I too have been wondering about that final refrain: "Is everyone in?" And "Now the Final Solution [caps?] can be applied." I really don't imagine that Roger Waters would intentionally trivialise the Holocaust, no. But I do not know whether he is suggesting that the Nazis' Final Solution be carried out ironically within the Fletcher Memorial home on the likes of Hitler – advocating the extermination of these "incurable tyrants" and "colonial wasters", which would be an expression of support for the death penalty (albeit in what Waters sees as extreme circumstances, they being beyond redemption). Or whether he is instead appropriating the Nazi's phrase for something else (in the way the 'suffragettes' empowered themselves by taking on this label applied to them by a sneering right-wing press; or the way gay people have adopted words that once demeaned them) – specifically using the phrase to mean some great work to repair the world that can only be undertaken once we've rid ourselves of these hideous people by locking them all up. I assumed the latter originally, the home being (patronisingly) comfortable – I thought that Waters meant let's lock them all away and then we can get on with sorting out the mess. Now I'm older and more cynical, I wonder if he didn't actually mean the former – lure them into the home then, when we've got them all, do unto them what the worst of them intended for the innocents. Either way, it's a powerful song on a great album.
I too have been wondering about that final refrain: "Is everyone in?" And "Now the Final Solution [caps?] can be applied." I really don't imagine that Roger Waters would intentionally trivialise the Holocaust, no. But I do not know whether he is suggesting that the Nazis' Final Solution be carried out ironically within the Fletcher Memorial home on the likes of Hitler – advocating the extermination of these "incurable tyrants" and "colonial wasters", which would be an expression of support for the death penalty (albeit in what Waters sees as extreme circumstances, they being beyond redemption). Or whether he is instead appropriating the Nazi's phrase for something else (in the way the 'suffragettes' empowered themselves by taking on this label applied to them by a sneering right-wing press; or the way gay people have adopted words that once demeaned them) – specifically using the phrase to mean some great work to repair the world that can only be undertaken once we've rid ourselves of these hideous people by locking them all up. I assumed the latter originally, the home being (patronisingly) comfortable – I thought that Waters meant let's lock them all away and then we can get on with sorting out the mess. Now I'm older and more cynical, I wonder if he didn't actually mean the former – lure them into the home then, when we've got them all, do unto them what the worst of them intended for the innocents. Either way, it's a powerful song on a great album.