Roger Waters - When The Wind Blows Soundtrack

[drafsack]

This thread is to discuss Roger Waters' When The Wind Blows Soundtrack.

Feel free to discuss the album!



The Russian Missile
Towers Of Faith
Hilda's Dream
The American Bomber
The Anderson Shelter
The British Submarine
The Attack
The Fall Out
Hilda's Hair
Folded Flags

[J Ed]

an underrated and hard to find mid80s Roger solo project
it came out the year before Radio KAOS with little fanfare and I think was the same band he used for KAOS and its tour
the first side is different songs by different artists, and Ive never listened to it: 80s Bowie and 80s Genesis are amongst the songs Ive never bothered with
Rogers bit takes up all of side 2, and was one 20-odd minute track on cd if you can find the cd
the middle ten minutes of Rogers side consists of a sound collage made up of elements from the film with a few instrumental interludes

[Djgilmour]

This is not really a great album but it does contain one of His best songs ever recorded:

Towers of Faith. Better than anything on Kaos. It is up there in my top 5 Roger Waters solo songs.

[Idisaffect]

Folded Flags is a great song, too.

I Found the movie a few years ago. The movie is depressing.

[Stephen]

I Found the movie a few years ago. The movie is depressing.

Extremely so. For anyone who's not yet seen it:

[danielcaux]

I personally think that it's a so so soundtrack. The ambient and spoken tracks are the highlight for me, really. I get a bigger emotional response out from them than from the two or three proper songs that Roger did. They sound a little half baked and uninspired, you could even say that they are a blue print for what would eventually become his later "trademark" style in KAOS, Amused, Kill The Child and Leaving Beirut: sparse music, slooooow tempos (listen to those drums on Towers of Faith!), bluesy guitar licks, bombastic choruses that lack real melodic hooks, and a lot of narration-like lyrics and singing. Not my type of thing, but oh well, it is better than the first side, except for the Genesis instrumental.

Kind of pedantic to quote myself by I thought it could add to the discussion on this thread. I should add that the opening guitar riff by Bowie is nice too. But only the opening riff.

Anyway, don't you think that it's quite possible that the first side of this soundtrack could have influenced Waters in his production choices for Radio KAOS? Perhaps he didn't like being relegated to the b side of the soundtrack and therefore wanted to sound modern and hip like those old farts Bowie and Collins were sounding!

Rogers bit takes up all of side 2, and was one 20-odd minute track on cd if you can find the cd

Does that mean that the CD doesn't have the Roger songs separated in different tracks? Just a continuous 20 minute track like Echoes?

14. Pipes And Drums

I've heard the rest, but I have no idea what this is.

its a musical fragment from When the Wind Blows

An instrumental version of Folded Flags, essentially.

Is Pipe and Drums an outtake from this soundtrack? Or an instrumental made by someone else?

[Felix Atagong]

Yes, my CD as well has only one Waters track, and I remember I amused myself to death making a separate paper with the different track times for the different parts (in order to program my cd player).

I thought that the whole 'suite' had a certain experimental feel, very sixties-ish...

[moom]

Same story as with Amused To Death, except I hadn't rated this before and also I fail to see a connections between some of the very obscure details, but don't mind that.

[Morty]

This is a good soundtrack. Some good bits from Roger, and a really great film indeed.

[The Crazy Diamond]

Raymond Briggs, the snowman originator, produced a excellent comic strip book of this album...

[twcc]

Raymond Briggs, the snowman originator, produced a excellent comic strip book of this album...

The book came first, there was also a stage show in London ... that was good. For information, the film is available on Blu-ray in a limited edition of 3,000 units.

[twcc]

^^^
Slightly on a tangent and by way of an update to the above, plus a bit of advance news, BFI are issuing a combined DVD / Blu-ray of the film on 22 January 2018

For those seeking a UK sourced item (I assume Blu-ray 'B' and DVD '2') then try Amazon ASIN: B076M98H2M

[The Crazy Diamond]

Its a valuable part of any floydian vinyl collection, the book is good as well if you can find a copy

[Vegetable Layne]

I personally think that it's a so so soundtrack. The ambient and spoken tracks are the highlight for me, really. I get a bigger emotional response out from them than from the two or three proper songs that Roger did. They sound a little half baked and uninspired, you could even say that they are a blue print for what would eventually become his later "trademark" style in KAOS, Amused, Kill The Child and Leaving Beirut: sparse music, slooooow tempos (listen to those drums on Towers of Faith!), bluesy guitar licks, bombastic choruses that lack real melodic hooks, and a lot of narration-like lyrics and singing. Not my type of thing, but oh well, it is better than the first side, except for the Genesis instrumental.

Kind of pedantic to quote myself by I thought it could add to the discussion on this thread. I should add that the opening guitar riff by Bowie is nice too. But only the opening riff.

Anyway, don't you think that it's quite possible that the first side of this soundtrack could have influenced Waters in his production choices for Radio KAOS? Perhaps he didn't like being relegated to the b side of the soundtrack and therefore wanted to sound modern and hip like those old farts Bowie and Collins were sounding!

Rogers bit takes up all of side 2, and was one 20-odd minute track on cd if you can find the cd

Does that mean that the CD doesn't have the Roger songs separated in different tracks? Just a continuous 20 minute track like Echoes?

14. Pipes And Drums

I've heard the rest, but I have no idea what this is.

its a musical fragment from When the Wind Blows

An instrumental version of Folded Flags, essentially.

Is Pipe and Drums an outtake from this soundtrack? Or an instrumental made by someone else?

Its Hilda's Dream from the When the Wind Blows album, just renamed (and edited slightly to exclude the element tying to the narrative).

[twcc]

I've just dug out the soundtrack and it's not bad; interesting to re-listen to David Bowie, Hugh Cornwell, Squeeze and Paul Hardcastle (I skipped the Genesis track).

Interesting to note that the back cover of the CD indicates that the album comprises 15 distinct tracks but as noted above it is, in reality, just 6 with the Roger Waters and the Bleeding Heart 'ten element' material presented as one 24m26s piece.