Roger Waters has recorded a new version of the Pink Floyd classic Comfortably Numb with the Palestinian singer Mona Miari and has been talking about it to Wired magazine.
Waters has been a prominent supporter of the Palestinian cause for decades now, and the new version is deliberately being released in the context of the alleged genocide in Gaza and the continued occupation of both that territory and the West Bank. It includes new verses written in English and Arabic and, significantly, Comfortably Numb Re-Imagined (as it’s styled) includes the line ‘I will never become comfortably numb’. Meaning numb to the ongoing conflict, presumably.
The video, below, doesn’t stint in showing Gaza as it is now. It’s deliberately uncomfortable viewing and doubles up as a fundraiser for the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund.
The interviewer doesn’t swerve the accusations of anti-semitism that have lingered around Waters for some time now, allegations that have been a significant factor in the seemingly-terminal ill feeling that continues to exist between himself and former Pink Floyd bandmate David Gilmour. Asked what he’d say to people who continue to view his work through the lens of anti-semitism, Waters is blunt: “Fuck off is my answer to that.”
“I don’t have an anti-semitic bone in my body, I never did and I never will have,” he insists. “I couldn’t give a shit what your religion is, frankly. I’m not interested in it. I’m interested in human rights for my brothers and sisters, whoever they are. Colour of the skin, religion, nationality, politics – I couldn’t care less.”
So there you go. The new track is a whole nine minutes long – three minutes longer than the original – but the pair have edited a three minute version for playlists. Asked what people will think of the Re-Imagined version ten years from now, Waters answers: “I hope they’ll hear that it was prophetic – there is a right and a wrong. This is not complicated, and this song is on the right side of history… I hope they’ll go ‘Phew’. They were part of the resistance, and we are part of the resistance.”
