How 'The Final Cut' became a Roger Waters solo album and what the band thought

By the time Pink Floyd started work on The Final Cut, Roger Waters had already written the bulk of it as a soundtrack for The Wall film. What was supposed to be a collaborative album quickly turned into Waters directing the sessions like a solo project — he wrote every lyric, brought in his own musical ideas, and treated the other members as session players.

David Gilmour was openly frustrated. He later said Waters had become a dictator, and that he fought for songwriting credits but mostly lost. Nick Mason described the atmosphere as “oppressive.” Gilmour refused to sing some of Waters’ more personal lyrics, so Waters ended up on lead vocals for the first time on a Pink Floyd album. The result: a record that sounds more like a Waters solo statement than a band effort, and the beginning of the end for the classic lineup.