Late Home Tonight, Part I

I beg to differ inpraiseoffolly. Roger Waters nailed it with this album. This album stands up with Dark Side and the Wall because he strikes an equilibrium with his lyrics and music. I believe he only plays bass on a couple tracks, so basically he lets other musicians flesh out his ideas, including Jeff Beck, who makes his guitar cry here.

His voice on What God Wants part 2 is a good example what he could still do then.

Oh, and its funny:

And were you struck by the satisfying Way the swimsuit sticks to her skin Like BB gun days When knives pierce autumn leaves

Andrew (at the top), you are referring to Perfect Sense, Pt. 1.

This song is great, but it's on a rather bipolar record. After Too Much Rope, the album seems to go dull, perhaps because of the lack of hooks or fore-frontal music. But still, the album is better than anything Floyd did after he left (sorry to drag them into this). But in a sense, it was perhaps a good thing that Waters left, if this was what Floyd was going to sound like. Floyd died after The Final Cut, perhaps they're most underrated album. I always thought of Amused to death as Final Cut II.

Speaking of The Final Cut, notice the rocket at the end of the song is the same rocket sound used in the beginning of Get Your Hands Off My Dessert.

Taken from rogerwaters.org/atdanalysis.html:

"Late Home Tonight, Part I" and "Late Home Tonight, Part II" presents the view point of the soldier as an individual who does not see the destruction he wreaks. The soldier is "Secure in the beauty of military life/ There is no right or wrong". The soldier is so removed from the people he is killing it doesn't affect him. "No questions only orders and flight flight flight." The soldier is blameless, and just doing what he's told. The beginning of the song points out that the wife in Oxfordshire and the wife in Tripoli are very similar; they are both waiting. The line "And his kind Uncle Sam feeds ten trillion in/ Change into the total entertainment/ Combat video game" refers to America where people seem to believe war is not destructive. They have been desensitized to violence.

"And up here in the stands
The fans are going wild
The cheerleaders flip
When you wiggle your hip
And we all like the bit when you take
The jeans from the refrigerator and
Then the bad guy gets hit
And were you struck by the satisfying
Way the swimsuit sticks to her skin
Like BB gun days
When knives pierce autumn leaves
But that's okay see the children bleed
It'll look great on the TV" 

Television desensitizes us to violence by confusing violence with sex: "Way the swimsuit sticks to her skin", and guilt "...see the children bleed". "...see the children bleed/ It'll look great on TV" looks at death only for its aesthetic value."

What Roger Waters says in the begining of the song in reverse speed. "We have decided.....to record a backword message.....Stanley - for you and the other Buck butlers!" - (and the LOUD SCREAMING)

Pretty good, but this album as a whole would have been a lot better if Waters let other people write the music and sing, because he got lazy at writing music, and time depleted his singing ability.

This whole album and especially this song reminds me of a famous part in Henry David thoreau's civil disobedience. He talks about how after our first sin the The repetition causes the immoral act to become as it were UNmoral. Meaning it is no longer moral or immoral because we do the bad action we begin to do it without a conscience and we don't question its morality. I'm sure a smart guy like waters must've read Thoreau. I think this whole album is about how the human race is become desensitized to such atrocities like war, Waters breaks down the different groups: The fighters, the government (the people who are causing the fighting but aren't actually killing) and the normal people who have no part in the war except that their country is in it. Waters reminds me a lot of Thoreau and I recommend anyone who likes waters ideas to read Thoreau, because I'm sure that's from where his thoughts had been derived