Wednesday was Rocks Off's dad's birthday. We're fortunate to have had him in our lives as we were growing up, and also to be around now when we're older (and a parent) as well and can appreciate the kind of crap he put up with raising us and our brother and sisters.
Former Pink Floyd front man Roger Waters, who plays The Wall soup to nuts at a sold-out Toyota Center Saturday, wasn't so lucky. His father, Eric Fletcher Waters, was killed at Anzio in 1944 when Roger was a newborn. The death of his father "in the corner of some foreign field" has had a lasting impact, and led to some of the band's most affecting songs.
"Free Four" (Obscured By Clouds)
It's an oddly bouncy tune, especially accompanying lyrics like "You are the angel of death/ And I am the dead man's son." The dead man, we learn, was "buried like a mole in a foxhole." Released in 1972, this is perhaps Waters' first foray into exploring his feelings about his long-dead father in Pink Floyd's music.
