Roger Waters Memoir “Love and Truth” – Read an Excerpt

Roger Waters’ memoir will be a hot topic amongst many fans and people involved with Pink Floyd. The autobiography book title is “Love and Truth” and Roger started writing it during Covid lockdown. Nick Mason published his Personal History of Pink Floyd in 2004 complete with audiobook. It will be interesting to read an additional perspective on Pink Floyd’s history… hopefully.

Roger’s time in Pink Floyd certainly had its ups and downs. His contribution to the band was colossal but was not without challenges. I give a little context to the book ahead of the excerpt of Roger Waters memoir below.

Feel free to skip to the excerpt, don’t miss our Email Newsletter for more details on the book, and share your thoughts on the forum

The Golden Years

After Syd Barrett’s departure, Pink Floyd experienced an innovative and harmonious period where all members, including new addition David Gilmour, contributed to the song writing. This era, marked by both experimental and psychedelic music, laid the groundwork for their future sound.

Roger Waters emerged as the band’s dominant figure from 1973 to 1983, leading to the creation of iconic albums like “The Dark Side of the Moon”, “Wish You Were Here”, “Animals”, “The Wall”, and “The Final Cut.” These albums featured cohesive lyrical themes from Roger Waters and showcased the band’s exceptional musicianship.

Despite their success, tensions grew within the band. Waters’ strong leadership eventually led to conflicts, culminating in Richard Wright’s departure during the recording of The Wall and, ultimately, Roger Waters leaving the band.

Roger is a very divisive individual and single minded in his pursuit of his art. That is a double edged sword. He was the band leader, of an era in Pink Floyd’s history from 1973 to 1983, that included hugely successful albums. These albums had Roger’s lyrical themes running throughout. They were brought to life vividly by the world class musicianship of the band. The whole was greater than the sum of the parts. But with success comes pressure and expectations. Perhaps part of Roger’s ego was in self-defence against the pressure and expectations. Or, according to Polly Samson and David Gilmour, perhaps he was a megalomaniac!

Both Sides of the Story

Every story should be told from multiple view points to give perspective and balance. Nick Mason published his Personal History of Pink Floyd book and I am looking forward to hearing Roger’s “truth” about his side of the story too in Roger Waters Memoir. I think it will be important to read Roger’s memoirs with different perspectives in mind. Perhaps it might inspire a David Gilmour memoir. However, this seems very unlikely. David is much more interested in music rather than the written word.

Roger Waters Memoir’s Title Change

Roger previously told people at his London Palladium performance of DSotM Redux that his memoirs were called “I’ll See You On The Dark Side Of The Moon: Memoirs Of A Lanky Prick”. He must have had second thoughts, or was being naughty Roger playing with us. He has now chosen the much more palatable “Love and Truth”. Or perhaps he hadn’t finished writing the memoirs, and on reflection those two words love and truth summed up his final thoughts.

An Excerpt from Roger Waters Memoir

This is a true story of
My love for two animals
Both wild in their own way
Which I read to the audience at a
Live performance of DSOTM REDUX
At the London Palladium
On the day after October 7th 2023.

So Chocolate Charlie Brown was my third brown Burmese cat. This is a drawing of him and his friend Lilly, an Abyssinian, above the skirting board on the wall of my youngest son Jack’s room in the early nineties. This story isn’t about Chocolate Charlie Brown, well, just this first little bit is, but the rest is about a Duck called Donald. First though a brief history of Chocolate Charley Brown, I got him through Keith Butt, the vet in Knightsbridge where I used to take pets to be euthanized on Sunday mornings if they were beyond repair. Like Cloudy for instance, my daughter India’s pet gerbil, she was beyond repair, cancer, (Cloudy that is, not India), poor little scrap. So into the Merc we jumped one Sunday morning after breakfast, Cloudy and I, well Cloudy didn’t exactly jump in, if truth be told, I had to help her in, in her little cage, just the two of us, the condemned Cloudy and me, and a cardboard box for later. Bloody hell, I’m getting a bit weepy. Off to Keith Butt, Mr Butt was already cognizant of Cloudy’s condition, so, look the other way, is it over? The trick before bringing the deceased home was to make her look comfy in her little cardboard box, arranged curled up resting in eternal peace with a garland of forget me nots. After lunch, down the garden, spade in hand, a not very heavy cardboard box, a little girl’s hand, held tightly in mine. Job done.

What was I talking about? Oh yeah, Chocolate Charley Brown. The day he arrived he was a wee brown scrap and scared shitless, so I took him upstairs to the bedroom for a settle in. He ran straight under the bed and wouldn’t come out, so I took off my cowboy boots and got into bed in my jeans and dangled enticing things like feathers on bits of string in front of the dark places under the bed. Sure enough after about half an hour the hunting gene emerged and so did CCB’s little paw. I enticed him out into the open and then scooped him up and stuffed him under the covers next to my big warm leg. I was wearing a brown leather belt to hold my jeans up. I’ve still got it, it’s got a silver tip that always flops down. I was sitting up in the bed reading when I saw a tiny paw reach out and bat at the dangling silver bit on the end of my belt. We said hello, and we were inseparable after that. What a magnificent animal CCB was, beloved by all. Well obviously not all, all. He was not beloved by rodents or birds or Brian the gamekeeper from Kimbridge Farms next door. I saw CCB limping one day, favouring his off hind. I couldn’t find anything amiss, nothing broken, but, just to be sure I took him to the local vet for an X-Ray. Bugger me! Three #5 shot gun pellets in his rear end. I went to see Brian.

“Er Brian?”

“Yes, Sir?”

“Happy Christmas Brian, there’s a hundred quid.”

“Thank you very much Sir!”

“You’re very welcome…….. Brian, If that big old brown cat of mine is still alive next Christmas there’ll be another hundred, and so on until he dies of natural causes.”

“I hear you Mr Waters, can I ask you a favour?”

“Anything Brian”

“Could you put a fluorescent collar on ‘im sir? Make my job a lot easier, that would.”

Anyway, one summer I hear the cat flap bang, and in comes CCB with, as usual, something dead in his mouth. He flops down in front of the AGA Stove, (half central heating, half cooking, much beloved in posh country kitchens) panting.

“What you got there Charlie?”

“Oh nothing much, just a newly hatched duckling, I’ve already eaten all it’s siblings and I’m a bit full. I’m just gonna rest here for a minute and then eat this‘un later and then I might go for a kip in the laundry room.”

“Jesus Christ Charlie, let’s have a look, oh for fuck’s sake it’s still wet.”

“Cats will be cats son”

“Jesus! Come on little‘un it’s the bin for you. Fuck me it’s still breathing, Jesus! Charley!”

“Oi! where are you going, I was looking forward that.”

So I put the wet scrap of baby bird, bits of shell and all, out of reach of the magnificent beast and went in search of a shoe box. Got one. Screwdriver for holes. Dap, dap, dap, dap, dap, dap, dap, dap, dap, dap. That’s enough, it’ll never live anyway. Where to put it? I know, guest bathroom on the radiator.

Next morning drinking coffee. Halfway through second cup….! The shoebox! I better go and clear up the remains. So, I run up the stairs and go into the guest bathroom.

“Tsi Tsi Tsi Tsi Tsi”

Fuck me! Open the lid. Oh my god it’s a fluffy brown golf ball with a little yellow face and a line of mascara through its eye!

“Tsi Tsi Tsi Tsi Tsi “

“Tsi Tsi Tsi Tsi Tsi”

“Tsi Tsi Tsi Tsi?”

“Tsi Tsi Tsi Tsi?”

“Tsi Tsi Tsi”

“Tsi Tsi Tsi Tsi Tsi”

Translation; Mallard to English.

“Mummy, Mummy, Mummy, Mummy, Mummy,

I’m hungry, I’m hungry, I’m hungry, I’m hungry, I’m hungry,

Where have you been?

Where have you been?

I was frightened,

Mummy, Mummy, Mummy, Mummy, Mummy.”

It was Donald.

“Fuck me! ……….. What do they eat?”

“What about milk ?”

“Milk! Don’t be stupid, when did you ever see a duck with tits?”

Ducklings should be fed a diet of mealworms and plant matter at an early age, though grasses tend to make baby ducks bloat. Wild ducks tend to stick to whatever bugs they find, and they will eat food that is fed to them by park visitors or guests. Bread has been long regarded as a bad thing to feed wild birds.

“Oi, no bread!”

I probably went out to try and catch bugs on the river that runs through the garden. Duh! Have you ever tried to catch a bug? Exactly! It probably didn’t take me long to read up on it.(Roger all through your life you’ll be faced with many challenges, my advice is to read, read, read, read. Thanks Mum.) Dried mealy worms mixed with crushed barley or oats, and water of course. Donald stayed in the guest bathroom for the first week or so, except of course at my bath time when he came into the master bathroom for bath time with me.

What bliss, my own duck to play with in the bath. Donald loved bath time, swimming about and then coming up onto Mummy’s chest for a snuggle and a bit of chin peck preen time, then back into the warm water.

What has always intrigued me is how can something that small produce that volume of duck shit? I mean, the guest bathroom floor was knee deep after a couple of weeks. I know you think I’m exaggerating; you’re thinking.

“How could it possibly be knee deep?”

“Ah, well that’s because you’re thinking Mummy knee deep, I’m talking Donald knee deep, which as you can see from the photo is only about half an inch.”

Anyway Donald grew and grew, I taught him to swim in the bath, even thought of buying him a plastic duck to play with……..no I didn’t!

The guest bathroom started to pong a bit, and it was a warm summer, so I decided to build Donald a run in the garden. We had a very small stream, only about a foot wide, that ran from a parallel carrier stream across the lawn under some cherry trees to the main river. Perfect.

I got some chicken wire and built an enclosure which spanned the stream. Running water, fox proof, enough bank for a snooze, in sight of the chairs on the logia, heaven. The long summer days of, what? 1993? Passed. Donald grew and grew, never losing his attachment to me, his Mummy. We used to go for walks together down the garden, never too close to the main river, I was always afraid of him falling in. Stupid I know. I was living at the time with Pricilla, my Jack’s mum, and we were in the habit of sitting on the logia at the cocktail hour with a very large vodka and cranberry juice each. I know, I know, but in those days we didn’t know any better. Anyway, Donald would always come and sit with us and preen a bit and quack-le quietly until bedtime. I’m not sure how many months passed before one day I looked at Donald and I thought, fuck me shouldn’t his head be starting to turn green? Christ almighty! Donald’s a girl! Well, too late to change his/her name now. Thank god, (NTTIAG) as far as we know, ducks don’t have pronoun issues.

One day, as September approached, I was looking at Donald over the rim of my vodka glass thinking, that duck looks almost full grown, when another thought occurred to me………………………..?

“Christ she can’t fly.”

So I called her over and picked her up and held her between my thumb and the four fingers of my right hand, half way between her lovely neck and her beautiful webbed feet, like a fat feathered paper dart, and pointing her slightly up, launched her forward. She didn’t even flap her wings, just nosedived into the turf at my feet, looked over her shoulder at me disapprovingly and waddled off to lick her wounded pride.

“Jesus Mummy! Why’d you do that?”

It was a conundrum, how to teach Donald to fly, until one day walking down the edge of one of the paddocks on my way to give Mossy Fern (Retired racehorse) some polos, I was going too fast for Donald who broke into a stumbling waddle-y run and then instinctively put out her wings and flapped and flew for about five yards before crashing. Eureka! We started to practice every day and before long if I broke into a run she would fly beside me at shoulder height,

“Look at me Mummy I’m flying!”

She didn’t fly away. Until one day she did.

“Where’s Donald?”

“I don’t know I haven’t seen her.”

I’m a bit weepy writing this………I mean it was great that she’d gone off with her friends to the barley stubble or wherever they went, but……………well it left a big hole.

Then a couple of days later, a few ducks landed by the bridge, below the top pool, near the house, when we were sitting in front of the logia with our Vodkas and cranberry juice, and one of them swam over, calmly climbed the steps out of the river, walked across the lawn and sat down next to us.

“Hello Donald.”

“Quack, quack,”

She did that several more times that September, until finally she didn’t.

I confess, though it pains me to admit it, before 1993, I would occasionally take the odd barley fed mallard off the river in September, delicious.

That was thirty years ago.

I never did it again.

When will Roger Waters Memoirs be published?

No news yet on when Roger Waters Memoirs be published. I am hoping soon as I am looking forward to seeing what else he has to say. I hope its not just a book about his pets. It would be nice if he shared some stories of the early Pink Floyd and his time from the golden era of the band. When Roger was talking about the memoir in December 2021, he said it was nearly 600 pages long. He also mentioned quite a bit of politics in the same video. I believe he will mention growing up in the 1950s, Syd Barrett and hopefully mention his time in Pink Floyd quite a lot.

Source of Roger Waters Memoir – Roger Waters shared on his new Substack page