#47-T - Not Now John from The Final Cut (1983)
Appeared On: 4 ballots (out of 33 . . . 12.1%)
Total Points: 38 points (out of 825 possible points . . . 4.6%)
Top Rankers: @FatMax @Dr. Octopus @ericttspikes @Dwayne Hoover
Highest Ranking: 14
Live Performances:
RW: 38 (
Montreal - 1987)
Covers:
North Green,
The Tribute Co.,
Brit Floyd, Pink & The Brain
Hollywood waits at the end of the rainbow for The Final Cut album, as we say goodbye to that album as it was originally released. The track is the only one on the album featuring the lead vocals of
David Gilmour, found in the verses. This song is about how Hollywood cynically and unforgivably glamorizes war.
The lyrics deal with many of the themes Waters explored in other songs from the album, including war (particularly the Falklands War and British involvement therein) and criticism of UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher, as well as general criticisms of the greed and corruption that Waters saw as dangers to society. Gilmour and Waters split vocals duties, similar to Comfortably Numb from The Wall, and they represent different characters or points of view. Gilmour is the self-serving ignorant layperson while Waters is the intellectual, responsible observer of the world's woes. However, Waters sings verses associated with Gilmour's character near the end of the song. When the album was in
demo stages the song was actually sung by Roger Waters only.
Roger: "It's a very schizophrenic song, because there's this one character singing the verses who's irritated by all this moaning about how desperate things are, and doesn't want to hear any of it anymore. There's part of me in that. Then there's this other voice which keeps harping back to earlier songs, saying 'make them laugh, make them cry, make them dance in the aisles,' which is from One of the Few. So it's a strange song." During the fadeout of the song, Waters shouts "Rule Britannia! Britannia rules the waves!" and "Hammer! Hammer! Hammer! Hammer! Now!" In The Wall's song Waiting for the Worms, it asks "Would you like to see Britannia rule again?" and repeats "Hammer!" during the outro. Many of the other songs on The Final Cut have connections to The Wall similar to this one.
The song was earmarked for a single release as it seemed to have the most energy of the songs on that album. Unfortunately, part of its energy is repeated shouts of 'F all that!' so Gilmour had to go back into the studio to change the vocals to something that could be played on the radio. The chorus line overdubbed to "stuff all that" by Gilmour and the female backing singers. That later became known as
Not Now John (Obscured Version). Of course, it was scarcely worth his while, as the single didn't get much airplay and only hit #30 in the UK. It fared slightly better in the States, hitting #7 on the Mainstream Rock Charts. Dave: "We more or less fell for a record company hype. Manager Steve O'Rourke said that American radio stations wanted Not Now John out as a single, and we just went along with it. The fact is, it still says 'F all that!' because it's just a copy of the master with me and some backing singers shouting 'stuff' a bit louder than F'.' I don't like the song at all."
In a review of The Final Cut, Kurt Loder of Rolling Stone described Not Now John as "one of the most ferocious performances Pink Floyd has ever put on record." Rachel Mann of The Quietus described Not Now John as "fun, but musically crass and obvious," further saying "this is Surrey Blues rock as vapid as the views it seeks to satirize."
The song was performed 38 times on Roger's 1987 tour.
Vulture Ranking (out of 165 songs): 34
Ultimate Classic Rock Ranking (out of 167 songs): 40
Louder Ranking (out of 50 songs): NR
WMGK Ranking (out of 40 songs): 21
Ranker Ranking (out of 132 songs): 54
Billboard Ranking (out of 50 songs): 43
Vulture Ranking (34 out of 165 songs): Some actual energy evinced on this standout track from The Final Cut. It’s not really a Pink Floyd song — this was, after all, really a Roger Waters solo album, with all of the pinched sarcasm you’d expect, not to mention the overdone backing vocals — but it’s decent even for a Waters solo track, and having Gilmour finally singing (his only vocal on the entire album) improves the listening experience immensely. The song itself is a coherent blast at what Waters saw in British society at the time, among other things the crushing of workers’ rights using dubious rationales. In the end, I really don’t get what The Final Cut is about, though I am given to understand that the cut in question was an unkind one indeed, though not as unkind as the one Waters was about to get from his longtime bandmates. Gilmour said good-bye to Waters but kept the name and successfully beat back Waters’s legal challenges. The fired Wright was brought back as a for-hire member, and two very bad Waters-free albums resulted, as we have seen. But they each sold more than 10 million units! (And that’s not to mention 12 million in live album sales, and those cost basically nothing to record.) To top it all off, Gilmour led the band into the era of the modern high-end rock tour — and grossed about $400 million in the decade after Waters left, enough money to make even Waters’s songwriting royalties look small.
UCR Ranking (40 out of 167 songs): It’s almost as if, deep into his work on The Final Cut, Waters remembered that satire could be fun (and that music could be exciting). He also seemed to recall that Gilmour was just sitting there on the bench. David makes the most of his game time on the rocking Not Now John, ferociously tearing into lyrics that are a head-spinning mix of Waters’ personal and political demons come to life. For those who tut-tut at the song for being boorish, it’s a shame they can’t bask in the pleasures of this buzz bomb, complete with female backing vocalists screaming.
WMGK Ranking (21 out of 40 songs): Much of The Final Cut felt like a Waters solo album (it was the first and only album where Waters wrote everything by himself). Not Now John was an exception - possibly because it was also the only song on the album that featured David Gillmour’s lead vocals. It’s much catchier than the rest of the album. But the prolific use of the f-bomb prevented it from being a bigger hit.
Billboard Ranking (43 out of 50 songs): Something of a Young Lust retread, to be sure — Gilmour’s guitar solo even starts off identically — but the performance is committed and gritty enough, and it’s so nice to hear a voice besides Waters’ on The Final Cut‘s back end, that Gilmour’s growl Not Now John is lent a disproportionate kind of energy and urgency. Definitely the best use of the F word on a Pink Floyd record.
With The Final Cut mostly done, we move on to a song that asks "What's the news, and where you been."