"The Gunner's Dream": An analysis
"The Gunner's Dream": An analysis
An analysis
[Image: a still image from the video of “The Gunner’s Dream”.]
Publication date: 2022-09-10
Composition
I have now twice used a reference to "The Gunner's Dream" by Roger Waters and associates in Culture references.
While composing this article the song has been played on a continued loop. The song is astonishingly painful and beautiful.
Music is "in the eyes of the beholder" or their ears. My belief is that this song is ascendant, a pinnacle of Roger's creativity. The analysis provided below is purely my opinion. I have no formal musical training, though I have played the guitar for most of my life.
The Dream
The song is “short”, 5 and a half minutes.
It begins very slowly, in a minor key with "Floating down through the clouds, memories rushing up to meet me now". One needs understand that the role Roger's father could have played in his life was stolen from him. His father died "on some foreign field" during WWII. Roger feels this tragedy viscerally. His concern is not for himself, but for all of us. War is, choose your adverb. It destroys that which we love.
The tenderness of the song makes me cry. Literal salt water tears have fallen from my eyes as I have listened to this work of artistry. It is not just one passage, or one moment. Throughout the work I am dragged into emotional engagement with the horror of war and the sensitivity which Roger brings.
After the first delivery of "I had a dream", at 00:01:23, there is a very subtle and gorgeous slide on a guitar. Roger plays the piano in the song, and provides lead vocals, but he is a bass player. This combines with the "on some foreign field" lyric which we have just heard, as his signature on this song.
It is him. He is it. It is a statement of his truth.
[Image: another single from from the video.]
Refrains
One refrain of two notes alternated in eight occurrences plays thrice in the work. It introduces tragedy, accentuates it in creshendo and reinforces it in sadness. I don't know what these notes are. They feel like the second and third notes from the minor scale which the song uses. They capture a sense of time, that things change slowly, a melancholy of war and that improvement is possible.
A much more subtle refrain of three non-repeated notes is also used. Listen.
Completely overshadowing the use of the bass slide, are the backing singers. They are outlandishly good. Backing singers are often ignored in how much they add to a recording. Here, they completely dominate the recording. They sing "la la la la la" and own the stage. Hats off to the sound engineers who mixed this. You have been brilliant, as were the backing singers.
Lyrics
In one place the lyrics leave me speechless. The combination of topic and rhyme are:
Where you can speak out loud,
‘bout your doubts and fears once more,
No one ever disappears, you never hear
the standard issue kickin' in your door.
You can relax, on both sides of the tracks,
and maniacs don't blow holes in bandsman by remote control.
And everyone has recourse to the law,
and no one kills the children anymore.
[Transcribed from the video.]
[Image: another single frame.]
Construction
The recording was made during the early phases of the COVID lockdowns, which naturally made coordination more challenging. The entire production was remotely recorded. The video production for the song is nothing short of amazing. The production, from lyrics, to solo performances, backing singers, supporting musicians, the sound mixing and video production are astonishing.
The drumming is exquisitely un-noticable, except in the occasional fill. It matches the combined efforts of the players in temperament. There is one moment (00:02:28) when the percussionist offers a gentle strike on his symbol to restart time. One “note” moves the song forwards.
While never having attended any peformance by Mr. Waters, I feel an understanding of him through having studied this work. I am deeply thankful.
Enjoy!
This is what the performers and production staff ask of us.
"Take heed."
[Image: Roger at the piano, wearing headphones. Note the austerity of the room. The wall panels are certainly for sound reflection control. One can hear the wood of the grand piano in the song. In the corner stands a guitar and some amplifiers. Everything about the room is for sound.]
Sources
Roger Waters - The Gunner's Dream, Roger Waters, Youtube channel, uploaded 2021-01-18
Culture
See above.
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