kama Sutra (Wait for Her)” by Mahmoud Darwish who died in 2008. He is considered by Palestinians as a national symbol and was a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
The love poem begins with the lines: “Wait for her with an azure cup. Wait for her in the evening at the spring, among perfumed roses.” and ends with the lines “There is no one alive but the two of you. So take her gently to the death you so desire, and wait.”
Waters’ anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian activism has cost the British rock star millions of dollars and most recently an American Express sponsorship for his 2017 US+Them tour.
He has been a fierce critic of US President Donald Trump and delighted audiences in Mexico City last year with a rendition of the 1977 Ping Floyd song “Pigs”, showing images of Trump with a machine gun outside the White House and giving a Nazi salute. On the day Trump was inaugurated, Waters declared on Facebook that “the resistance begins today.”
It is important to commend Waters and his strong stance and beliefs. There aren’t many celebrities who publicly take a pro-Palestinian stance. Waters is shaking the world with his new album—especially when it comes to Palestine.
