Pink Floyd - The Wall
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Artist: Pink FloydBrand: EMI
Edition: Music CD
Audio: English (Original Language)
Published: 2002
CD Release Date: 2000-04-25
Music Label: Capitol
Product features:
- PINK FLOYD THE WALL (2CDS) (DVERSION)
Music CD 1
- In The Flesh? - Pink Floyd
- The Thin Ice - Pink Floyd
- Another Brick In The Wall, Part 1 - Pink Floyd
- The Happiest Days Of Our Lives - Pink Floyd
- Another Brick In The Wall, Part 2 - Pink Floyd
- Mother - Pink Floyd
- Goodbye Blue Sky - Pink Floyd
- Empty Spaces - Pink Floyd
- Young Lust
- One Of My Turns
- Don't Leave Me Now
- Another Brick In The Wall (Part III)
- Goodbye Cruel World
- Hey You
- Is There Anybody Out There?
- Nobody Home
- Vera
- Bring the Boys Back Home
- Comfortably Numb
- The Show Must Go On
- In The Flesh - Pink Floyd
- Run Like Hell - Pink Floyd
- Waiting For The Worms - Pink Floyd
- Stop - Pink Floyd
- The Trial - Pink Floyd
- Outside The Wall - Pink Floyd
Music reviews of The Wall
Music Review: A tad overrated, a tad overplayed, but by no means a poor effort
Rating: 4 Stars
The format of The Wall, a double-album released by Pink Floyd in 1979 under the primary direction of Roger Waters, is surprising - it's not a concept album in the same way that The Dark Side of the Moon and Animals are. It's much more akin to the format and storyline of a rock opera, the likes of which are best represented by the famous Who releases Tommy and Quadrophenia and, more recently, Green Day's American Idiot.
The Wall opens somewhat mildly with "In the Flesh?" but it explodes into a heavy, pumping Floyd number less than halfway through. From the moment Roger Waters begins to sing, one gets the Tommy-esque feeling of a rock opera. The album follows the story of a rock star, cleverly named Pink, who builds a wall to isolate himself from the soundaholic world. The song ends with the cries of an infant, as the look into Pink's past begins.
"The Thin Ice" is a nice, typically cynical number warning Pink not to be surprised if the thin ice he walks on cracks beneath him. It's not a standout, but little on this album is - it's a rock opera. What do you expect?
"Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 1", however, is a standout. It begins the trilogy of songs based around the same melody and introduces it as a theme, a leitmotif for the increasingly disillusioned Pink and is a very solid, masterful song.
It leads into the ironically named "The Happiest Days of Our Lives", which sounds almost apocalyptic with the sound of propellers, the growling vocals of Waters, and the organ playing some theme of doom. The Wall is rich with these sorts of ominous-sounding numbers.
"Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 2" immediately follows, opening with a scream of frustration. This may be one of Pink Floyd's better-known and most often quoted songs, featuring the voices of a children's choir. The song seems to be about the oppressive schooled upbringing of Pink, which tried to blot out his creative expression. The line "We don't need no thought control" is especially indicative of this concept, and is a theme that Waters seems to revisit frequently in his work after The Wall.
The sounds of a telephone signal come into the next song, "Mother". It's rather disconcerting, as it takes the image of a loving, nurturing mother and twists it into the image of a mother who is so nurturing that she tries to control everything in Pink's life. It's a soft ballad that forces the listener to pay attention to the meaning, which is prototypical of later Waters works and at the same time reminiscent of the 1971 album Meddle.
"Goodbye Blue Sky" again returns to the theme suggested in "The Happiest Days of Our Lives": that of the Luftwaffe bombing of England during the early years of World War II. An innocent English child, over the sound of distant propeller engines, proclaims, "Look, mummy, there's an aeroplane up in the sky!" before the soft vocals enter to ask the "why?" questions of the bombs falling on England. It's a beautiful song.
"Empty Spaces" continues from there, pondering what Pink would have to do to fill the holes in his life. Roger Waters, being a rock star himself, doubtless made The Wall somewhat autobiographical - in fact, his father was killed in World War II - and seems to be writing about how empty a life of fame and adoration can be.
The next song, "Young Lust", slams into the theme of carnal desire as Pink seeks to fill the emptiness with sex to try to make everything feel better and fuller. It's a pretty good rock number, really, quite atypical of normal Pink Floyd.
"One of My Turns" preludes the actual sung vocals with the voice of a groupie talking to Pink and trying to get in bed with him, but Pink is unresponsive, eyes glued to the television. Finally, as the actual song begins, the lyrics indicate Pink's devastating rant about how he feels depressed and lifeless and makes allusions to death, then - as the song kicks into overdrive - begins asking what she wants: "Would you like to watch T.V.? / Or get between the sheets? / Or contemplate the silent freeway? / Would you like something to eat? / Would you like to learn to fly? /Would'ya? /Would you like to see me try?" At the end of the song, the horrified groupie flees from him, and he wonders why she's leaving.
"Don't Leave Me Now" focuses on Pink's feelings of loneliness and abandonment. It's a soft-spoken piece that, again, requires concentration. The song ends with more voices and chatter.
Again, the scream of Pink - more intense this time - signals the beginning of a new part of "Another Brick in the Wall", now Pt. 3. Barely over a minute long, this vignette illustrates Pink's belief that everyone is a brick in the wall.
"Goodbye Cruel World" is also short and difficult to interpret. It sounds as if it could be about suicide, but in the context of the album, it is Pink's farewell to the world as he finishes his wall to shut out reality.
Disc 2 begins with "Hey You", on which David Gilmour plays bass while Roger Waters takes over lead guitar duty. The song is an increasingly desperate plea to be felt, heard, touched, helped, and above all else, understood. It's an excellent song and a definite highlight of the album.
"Is There Anybody Out There?" is an inquiring acoustic number as Pink wonders if anyone is left. The wall seems to just make him feel even more lonely and trapped than before. He probably should have taken that into account before building it...but then this album wouldn't ever exist.
"Nobody Home" contains an allusion back to Animals, with Waters being a "dog", and juxtaposes everything surrounding him with the overall theme of meaninglessness. Nothing holds any value for him.
It transitions cleanly into "Vera", about a love that Pink once held who left from his life. He remembers her and wonders what's become of her, ending with the lines "Does anybody else in here / Feel the way I do?"
"Bring The Boys Back Home" is Waters's somewhat obligatory vague political protest statement until entering into the setup for "Comfortably Numb", with repeated knocking on a door and the call, "Time to go-o!"
This transitions right into "Comfortably Numb", inspired by the feeling of numbness that David Gilmour had when he was struck with fever as a child (the reference is even made in the song's lyrics). It's a fairly gentle, flowing song melodically, somewhat recalling the feel of "Us and Them" from The Dark Side of the Moon. My interpretation of the song is that it's about Pink's disengagement from reality at a concert, echoing Syd Barrett's mental disorder and drug-induced habit of going catatonic, detuning his guitar, and/or playing the wrong song at live shows.
"The Show Must Go On", in turn, echoes the resigned determination with which the rest of Barrett's band kept on playing despite their leader's incapacitation as Pink relinquishes his hold on reality. But it's from Pink's perspective as he wonders why he can't just go home and if it's too late to get his "soul" back.
Returning to the theme with which The Wall kicks off, "In the Flesh" thunders to life as Pink snaps and assumes the role of a Hitler-esque dictator. The song is heavy and dark; the lyrics begin as this caricatured alterego of Pink renounces relation to his true or former self - "Pink isn't well he stayed back at the hotel / And they sent us along as a surrogate band" - and then begins to insult and deride the minorities in the audience, declaring at last, "If I had my way I'd have all of you shot" before the song segues into the next.
"Run Like Hell" begins with funky keyboard effects, then percussion, then the guitar work of Pink Floyd. The band really showcases their brilliance here. Pink breaks down and flees here, but truly the focus of this movement of the album is now on the music. The lyrics are paranoid and manic for Pink's shattered mind, and towards the end of the song the sounds of an angry crowd, squealing brakes, manic laughter, and the scream that opened "Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 2" can all be heard.
"Waiting For the Worms" bizarrely opens with a Doobie-like "ooh-ooh-ooh" section, briefly. Pink has been caught and jailed, and, as the song's name suggests, he's "waiting for the worms" (previously alluded to in "Hey You") to eat through him. The "I Am The Walrus"-like vocal distortion used in Animals' "Pigs (Three Different Ones)" is used for Pink's insane monologuing that echoes the concentration camps of the Holocaust. The "Another Brick in the Wall" leitmotif also makes a reappearance in a few sections. Darkly, the song whispers into Pink's brain, offering him the deluded power that might have taken hold of Adolf Hitler.
"Stop" lasts only thirty seconds, but is long enough for Pink to break free of this alterego. He cries out, "Stop!" and the whispers are gone.
"The Trial" isn't a personal favorite of mine. It sounds like a scene from a musical, with Pink on trial and lawyers with exaggerated English accents sing-songing the court proceedings and their arguments. Interestingly, the judge is referred to as "worm" along with "Your Honor". The line, "Crazy...he is crazy..." repeats again and again, the familiar leitmotif of "Another Brick in the Wall" appears again, and the voice of the "worm" judge echoes in a sinister way. The song ends with his demand to tear down the wall, echoed by the people gathered in the courtroom over a full, orchestral performance of the ominous theme. The sound of explosions demolishing the wall ends the song.
With genuine wonderment, The Wall emerges into its closing song, "Outside the Wall", with Pink narrating the start of his new life outside the wall as the children's choir sings in the background. The song doesn't quite last two minutes, and has no strong musical backing to speak of.
In an interesting note, the words "Isn't this where -" quickly spoken at the end of "Outside the Wall" join up with the words that open "In the Flesh?", "We came in?" This suggests that the concept behind The Wall is circular and that the story might simply repeat itself again and again, cyclic.
I don't like it as well as The Dark Side of the Moon or Wish You Were Here, or even Animals, and I doubt I ever will...it seems too long, and the whole "Hitler" thing just seems bizarre to me. But it's still a good album, with an especially strong first disc, and is still worth the buy. The Wall really marks the last strong group effort of Pink Floyd, as The Final Cut is (admittedly) a treatise by Roger Waters performed by Pink Floyd.
If you listen carefully, you can still hear that old connection to Meddle - the whale song from "Echoes" even makes an appearance. It's a nice throwback and it's good to remember that this is really still the same Pink Floyd, just a few years older and a lifetime more embittered.
Description of The Wall
1994 digital re-master of Pink Floyd's classic "The Wall".The Wall is less a collection of songs than a single work, which is sometimes frustrating; the plot lacks enough coherence to hold the snippets of music together. However, there are occasional flashes of brilliance on what ranks as Pink Floyd's most ambitious project. Most of these come from the fully developed songs, which have become classics in their own right. "Hey You," "Mother," and especially "Comfortably Numb" are subtle, incredible pieces of music. Though complex, they move at a relaxed pace, allowing the listener to absorb them slowly; this kind of pacing was something Pink Floyd excelled at. Also worth noting is the "Another Brick in the Wall/The Happiest Days of Our Lives" medley, which has become a staple of rock radio. --Genevieve Williams
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