Roger Waters’ Lost Collaboration with Flea

As a result of that reputation, musicians around the world essentially lined up for the chance to collaborate with the legendary songwriter. During the 1990s, when he was working on his solo album Laughed to deathWaters recruited more than a few eager helping hands. One of those who came aboard the project was Flea, the wild bassist at the heart of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Fortunately, Waters was working on the album at the same time that the Peppers were at their commercial peak, giving Flea the chance to work with one of his heroes.

The most significant of Flea’s involvement on Amused to Death was in playing a bass line for the album’s penultimate track, “It’s A Miracle.” During a 1992 interview, Waters reflected on the production of his third solo album and the Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist’s contributions. “We based it on the rhythm of the middle of ‘Late Home Tonight,'” he recalled, before adding, “We did a very uptempo version and Flea played a great bass line, but it wasn’t good.”

Despite Flea’s seemingly “great” performance, he was cut from the final tracklisting of Amused To Death. In fact, it was Waters himself who ended up playing bass on the final version of ‘It’s A Miracle’, alongside the legendary style of Jeff Beck on guitar. Waters further explained of the production process: “Pat Leonard started playing it on piano at halftime, and I started singing it at the tempo that it exists at now. I put the cassette in the car and got this buzz; I was blown away.”

“I played it six times on the way home,” he continued, “and then I sat out and played it three more times, just because I loved it. And then two days later I brought Jeff Porcaro in, and he played those drums, which were amazing. And that was that.” Clearly, Flea’s bass line didn’t have the same effect on Waters, with the songwriter preferring his own version of the bass for ‘It’s A Miracle’.

The demo version of ‘It’s A Miracle’, featuring Flea, has never been released since it was first recorded in 1992. The song probably still exists on tape somewhere, but it is not yet known whether fans of Waters and Flea will ever be able to hear the Red Hot Chili Peppers musician’s contributions to the song.

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