Roger Waters (Pink Floyd) - The Pros And Cons Of Hitch Hiking (1984)

Year: 30 April 1984 (CD 2000)
Label: Columbia Records (Europe), 507981 2
Style: Rock, Prog Rock
Country: Great Bookham, England (6 September 1943)
Time: 42:14
Format: Flac Tracks 16/44,1 kHz
Size: 227 Mb

The concept was originally envisioned by Waters in 1977 and refined in the early 1980s. In its completed form, it rotates around a man's scattered thoughts during his midlife crisis. These are explored on a dream journey during which he takes a road trip through California, commits adultery with a hitchhiker he picks up along the way, attempts to reconcile with his wife by moving to the wilderness, and finally ends up alone but with greater insight into a common human compassion. Along the way he also faces other fears and paranoia.
The entire story is framed in real time as a fitful dream taking place in the early morning hours of 4:30:18 am to 5:12:32 am on an unspecified day. At the end of the dream, the man wakes up lonely and contrite and turns to his real wife for comfort, presumably having processed his crisis.
In July 1978, Waters presented the concepts and played demos of The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking as well as what was then titled Bricks in the Wall, which became The Wall, to his bandmates in the group Pink Floyd, asking them to decide which should be a group album, and which should be his solo album. After a long debate, they decided that they preferred the concept of Bricks in the Wall, even though their manager at the time, Steve O'Rourke, thought that Pros and Cons was a better-sounding concept, and David Gilmour deemed Pros and Cons stronger musically.
Waters declared:
Well, the idea for the album came concurrently with the idea for The Wall - the basis of the idea. I wrote both pieces at roughly the same time. And in fact, I made demo tapes of them both, and in fact presented both demo tapes to the rest of the Floyd, and said "Look, I'm going to do one of these as a solo project and we'll do one as a band album, and you can choose." So, this was the one that was left over. Um...I mean, it's developed an awful lot since then, I think.
(en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pros_and_Cons_of_Hitch_Hiking)

01. 4:30 AM (Apparently They Were Travelling Abroad) (03:12)
02. 4:33 AM (Running Shoes) (04:08)
03. 4:37 AM (Arabs With Knives and West German Skies) (02:17)
04. 4:39 AM (For the First Time Today, Part 2) (02:02)
05. 4:41 AM (Sexual Revolution) (04:49)
06. 4:47 AM (The Remains Of Our Love) (03:09)
07. 4:50 AM (Go Fishing) (06:59)
08. 4:56 AM (For the First Time Today, Part 1) (01:38)
09. 4:58 AM (Dunroamin, Duncarin, Dunlivin) (03:03)
10. 5:01 AM (The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking, Part 10) (04:36)
11. 5:06 AM (Every Stranger's Eyes) (04:48)
12. 5:11 AM (The Moment Of Clarity) (01:28)

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