Photo. Roger Waters from This Is Not a Drill concert at Fornebu Arena in Oslo, Norway, on the 11th April 2023.
Waters wrote it during the COVID lockdown period, around 2021, and introduced it on his This Is Not a Drill tour. It was later officially released as part of This Is Not a Drill – Live From Prague in 2025.
Rather than creating a place where we become "another brick in the wall", he invites us into an imaginary bar where everyone has a seat. Friends and strangers. The fortunate and the forgotten. People with different histories, beliefs and political views. It is a place where conversation matters more than victory, and where listening may be more important than speaking.
Roger Waters is, in my view, one of rock music's most difficult figures to define. Throughout his career he has been admired as a passionate advocate for peace and human rights, while also criticised for political statements that many regard as divisive or inflammatory.
So who is Roger Waters today? One of rock's greatest songwriters? A political activist? A campaigner for peace? A deeply divisive public figure? Perhaps he is all of those things at once.
After listening repeatedly to his recent song The Bar, I found myself returning to that question. The song's central message is one of dialogue, compassion and shared humanity, yet it sits alongside a public persona that continues to divide opinion. It is precisely that tension that makes The Bar such a fascinating piece of work.
From building walls to opening doors
On the surface, it feels like one of the most hopeful ideas Waters has written in years. Yet it also raises an uncomfortable question. Can Roger Waters truly play the role of diplomat and peacekeeper?
Throughout his career he has never hidden his political convictions. On the contrary, he has chosen sides in some of the world's most bitter and deeply contested conflicts. His outspoken statements have earned admiration from supporters and fierce criticism from opponents. Some regard him as a courageous defender of peace and human rights; others believe his comments have become divisive and, at times, inflammatory. That is the paradox at the heart of The Bar.
The song asks people with opposing views to sit together, yet its author remains one of popular music's most polarising political voices. Waters invites dialogue, but many listeners question whether he always leaves room for it himself.
Perhaps that contradiction is unavoidable. Artists are not diplomats. Diplomats seek compromise; artists often provoke, challenge and force uncomfortable conversations. Waters has spent more than fifty years doing exactly that.
I first heard The Bar, in its two parts, during the This Is Not a Drill concert at Fornebu Arena in Oslo, Norway, on the 11th April 2023. Even then, it stood apart from the rest of the performance. Amid songs about war, oppression and political power, this new piece felt quieter and more reflective. It did not abandon Waters' anger, but it suggested that conversation might achieve something confrontation cannot.
The song itself moves from society to the individual. It begins with injustice, homelessness, forgotten people and our shared responsibility before turning towards love, family, memory and loss. Along the way, Waters reflects on his wife, Kamilah, his late brother John and, most poignantly, his father, Lieutenant Eric Fletcher Waters.
Roger Waters was only five months old when his father was killed during the Battle of Anzio in February 1944. His body was never recovered, and he is commemorated on the Cassino Memorial in Italy. That absence became one of the defining influences on Waters' life and songwriting, inspiring works such as When the Tigers Broke Free and shaping the deeply personal, anti-war themes that run through The Final Cut.
Those memories give the second part of The Bar an emotional weight that reaches beyond politics. It is no longer simply a song about conflict and injustice, but about the lasting human cost of war, and how loss echoes through families and across generations.
In many ways, The Bar feels like an older Roger Waters responding to the younger man who wrote The Wall. The Wall asks what happens when pain drives us to isolate ourselves. The Bar asks what might happen if we chose connection instead.
Whether Waters himself always lives up to that ideal is open to debate. His critics would argue that his public interventions often deepen divisions rather than narrow them. His supporters would reply that peace is impossible without confronting uncomfortable truths. The answer probably lies somewhere between those positions.
Music undoubtedly has the power to unite people, but it can also sharpen disagreements. Protest songs rarely end wars. They do, however, influence how people think about them. Waters has always understood that. His greatest contribution may not be changing the course of history, but encouraging audiences to question authority, challenge accepted narratives and reflect on their own responsibilities.
That is why The Bar is so compelling. It is not simply another political song. It is an invitation, perhaps an imperfect one to imagine a place where disagreement does not have to end in hatred.
Whether Roger Waters succeeds in creating that space is for each listener to decide. But the image remains a powerful one. Where The Wall ended with isolation, The Bar begins with a chair waiting for the next stranger to sit down.
Stein Morten Lund, 6th September 2026
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