Roger Waters Wraps Opera

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Former Pink Floyd leader Roger Waters has completed Ca Ira, his long-awaited opera. After a decade of work on the project, Waters reports that "it's done and delivered" and should be available as a double-CD through Sony Classical this fall.

Ca Ira -- loosely translated as "So It Will Be" -- was inspired by the French Revolution and is the latest conceptual work from the mastermind of The Dark Side of the Moon (1973) and The Wall (1979).

Waters is considering staging Ca Ira as a concert performance in Rome this November with a full symphony, as well as adult and children's choruses. "I might conduct it," he says. "Wouldn't that be a buzz? Of course, I might need a few beta blockers before going on."

Waters has also long been at work on a rock album to follow 1992's Amused to Death, his examination of capitalism and mindless entertainment. Although he's recorded enough songs to "cobble something together and put it out tomorrow," Waters is aiming for a more coherent collection of songs. "I just keep smashing paint up against the canvas and waiting for it to make sense," he says.

While initially a meditation on love, the album has evolved to incorporate current world events. "Living in America now, I'm struggling with all those questions -- about the law, the Constitution, what's next for mankind and whether there's any moral high-ground to be had," Waters says. "Actually, it's all the same stuff I've been obsessed with since I was a teenager [laughs], so nothing new, really."

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Song Stories

“He Will Break Your Heart”

Jerry Butler | 1960

A lightly swinging Latin-influenced, almost cha-cha groove and close harmonies decorated Jerry Butler's early soul hit "He Will Break Your Heart," delivering a stately warning that his rival would never love his girl like he did. The melody came to Butler as he was driving on the highway from Atlantic City, New Jersey, to Philadelphia with Curtis Mayfield, and as Butler told Rolling Stone, "I just sang the melody and Curtis put the chords to it." The song's premise, Butler added, "was something that I'd lived ...The lyric was an experience rather than a revelation. Whereas music is usually a revelation."

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