Your Possible Pasts


"Your Possible Pasts" is a song from Pink Floyd's 1983 album The Final Cut. This song was one of several to be considered for the band's "best of" album, .

Background

The song, like many others on The Final Cut, is a rewritten version of a song rejected for The Wall, originally to be used in Spare Bricks Guitarist David Gilmour objected to the use of these previously rejected tracks, as he believed that they weren't good enough for release:
Despite not appearing on The Wall album, the lyrics of the chorus did appear in the film for said album, Pink Floyd – The Wall, where the lyrics were read by the main character, Pink, in-between the songs "Waiting for the Worms" and "Stop".
"Your Possible Pasts" also appeared on a 12-inch promotional single entitled Selections from The Final Cut, with "The Final Cut" on the B-side. However, despite not being released as a commercial single, the song did receive significant radio play, resulting in the song hitting number 8 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart in America.

Lyrics

The first verse describes poppies entwining with "cattle trucks lying in wait for the next time", an allusion to the railway vehicles used in The Holocaust.
The line "Do you remember me, how we used to be?" originally appeared in the song "Incarceration of a Flower Child", written by Waters in 1968. Neither Pink Floyd nor Waters recorded the song; however, it was recorded by Marianne Faithfull in 1999 for her album Vagabond Ways.

Reception

AllMusic critic Stewart Mason said of the song:
Chris Ott of Pitchfork Media described the song as:

Personnel

with: