Ten Reasons I Love Pros and Cons

[Zack]

10. The story is so convoluted, even a page long "explanation" in the tour program still made no sense.

9. It's all about sex, my favorite subject.

8. Clapton plays some extremely tasty licks on dobro while a girl moans in Running Shoes, and some more great stuff on Sexual Revolution.

8. The bizarre reference to the protagonist's wife eating a sandwich containing Patti Page's "Doggie in the Window."

7. The family in the story arbitrarily moves to Wyoming at the suggestion of one of the children.

6. Roger launches into a blood-curdling scream at the line "we cut down some trees" for no apparent reason.

5. He shameless pinches his owns riffs from One of My Turns and In The Flesh to remind listeners he wrote The Wall too.

4. The line "I nailed ducks to the wall." Never knew if he was referring to hunting them aggressively or decorating his house with them.

3. Roger taking a dig at Yoko Ono ("herro") when he stole practically the entire melody line from her husband's Working Class Hero.

2. For hiring Jack Palance to say one line (wonder how much he paid him?)

And the number one reason I love Pros and Cons . . .

1. It's not a Pink Floyd album. (How it would have sounded if the band had picked these demos to do rather than the Wall?)

[mosespa]

According to Schaffner, Gilmour claims that the band "put a hell of a lot of work into that" as well as The Wall.

[Tenniru]

What kind of work? Co-writing? Or is there an unreleased Floyd-performed Pros/Cons piece gathering dust in a box next to Games For May, Death Of Sisco, and the masters of the early 1970 shows.

As for the album... it's my least favorite Waters album, but it's okay. A bit tedious in points, but Go Fishing is neat and it has some humorous moments ("jump!" said Yoko Ono/AND WE CHOPPED SOME WOOD!/between two bits of... um... BREAD!).

[WishIwasthere]

It's actually my favorite Roger solo album. Cool concept. A dream.

[MadJedi]

According to Schaffner, Gilmour claims that the band "put a hell of a lot of work into that" as well as The Wall.

if im not mistaken that was "plan b" along with final cut.

[mosespa]

I dunno...it's not something that's ever been talked about in detail. The only reference I've ever found to it, really, is the Schaffner book...and all it says is that Gilmour claims the band put "a hell of a lot" into PACOHH, as well.

There's really no way of knowing how much (if, indeed, any) influence the other members of PF may or may not have had on it.

[Zack]

Yes, that's why its my favorite Roger album as well. It's so serious, and funny in weird kind of way. He has a waggish sense of humor sometimes, despite being pronounced the "gloomiest man in rock" by Q magazine in 1992.

I think the "Death of Sisco" is a typo by Janet Huck in her unreleased Newsweek article for Death of Disco, probably a song cut from the Wall by Ezrin.

[nosaj]

I like reason #2 Jack Palance

Anyway, maybe Gilmour was really high and thought he put a lot of work in on Pros & Cons, or he and the band worked hard on convincing Roger the Wall was a better idea.

[David Smith]

6. Roger launches into a blood-curdling scream at the line "we cut down some trees" for no apparent reason.

That's my favourite bit on the album

[cRaB]

my 11. reason is this: 5:06 AM (Every Strangers Eyes), and the way he was able to sing (scream).

[mosespa]

Reason Number 5 is disqualified due to the fact that PACOHH was written at the same time as The Wall.

So...Roger didn't steal the riffs for Pros and Cons to "remind listeners that he wrote The Wall," he used them in both pieces. Perhaps he stole them from Pros and Cons to use in The Wall.

[alma]

Reason No.11: Roger's wonderful German on 4.37 am

[Sonic Destruction]

Clapton plays some really wicked guitar on this album, the best he had done for years. "Sexual Revolution" and the (sort-of) title track are particularly amazing. Much credit too to David Sanborn for the ripping sax solo on "Go Fishing".

Lyrically, Roger is absolutely in top form on "Pros And Cons", and he allows his dark sense of humour plenty of room. The lyrics in "Go Fishing" are really brilliant: "we set out in the spring, with a trunkful of books about everything; about solar devices, and how nice natural childbirth is". With just a few carefully chosen words, he can absolutely capture a moment in time!

Good on Roger for hiring in Ed Bishop (Ed Straker from legendery SF TV show "UFO") for a cameo.

By far my favourite Waters solo album, and in fact it is my favourite solo album by any member of PF.

[AsydWaters]

Well I got several reasons ,but Andy Jackson's excerpts from Craig Bailey interview suffice my reasons to love this great piece of story telling idea.
Taken from "Floydian Slip" :
CB: I would think that an album like "Pros and Cons" would be more difficult to make — there's so many songs that blend into the next, there's ambient sounds ...
Andy Jackson: Yeah. Well, it was made that way as well. It isn't even constructed afterwards. It was ... We spent a long time making a mockup of the whole thing. Until the shape was fixed. And then we made the album. And it was made, these huge, great big lumps all joined up .. It effectively took 15-minute songs —large lumps of the whole song, sort of thing all joined up. (Laughs) It was hellishly complicated, in fact, is what it was! I had to, for the first time, keep notes of where everything is so ... what instruments turn up where and things like that. But I had to actually do it like it was a film cue sheet and divide it up by time as well. So I knew that at 12 minutes such and such happened. You know, and that guitar there came in there on that bit. It was almost like a year planner rather than anything else.
CB: We want to play a number from Roger Waters' "The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking." We're kind of letting you do the picking and choosing tonight. Earlier you'd suggested "Go Fishing."
AJ: It's, for me, it's the best song on the album. I think there's a lot of outstanding on it. A lot of playing is really very good: Eric Clapton's playing is marvelous. And Andy Newmark plays particularly well on that one for me, the drummer. It's a fantastic orchestral arrangement from Michael Kamen. And I just think it combines the being an exceptionally good song. I also just remember very clearly, Roger writes lyrics right to the end. He hones and hones and hones the lyrics.
CB: In the studio?
AJ: Well, no, he'll do it between times. We'll work and we'll finish —we don't work late —we finish relatively early. And then he'll work by himself on lyrics and come in the next day with revisions and changes and things. And he just keeps going at it. And he keeps honing and honing and honing. And he'll just come in and there's just one line change. He just gets it better and better. He works very, very hard at the lyrics. But this was, I just remember something very extraordinary — which was him going out having not really written the lyrics for this and improvising the lyrics. And quite a few of them stayed. There are lines in this song which he just improvised one day, which is just an extraordinary thing to witness. Somebody going and doing that. Just improvising lyrics. It's stayed with me ever since. And it has a particular affection for it.
CB: Pink Floyd recording engineer Andy Jackson's our guest on tonight's show. Let's listen to some of his work: "Go Fishing" from Roger Waters' "The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking," with, as we learned on tonight's program, partially improvised lyrics. This is "Floydian Slip," on classic rock Champ 101.3. (Song: "Go Fishing")
CB: Broadcasting from the dark side of the moon — this is "Floydian Slip," the Pink Floyd experience on the classic rock station, Champ 101.3. "Go Fishing" from Roger Waters' "The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking." We're talking with Floyd engineer Andy Jackson. You also did work on David Gilmour's "About Face" album at the same time you were working on "Pros and Cons" for Roger. I'd heard what probably is a rumor about a song on "About Face" called "Murder," which supposedly is about the murder of John Lennon. Is that true?

AJ:It is. That is absolutely true. That is exactly what it's about. So that in itself is reason enough (to play it). For anybody the murder of John Lennon is something that one will never forget. It's one of those ... you know, where were you when JFK was killed, when you heard that JFK was, and where were you when you heard that Lennon was. And, you know, you always remember those things. And I do. I remember exactly where I was when I heard that Lennon had been shot. It seems like a strange little thing: We recorded this album in Paris. I remember a phone call coming through — and it sounds really stupid now — but was that Dave's dog had died. And it was funny. We were working on that song and it was just very, very cussing at that moment. I remember Dave going out after that and playing the guitars at the end of the song and it just ... they really bit. He really really meant it. You know, it was just one of those moments of raw emotion coming through. And, again, it's just a strong memory.