"Two Suns in the Sunset" is the closing track on Pink Floyd's 1983 concept album The Final Cut, and Roger Waters' final chronological contribution to the band, before leaving in 1985.
Since there was no promotional tour for The Final Cut, and this album was entirely ignored by Gilmour, Wright and Mason during the tours for A Momentary Lapse of Reason and The Division Bell, "Two Suns in the Sunset" was never performed live by Pink Floyd. However, Roger Waters, as a solo artist, premiered the song almost 35 years after its release in a concert from the Us + Them Tour, held on 17 October 2018 at Itaipava Arena Fonte Nova in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. Waters also played it in 2022 on his 2022–23 show This Is Not a Drill.
Partway through the song, the lyric "the sun is in the east, even though the day is done" refers to the glowing fireball of a nuclear explosion. The song was partly inspired by Andrzej Wajda's movie Ashes and Diamonds (Polish: Popiół i Diament)
Session drummer Andy Newmark plays drums on this song, as Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason felt unable to perform its complex time signature changes. The song begins and ends in 9/8 time, while the majority of the song is in 4/4 (or "common time"), and it is punctuated with added measures of 7/8 and 3/8. Adding to the complexity, the main theme of the rhythm guitar has chords changing emphatically in dotted eighth notes, so three eighth-note beats are divided equally in two. This is not unlike what "Mother", from the previous Pink Floyd album, The Wall, does, and on that song, Mason relinquished the drumming duties, in that case to Jeff Porcaro.
Roger Waters – vocals, acoustic guitar, bass guitar, scream, sound effects
David Gilmour – electric guitar
with:
Andy Newmark – drums
Andy Bown – Hammond organ
Raphael Ravenscroft – saxophone
Michael Kamen – piano
Written by: George Roger Waters
Album: The Final Cut
Released: 1983
Two Suns in the Sunset
Pink Floyd
In my rear view mirror
The sun is going down
Sinking behind bridges in the road
I think of all the good things
That we have left undone
And I suffer premonitions
Confirm suspicions
Of the holocaust to come
The rusty wire that holds the cork
That keeps the anger in
Gives way and suddenly
It's day again
The sun is in the east
Even though the day is done
Two suns in the sunset
Could be the human race is run?
Like the moment when the brakes lock
And you slide towards the big truck (oh no)
You stretch the frozen moments with your fear
And you'll never hear their voices (daddy, daddy!)
And you'll never see their faces
You have no recourse to the law anymore
As the windshield melts and my tears evaporate
Leaving only charcoal to defend
Finally I understand the feelings of the few
Ashes and diamonds
Foe and friend
We were all equal in the end
