Smell the Roses
2017 single by Roger Waters
"Smell the Roses" is a song by English rock musician and former Pink Floyd member Roger Waters, and the ninth track on his fifth studio album, Is This the Life We Really Want? It was released as a single on 20 April 2017, and the album was released on 2 June 2017, by Columbia Records.
In an interview, Waters said of the song: "“Smell the Roses” is almost an afterthought. It’s Nigel going, “Oh fuck, you’ve written all these ballads, thank God we’ve done some jams. Could you please write some words to this thing?” “What thing?” “Oh, that thing in E.” “Do I have to?” “Yeah.” So I wrote that song four or five times and then eventually I said, “I’ve had this idea, which I think might work. What if Battersea Power Station is a munitions factory? And also it’s where we torture people? And it’s also this, and that, and the other, and we wrap everything up?” “Whatever, just write it!” So that’s it. It’s the image of this malevolent presence."
The track marks the first music from Waters' first album in 25 years and his first record of new studio material since 1992's Amused to Death.
“Smell the Roses” enters the record as 2017 single by Roger Waters. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Smell, Roses and single can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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