Track List

00:00 The Ballad of Bill Hubbard 04:19 What God Wants - Part 1 10:19 Perfect Sense - Part 1 14:36 Perfect Sense - Part 2 17:26 The Bravery of Being Out of Range 22:09 Late Home Tonight - Part 1 26:10 Late Home Tonight - Part 2 28:24 Too Much Rope 34:11 What God Wants - Part 2 37:51 What God Wants - Part 3 41:59 Watching TV 48:07 Three Wishes 54:57 It's a Miracle 1:03:27 Amused to Death

"Amused to Death" is the third studio album by English musician Roger Waters, released 7 September 1992 on Columbia. Produced by Waters and Patrick Leonard, it is mixed in QSound to enhance its spatial feel. The album features Jeff Beck on lead guitar on several tracks. The album's title was inspired by Neil Postman's 1985 book "Amusing Ourselves to Death".

"Amused to Death" is the only studio album by Waters to not have a tour supporting it, though some songs were performed during the "In The Flesh" and "Us + Them" tours. "The Bravery of Being Out of Range" was also performed on his "This Is Not A Drill" Tour.

The album is loosely organized around the idea of an ape randomly switching channels on a television, but explores numerous political and social themes, including critiques of the First Gulf War in "The Bravery of Being Out of Range" and "Perfect Sense".

The first track, "The Ballad of Bill Hubbard", features the voice of World War I veteran Alfred Razzell [deceased]. A member of the Royal Fusiliers, he describes finding fellow soldier William "Bill" Hubbard – to whom the album is dedicated – severely wounded on the battlefield. After failed attempts to take him to safety, Razzell is forced to abandon him in no-man's land.

The tale is continued at the end of the title track, at the very end of the album, providing a coda to the tragic story, with Razzell describing how he finally found peace. The excerpts are from BBC television's 1991 Everyman documentary, "A Game of Ghosts", marking the 75th anniversary of the start of the Battle of the Somme. The opening track also features the sound of several animals.

The second song, "What God Wants, Part I", follows and contrasts the moving words of Razzell by opening with the TV being tuned instead into an excerpt of a child who says, "I don't mind about the war. That's one of the things I like to watch – if it's a war going on. 'Cos then I know if, um, our side's winning, if our side's losing..." He is then interrupted by the channel being changed and a burst of ape-chatter.

"Perfect Sense" is a two-part song about a world where live transmissions of wars are the main form of entertainment. The first part begins with a loud, unintelligible rant, then a backwards message from Waters: "Julia, however, in the light and visions of the issues of Stanley, we changed our minds. We have decided to include a backward message. Stanley, for you, and for all the other book burners." The message climaxes with Waters yelling in the aggressive Scottish voice he used to depict the teacher in The Wall. In the second part, sportscaster Marv Albert narrates a war as if it were a basketball game.

USAF aircraft of the 4th Fighter Wing fly over Kuwaiti oil fires, set by the retreating Iraqi army during Operation Desert Storm in 1991. Several tracks on the album comment on and criticize the Gulf War.

"The Bravery of Being Out of Range" includes a reference to a song written by Waters on Pink Floyd's 1977 album "Animals" ("Sheep"), and to "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot". In "Sheep", Waters sings, "I've looked over Jordan and I have seen, things are not what they seem"; in "The Bravery of Being Out of Range" he sings "I looked over Jordan and what did I see? I saw a US Marine in a pile of debris."

"Late Home Tonight, Part I", which opens with the song of a Eurasian skylark, recalls the 1986 US air strike against Libya from the perspective of two "ordinary wives" and a young American F-111 pilot. The lyrics about "when you take the jeans from the refrigerator" reference a 1985 Levi's 501 commercial.

At the beginning of "What God Wants, Part II" Charles Fleischer (better known as the voice of Roger Rabbit) performs the greedy tele-evangelist's sermon. The lyrics about God wanting silver, gold and "his secret never to be told" reference the nursery rhyme, One for Sorrow. "What God Wants, Part III" musically references the Pink Floyd songs "Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Part I)", "Echoes" and "Breathe (In the Air)". It ends with an audio clip of Tom Bromley, an elderly WWI veteran, singing "Wait 'Till the Sun Shines, Nellie", a capella. The clip is also from "A Game of Ghosts".

"Too Much Rope" includes the line, "Each man has his price, Bob, and yours is pretty low."

The song "Watching TV" (a duet with Don Henley) explores the influence of mass media on the Chinese protests for democracy in Tiananmen Square.

In "It's a Miracle" Waters makes a scathing reference to Andrew Lloyd Webber (whom he would accuse elsewhere of having plagiarized music from Pink Floyd's "Echoes" for sections of the musical "The Phantom of the Opera"): The same song features a sample from the 1977 low-budget zombie film "Shock Waves" in which the film's characters wrestle over a flashlight. The title track begins with the lyric, "Doctor, Doctor". "Take Up Thy Stethoscope and Walk" on "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn", the first song written by Waters, opens with the same line.

In the title track "Amused To Death" at the end of the album, alien anthropologists muse as to the fate of the human race, concluding that humans ultimately amused themselves to death.

Personnel

• Roger Waters – vocals (all tracks except 1), bass guitar (tracks 2 (on intro) and 13), synthesizers (EMU on tracks 2 and 4), acoustic guitar (tracks 11 and 14), twelve-string guitar (track 5)
• Patrick Leonard – keyboards (all tracks except 6 and 7), percussion programming (track 1), choir arrangement (tracks 2, 9-11 and 13), voice (track 4), acoustic piano (tracks 11 and 13), Hammond organ (track 5), synthesizers (tracks 5 and 13)
• Jeff Beck – guitar (tracks 1, 2, 5 (2015 reissue only), 10–14)
• Randy Jackson – bass (tracks 2 and 9)
• Graham Broad – drums (all tracks except 1, 5, 11 and 13), percussion (tracks 6 and 7)
• Luis Conte – percussion (all tracks except 2, 5, 9, 11, 13 and 14)
• Geoff Whitehorn – guitar (tracks 2, 8, 10 and 14)
• Andy Fairweather Low – guitars (tracks 2, 6–9, 11 and 12) including twelve-string guitar (tracks 8 and 12), acoustic guitar (tracks 2 and 11) and electric guitar (track 2), backing vocals (tracks 6 and 7)
• Tim Pierce – guitar (tracks 2, 5, 9 and 12)
• B.J. Cole – pedal steel guitar (tracks 3 and 4)
• Rick DiFonzo – guitar (tracks 3 and 4)
• Steve Lukather – guitar (tracks 3, 4 and 8)
• David Paich – Hammond organ (track 5, 2015 reissue only)
• Bruce Gaitsch – acoustic guitar (tracks 3 and 4)
• Jimmy Johnson – bass (all tracks except 1, 2, 5, 9 and 11)
• Brian Macleod – snare (tracks 3 and 4), hi-hat (tracks 3 and 4)
• John Pierce – bass guitar (track 5)[38]
• Denny Fongheiser – drums (track 5)
• Steve Sidwell – cornet (tracks 6 and 7)
• John Patitucci – bass guitar (track 11)
• Guo Yi & the Peking Brothers – dulcimer, lute, zhen, oboe, bass (track 11)
• John Dupree – strings arranger and conductor (tracks 3 and 4)
• John "Rabbit" Bundrick – Hammond organ (track 12)
• Michael Kamen – orchestral arranger and conductor (tracks 7 and 8)
• Jeff Porcaro – drums (track 13)
• Marv Albert – commentary (track 4)
• Alf Razzell – speech (tracks 1 and 14)
• London Welsh Chorale – choir (tracks 2, 9-11 and 13)
• Katie Kissoon – backing vocals (tracks 2, 8, 9, 12 and 14)
• Doreen Chanter – backing vocals (tracks 2, 8, 9, 12 and 14)
• N'Dea Davenport – backing vocals (track 2)
• Natalie Jackson – backing vocals (tracks 2 and 5)
• P.P. Arnold – vocals (tracks 3 and 4)
• Lynn Fiddmont-Linsey – backing vocals (track 5)
• Jessica Leonard – backing vocals (track 8)
• Jordan Leonard – backing vocals (track 8)
• Screaming Kids – backing vocals (track 8)
• Charles Fleischer - speech (track 9)
• Don Henley – vocals (track 11)
• Jon Joyce – backing vocals (track 13)
• Stan Farber – backing vocals (track 13) (credited as Stan Laurel)
• Jim Haas – backing vocals (track 13)
• Rita Coolidge – vocals (track 14)

Production

• Roger Waters – production
• Patrick Leonard – production
• Nick Griffiths – co-producer
• Hayden Bendall – engineering
• Jerry Jordan – engineering
• Stephen McLaughlin – engineering
• James Guthrie – mixing
• Kenneth Bowen – choir conductor (tracks 2, 9-11 and 13).

Thanks to Wikipedia for the full write-up at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amused_to_Death

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