Roger Waters Say He Hopes People Will Hear “Comfortably Numb” Remake With Palestinian Singer as “Prophetic”

Roger Waters and his Palestinian musical collaborator on a new version of “Comfortably Numb,” Mona Miari, discussed their hopes for the release and the continuing accusations of anti-Semitism that have followed him for years and been rekindled since his speaking out against Israel’s recent actions in Gaza. For “Comfortably Number Re-Imagined,” (stream below) released in June, Waters told WIRED in an interview published Monday that he hopes people will “hear that it was prophetic — there is a right and a wrong. This is not complicated, and this song is on the right side of history.” The new take on the 1979 Pink Floyd song off The Wall is re-envisioned as a tribute to the Palestinian people and Gaza and features a change to the refrain that makes the culminating lyric, “I will never become comfortably numb.” Miari sings in Arabic throughout the more than nine-minute remake in one verse vocalizing “When I was young I dreamed of freedom/ Hope blazes fierce in everything I am/ Like roots breaking through the rubble/ We shape our fate/ Our light will break the darkness/ We are the promise of a new dawn.” “I hope they’ll go ‘Phew,’” Waters continued, “they were part of the resistance, an...