Album Review

The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking is the first solo album by Roger Waters; it was released in 1984, the year before Waters announced his departure from Pink Floyd. The album was certified gold in the United States by the Recording Industry Association of America in April 1995.

The concept, as envisioned by Waters in 1977, rotated around a man's scattered thoughts during a road trip through California, focusing on his midlife crisis, and how he dreams of committing adultery with a hitchhiker he picks up along the way. Along the way he also faces other fears and paranoia, with all of these things taking place in real time in the early morning hours of 04:30:18 am to 05:12 am on an unspecified day.

In July 1978, Waters played some of the music demos of what he had pieced together, but he also played parts of another album he was preparing titled Bricks in the Wall to the rest of his bandmates in the group Pink Floyd. After a long debate, they decided that they preferred the concept of Bricks in the Wall instead, even though their manager at the time, Steve O'Rourke, thought that Pros and Cons was a better-sounding concept, and David Gilmour calling Pros and Cons stronger musically.

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. -Roger Waters

Bricks in the Wall, retitled The Wall, became the next Pink Floyd album in 1979, and Waters shelved Pros and Cons. In early 1983, Waters undertook the shelved project himself. The album was recorded in three different studios between February and December 1983 in London, the Olympic Studios, Eel Pie Studios and in Waters' own Billiard Room, the studio where his demos were constructed. The album features musical conductor Michael Kamen, the vocal talents of actor Jack Palance, saxophonist David Sanborn and rock and blues guitarist Eric Clapton.

Track 7, 4.50 am (Go Fishing) includes the same refrain as ''The Fletcher Memorial Home'' from Pink Floyd's The Final Cut uses for the line: ''The Fletcher Memorial Home for incurable tyrants and kings''. This song also includes one of the car sounds and the slightly changed chorus melody from that album's ''Your Possible Pasts''.

As the original album was released in 1984 on the traditional two-sided vinyl LP and cassette formats, in keeping with Waters' concept there are a few seconds missing between sides one and two, allowing the listener to flip the record (or turn the cassette), thus keeping the second half starting at exactly 4:50 am as planned. When the album was released on CD a few years later however, this short gap was lost due to continuous play, throwing the time back a couple of seconds. Also, the times for ''4:37 am (Arabs With Knives and West German Skies)'' and ''4:47 am (The Remains of Our Love)'' on the first side are incorrect: the songs begin a couple of seconds earlier than indicated, as they start during the seconds of ''4:36 AM'' and ''4:46 AM'', respectively.

Gerald Scarfe, who had created the album artwork and some animation for Pink Floyd's The Wall album, created all the graphics and animation for the Pros and Cons album. Its cover prompted controversy for featuring a rear-view nude photograph of model and softcore pornography actress Linzi Drew. Although it was originally released with the nudity intact, subsequent editions distributed by Columbia Records censored Drew's buttocks with a black box.

'Roger's a very different sort of person [i.e. different from Eric Clapton or David Gilmour, described as easygoing]. I have tremendous respect for him. He's a very clever man, but he is very serious. When Eric and I toured with him, he wanted everything exactly the same as the record, which, unfortunately, kind of took the fun out of performing.' -Tim Renwick, guitar player

A film based on the concept was proposed, and in 1987 a press release for the Radio K.A.O.S. album claimed a film adaptation of Pros and Cons... had been completed, though nothing has been heard of it since. The screenplay was written by BBC/Radio Times Drama Award winner Pete Ward, who used excerpts from Waters' songs/lyrics from 1967 to 1987 as background to his award-winning play, Yesterday's Triumph, exploring the 20-year relationship of two close friends - one who attempts to fake mental illness to be with the other, who is an institutionalized 'catastrophic schizophrenic'. Ward was commissioned to expand the plot and characters in The Pros and Cons around the album's 42-minute real-time dream sequence based on Waters' own dreams.

A film was made in 1984 and 1985 which combined Gerald Scarfe's animations and Nicolas Roeg's live-action footage with Slit-scan photography created by Peter Truckel at The Moving Picture Company. Also directed by Nicolas Roeg the film was projected on a backdrop behind the stage as the band played. Three promotional videos were also directed by Roeg. ''The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking'' features snippets of the live action material from the screen films interspersed with footage of ''Shane'' and other cowboy films. ''Sexual Revolution'' also featured screen film material interspersed with footage Waters singing the song and playing his bass. ''Every Stranger's Eyes'' is identical to the screen projection, except for the fact that footage of Waters is also interspersed here. [wikipedia.org]