NOT NOW JOHN/THE HERO'S RETURN (PART 2)

One of the best tracks off The Final Cut along with an unreleased sequel to The Hero's Return. I'd love to give it a higher mark but The Hero's Return (Part 2) isn't really that amazing and Not Now John is somewhat tainted by the hideously dubbed on "Stuff all that!" to keep it radio friendly.

A rediculous release from a fine album. Not sure why Waters or Floyd thought this release might get some mileage because editing ' Fuck all that..' to ' Stuff all that' was as laughable as black censor strips on Waters first solo cover of Pros and Cons of Hitch hiking. The song is poor even with Gilmour's input but in the album's context much better. The ' Hero's return Part 2' for diehards only. Occassionally blatant ' Have a Cigar' music company tactics kick your front teeth in..this is one such occasion.

"Stuff all that"? Um, okay. This single version of "Not Now John" just doesn't cut it. This is one of the fine parts of a sometimes tedious album, and it has been debased by the change. 1 star for having the gall to censor Roger Water's original vision. Disn't work on "Who are You" and doesn't work here. "The Hero's Return (Part 2)": I actually like this additional part to the original album version. A "Shell-shocked Lunatic!". Perfect. However, this is pretty short and barely qualifies as a song in itself so I can't justify over 3 stars. For this entire single: 2 stars. For collector's and rabid fans only.

'Not Now John' - Pink Floyd (Single)

Of perhaps all of the Pink Floyd singles, this has been the least effective of them all. While Floyd's follow-up to 'The Wall' was controversial and polarizing enough among the fanbase, it is hard to think that this single would have lightened the load at all. 'Not Now John' is a musically uninspired track that may be noteworthy only for its use of expletives again and again throughout the piece. With Waters and Gilmour sharing vocal duties, one can even hear the sense of tension between the two of them as they switch off throughout the tedious and uneventful track. Although things are fairly well-arranged as is par for Floyd's work, it does feel as if the gospel choirs and soulful guitar solos are being used to cover up what is otherwise a fairly bland and boring piece of songwriting. 'The Hero's Return' is not much better here, being a more acoustic-based Roger Waters track that is pleasant enough and surely better in the context of the album, but here, it doesn't work well at all. One only wonders why they would have chosen this as a single to represent their album.

The worst Pink Floyd album also boasts the worst single which is really worthless, even down to the sleeve design. It is a clean version of Not Now John, but still as awful as the one on Water's unofficial solo album "The Final Cut".

The B side is the dreadful The Heroe's Return and it feels like something you should leave off an album, and in fact it was. The outtakes of The Wall should have remained hidden and if they had surfaced as bonus tracks on The Wall CDs years later perhaps it would have been more forgiveable but this album and this single is the absolute pits. Detestable and pointless.

Two songs from the album "The Final Cut", but with some differences in comparison to the album versions, to be released in this single.

The "clean" version of "Not Now John" replaces the use of that "terrible" four letters word which stars with "F" in the phrase "F*** all that " with a more "simple" "Stuff all that" phrase to allow the song to be played without censorship in the radio. I don`t know if this song was played in the radio even with that change, but I can`t remember if it was played in the radio stations in my city. "The Final Cut" album is maybe the only album which was released under the PINK FLOYD`s name which is one of the most forgotten albums by some fans, being really more a solo album from Roger Waters than anything else, But in this song, the heaviest from that album, at least one could listen to David Gilmour sharing lead vocals with Roger Waters, and to some very good guitars by Gilmour plus some very good drums by Nick Mason. The rest of the album songs were sung by Waters alone and despite having some good playing from Gilmour and Mason still sounded more like songs from a Roger Waters`solo album. So, maybe the main reasons to release this song in the "A" side of this single was to give the impression that the band still was a "real" band and that it was the srongest song from that album. Maybe the female backing singers who only appeared in this song from that album were no credited in the back cover of that album to avoid their "shame" of being listened repeating that "terrible word which stars with F" several times during this song. But in this single version they sing along with Gilmour and Waters "Stuff all that" instead. Obviously all the vocals in this single version were edited a bit, or maybe all were re-recorded to change that part of the lyrics to "Stuff all that", and maybe I`m wrong but I also could listen to some mixing differences in comparison to the album`s version.

"The Hero`s Return (Parts 1 and 2)" in this single has an additional final verse which extends the lenght of the song for one more minute. This song is also a good song but again it sounds more like a song from a Roger Waters`s solo album. In this extended version the song sounds very well too.

For collectors and fans only.

Where to begin with this one. I should start out by saying that this is my favorite song from the abysmal The Final Cut from 1983. It was the sole number that made me have at least some sort of iota of faith that Pink Floyd still retained some small qualities of a unified music group. But this single release in itself is worse than the album it originally came on.

First things first, there are two tracks on this single. One of them is obviously 'Not Now John', and the other is a more obscure and much less enjoyable second part to 'The Hero's Return'. The latter is a boring, Waters led song that really signifies how air-headed the entire release was, and thus it ins't very enjoyable. That, under any normal circumstances, would be fine as long as we have the definitive main track leading the way. Instead of the strong original song, however, we get a chopped up, censored version that was obviously meant to be used as radio fuel. The iconic swap of '[%*!#] all that' is now replaced with 'stuff all that', which, as many others have stated before, is one of the worst musical censorships I have seen. Not to mention the original revels in the use of curse words to convey it's strength to the listener. In this bad, child-friendly version, that it swept away to make way for a money hungry release that was outputted as quickly as possible to perhaps strike another 'Another Brick in the Wall'.

This is undoubtedly the best example of a horrendous single release. If you which to listen to the song, search it up online. If you wish to go one step further, then buy the album. I do not recommend this single to anyone, but if I were to, it would only be to the die-hard fans of the band.