Thank you for buying this record. What follows is its documentation: the pressing identified, the matrix / runout transcribed by hand from the dead wax, and the condition as assessed before it was listed. It is yours to keep with the record.

— Paul, Vinyl Curator

Roger Waters

The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking

1984 · Columbia FC 39290 · Stereo · US · LP · 33 1/3 RPM

Pressing details

Label	Columbia
Catalogue number	FC 39290
Year	1984
Mono / Stereo	Stereo
Country	US
Format	LP
Speed	33 1/3 RPM
Genre	Rock - Progressive Rock/Art Rock
Producer	Roger Waters, Michael Kamen
Composer	Roger Waters
Conductor	Michael Kamen
Performer / Orchestra	The National Philharmonic Orchestra
Musicians	Roger Waters (rhythm bass, guitar, vocals), Andy Bown (Hammond organ, 12-string guitar), Eric Clapton (lead guitar), Michael Kamen (piano), Andy Newmark (drums), David Sanborn (saxophone), Ray Cooper (percussion), Madeline Bell, Katie Kissoon, Doreen Chanter (backing vocals), Raphael Ravenscroft, Kevin Flanagan, Vic Sullivan (horns), The National Philharmonic Orchestra conducted and arranged by Michael Kamen

Matrix / Runout

Side A:  PAL392901F E G1 TML-M C1
Side B:  PBL392901F 0 G1 TML-M B1O

Condition

Cover: NM
Vinyl: NM-

Variant chronology

1984 - US Columbia FC 39290, uncensored cover, Pitman plant pressing
1984 - US Columbia FC 39290, uncensored cover, Carrollton (GA) plant pressing  <- this copy
1984 - US Columbia FC 39290, censored/stickered cover reissue (Pitman or Carrollton) - no premium documented, trades at or below the uncensored copies
1984 - Canada Columbia FC 39290
1984 - UK/Europe Harvest SHVL 2401051 and related territory pressings - no documented sale found for these editions

This Pressing

1984 US Columbia FC 39290 stereo - uncensored-cover copy pressed at the Columbia plant in Carrollton, Georgia, an original-era pressing alongside the Pitman-plant copies of the same release.

The Album

The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking was Roger Waters's first solo album after leaving Pink Floyd, a single continuous piece structured as the dream of a middle-aged man drifting through infidelity, anxiety and domestic routine over the course of one night. Waters conceived the record as a kind of radio play set to music, narrating the dreamer's fantasies of escape through a hitchhiking encounter intercut with memories of childhood, marriage and middle age, book-ended by lines borrowed from A.A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh. The sessions brought together an unusually starry supporting cast for a Waters project, including Eric Clapton on lead guitar and David Sanborn on saxophone, with Michael Kamen co-producing and arranging the orchestral passages for the National Philharmonic Orchestra. Arriving in the wake of The Final Cut and amid Waters's worsening rift with his former bandmates, the album was received as a bleaker, more personal extension of the themes he had already been pursuing within Pink Floyd, trading the band's wall-of-sound dynamics for a tighter, almost theatrical song cycle. Critical reaction at the time was mixed, with some reviewers finding the conceptual density and relentlessly dark tone wearying, while others praised its ambition and the quality of the musicianship, particularly Clapton's playing. In the years since it has come to be regarded by Waters's admirers as an important bridge between his Pink Floyd writing and his subsequent solo work, and a key document of his preoccupations with memory, paranoia and fractured relationships.

Tracklist

Side 1

1. 4.30 AM (Apparently They Were Travelling Abroad)
2. 4.33 AM (Running Shoes)
3. 4.37 AM (Arabs With Knives And West German Skies)
4. 4.39 AM (For The First Time Today, Part 2)
5. 4.41 AM (Sexual Revolution)
6. 4.47 AM (The Remains Of Our Love)

Side 2

1. 4.50 AM (Go Fishing)
2. 4.56 AM (For The First Time Today, Part 1)
3. 4.58 AM (Dunroamin, Duncarin, Dunlivin)
4. 5.01 AM (The Pros And Cons Of Hitch Hiking Part 10)
5. 5.06 AM (Every Strangers Eyes)
6. 5.11 AM (The Moment Of Clarity)

The Label

Side one carries a pale-yellow ground shading into an orange band, orange-red and brown lettering, and a single Columbia eye trademark beside the Marcas Reg. line; side two shows a pale blue-grey ground over mauve-pink with coral-red script and the same single eye trademark. Both labels print AL/BL 39290, © and ℗ 1984 CBS Inc., and 'Printed in U.S.A.' - a design and copyright date that did not exist before 1984, so this pressing cannot predate that year. Columbia used this CBS Inc. credit line from the mid-1970s into the late 1980s, placing the design squarely in the label's standard 1984-era Columbia format rather than any later reissue redesign. The runout etchings point to the Columbia pressing plant at Carrollton, Georgia rather than the plant at Pitman, New Jersey that also pressed this catalogue number, putting this copy alongside - not ahead of - the Pitman-plant copies of the same first issue.

Fidelity

The album was mastered by Doug Sax and Mike Reese at the Mastering Lab in Los Angeles, a facility well regarded among collectors for clean, dynamic cuts of 1980s rock and pop masters. This Carrollton-plant pressing sits alongside the contemporaneous Pitman-plant copies as part of the same original US issue rather than a later remaster, and collectors generally treat all first-year US Columbia copies of this title as sonically equivalent regardless of which domestic plant pressed them. There is no widely recognized audiophile reissue of this title that outranks the original Mastering Lab cut, so a clean original pressing such as this remains the reference copy for the album.

Notes

This is a 1984 US Columbia stereo pressing of FC 39290, identified as a Carrollton, Georgia plant pressing by its runout etchings rather than the Pitman plant that also produced this catalogue number in the same year. The front cover shows the nude image uncovered, matching the title's original uncensored jacket rather than the later stickered/censored reissue of the same number. The label's 1984 CBS Inc. copyright line is itself proof the copy cannot be older than that year, and its design matches the standard Columbia format used across the mid-1980s rather than any later reissue redesign. The runout suffix details on this copy do not match any of the three stamper combinations specifically logged for this release, indicating a stamper pairing from the same Carrollton pressing run that was not individually catalogued.

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