Description of The Wall I
Nathan Stohler
December 13, 1995
Making Sense of The Wall
On November 30, 1979, Pink Floyd released their famous concept album, The Wall. More than
two and a half years later, a movie by the same title premiered. Since the movie includes twenty-four of
the twenty-six songs that the album contains, one could reasonably consider the album to be a soundtrack
for the film. However, this is not the case since the album was conceived (or at least released) long before
the film. I like to think of the movie as a lengthy music video which helps paint a picture of the meaning
of its complex audio counterpart. One could analyze The Wall solely as an album on the merit of its
lyrics, but the film version incorporates images with which Sigmund Freud could have a field day.
Having a visual supplement to the album makes an analysis more accessible. This essay actually analyzes The Wall in general; I will examine The Wall as a single entity that includes three elements: the album,
the film, and the stage presentation.
In general, The Wall explores the emotional barriers that exist between all of us. More
specifically, the album was originally about the isolation that Pink Floyd’s bassist, vocalist, and lyricist, Roger Waters, felt from his audience (Mabbett 73). The Wall also sheds light on the way that we as humans build “walls” around ourselves “to deflect criticism and to avoid facing up to our own failures” (75). In an article for American Cinematographer, Richard Patterson and David Samuelson refer to The Wall as “a nightmarish vision of life as experienced by an English rock musician.” The name of this fictional rock musician is Pink Floyd. Many of the film’s scenes transpire in Pink’s hotel room while he seems to be undergoing a nervous breakdown. The film also contains numerous flashback sequences
which reveal those events in Pink’s life which have deeply affected him (1021). Both the movie and the
album make countless references to the “wall” as an extended metaphor. The wall comes to symbolize
“the alienation that isolates Pink from others and from his own emotions” (1023).
The Wall is a lastingly popular album. Although it has great musical value, those who take the
time to understand its message will discover that The Wall also carries a significant meaning. It’s
connotation is all the more obvious if the theme of isolation rings true for a listener or viewer of The Wall. I’m sure that everyone has felt alienated at one time or another, whether it be from a failed relationship, the death of loved ones, cultural differences, or in my case, the college experience. I will list and describe several such isolation factors that are pointed out in The Wall, many of which are based on Roger Waters’ analysis of his own alienation and how it came about.
At Montreal’s Olympic stadium, on the final concert of Pink Floyd’s 1977 North American tour,
an obnoxious fan in front of the stage provoked Floyd bassist and band leader Roger Waters to do something about which he would think very deeply: he spit on him. “Horrified by his own aggression,” Waters soon began work on a concept album that revealed his feelings and was later called The Wall (Mabbett 73). He explains that there was something very wrong about the 1977 “Pink Floyd in the Flesh” tour. “[The fans] were no longer people; they had become it --a beast. I felt this enormous barrier between them and what I was trying to do. And it had become almost impossible to clamber over it” (qtd. in Brown 14). In an interview with Tommy Vance, Waters acknowledges that some of the audience at this point in time consisted of the band’s old audience, but most of them “were only there for the beer.” In the same interview, he declared that the large venues that the band had been playing for the 1975 and 1977 tours were alienating to both the audience and the performer, and the sole reason for playing in such settings is to make more money.
The isolation that a performer endures was not a new phenomenon when Waters wrote this album and it still rings true today. Not everyone is or wants to be a rock star, but we know too many stories of rock performers who could not handle the pressures and isolation that are associated with their life style. It is unfortunate that more rock performers cannot confront their alienation as Waters did with
The Wall.
In the stage version of The Wall, a physical sixty-foot-tall wall was built around the band
cardboard brick by cardboard brick as they performed. Obviously, this wall was supposed to represent the
barrier to which Waters has referred. Waters has said that he enjoys performing The Wall live. He feels
that in doing so, he is “making more contact, because [he] was expressing all these ideas about what [he]
felt about...” his alienation from his audience (qtd. in Brown 14).
There are many specific events, or “bricks,” that built up Pink’s wall just as there are events that
isolated Roger Waters from his audience or any event that may isolate anyone from anything. The first event of which we are made aware is the death of Pink’s father in World War II. At the end of the first song “In the Flesh?” the listener hears the sound of dive bombers and other clamors of war. These sounds are immediately followed by the sound of a baby crying at the beginning of the next track, “The Thin Ice.” One who has already heard the album would most likely recognize the significance of the combination of these two sounds because the death of Pink’s father is more apparent upon hearing “Another Brick in the
Wall, Part I.” Here we hear the words, “Daddy’s flown across the ocean/ Leaving just a memory/ Snap
shot in the family album/ Daddy what else did you leave for me...” In the Vance interview, Waters says
that although both his father and Pink’s father were killed in World War II, the song is generally a story
about anyone who has been left in some way. Therefore, The Wall is just as applicable to people’s lives as it was in 1979. One would not have had to lose a father in World War II to feel the kind of isolation that is often associated with being left behind in any way.
“Another Brick in the Wall, Part I” segues into “The Happiest Days of Our Lives,” which makes
known the next brick in Pink’s wall. The songs title makes a sarcastic reference to the conception that our
school days are the happiest days of our lives. The song’s lyrics would attempt to prove otherwise: “When
we grew up and went to school/ There were certain teachers who would/ Hurt the children any way they
could/ By pouring their derision/ Upon anything we did/ And exposing every weakness/ However carefully
hidden by the kids.” In his interview with Tommy Vance, Waters claims that the boy’s grammar school
that he attended as a child was very similar to the description that “The Happiest Days of Our Lives”
provides. However, he clarifies that the song is “...not meant to be a blanket condemnation of teachers everywhere.” He does claim that there are bad teachers who can crush children and turn them inward by “...putting them down...all the time.”
Another factor that contributes to Pink’s alienation is his overprotective mother. In a recent post to “Echoes,” an electronic mailing list for Pink Floyd fans, member Mark Brown explains that “His
mother’s meddling, [overprotecting], and filling him with fears kept him at a distance from other people
at the age when children ordinarily learn to develop trusting relationships with people.” This type of
parent would tend to turn a child inward. In the Vance interview, Waters says that most mothers tend to
protect their children too much although the song “Mother” is not actually modeled after his own mother.
The scenes from the movie The Wall uring “Mother” are not convincing in showing overprotection on the part of Pink’s mother, but the lyrics certainly are: “Mama’s gonna check out all your girl friends for you/ Mama won’t let anyone dirty get through/ Mama’s gonna wait up ‘till you come in/ Mama will always find out where/ You’ve been.” Alexander Dekhtyar, another subscriber to “Echoes,” posted that perhaps we do not see the mother in the movie as being overprotective because she seems so much like our own overprotective mothers to which we have become accustomed. Although we can’t all relate to being rock stars, and not all of us went to strict boy’s schools, many of us relate to aspects of The Wall so well
that we hardly notice.
Perhaps the most important “brick” in Pink’s “wall” is his own audience. I have already
discussed the distance that Roger Waters himself felt from his audience. Pink’s situation is a little more
drastic but is fundamentally similar to that of Waters. During the song “In the Flesh,” Pink is seen
performing on stage for some crazed fans. Pink envisions himself as the leader of a Fascist rally (Mabbett 83). He looks on as the audience acts on the hatred that he is spewing. He commands them to seek out the “queers,” the Jews, and the “coons” in the audience and “Get them up against the wall.” The audience obediently carries out these commands. Waters says in the Vance interview that the large concert environment is alienating to both the performer and the audience.
Later in that interview, he says that “...the basic idea [of] the whole thing really is that if you isolate yourself you decay,” and the hatred that
Pink and his fans exhibit reflect the “...kinds of Fascist feelings...” which result from “...that much
isolation and decay.” I believe that Waters was trying to link the absent-mindedness of racists with the zombie-like characteristics of music fanatics. Both groups often absorb a system of ideas or values with little or no reluctance.
These kinds of racist feelings are still highly visible even today. Presently, there are plenty of
racial supremacists who conduct themselves in much the same way that Pink’s fans did in the movie.
Such people may have been isolated from other races while they were growing up. Having been isolated
may have caused them to fear or hate other races or anyone diverse. To understand this point, one would
have to look no further than the way that some people reacted to the movie The Wall.
According to Andy Mabbett, racist graffiti that was discovered in Liverpool in 1987 contained the “crossed-hammers logo used in the film. Even many of the (real) skinhead extras involved in the film did not accept that [Bob] Geldof [who played Pink] was acting” when he was emitting these racist remarks (84). I also recall another “Echoes” member posting that he had seen a racist training tape that was aired on a news program. The tape contained footage from The Wall in which the Fascists are seen beating down a black man and raping a white woman who were found together in the back seat of a car. These three incidents which are directly linked to The Wall itself are enough evidence to show that such abominable behavior still befalls this society.
So what would cause people to behave this way? Well, I mentioned that racists may have been
isolated as children from an even culturally diverse environment. Waters also has a symbol for those
influences that might corrupt our thinking as a result of segregation (isolation); that symbol is the worm.
The “worms” are first mentioned in the song “Hey You,” and Waters says that the worms are his “symbolic representation of decay” (Vance) which was mentioned in the last paragraph. Some of the lyrics in “Hey You” read: “But it was only a fantasy/ The wall was too high as you can see/ No matter how he tried he could not break free/ And the worms ate into his brains.” In regard to the symbolism of the worms, Waters describes the hammer as “a symbol of the forces of oppression” and the worms as “the thinking part” (Vance). In other words, the crossed-hammers represent the actions that an oppressive person might take while the worms signify the mental deterioration that would induce such actions.
Later, in the song “Waiting for the Worms,” Pink is doing as the title may suggest. Here is an excerpt of the lyrics from “Waiting for the Worms”: “Waiting for the final solution/ To strengthen the strain/
Waiting to follow the worms/ Waiting to turn on the showers/ And fire the ovens/ Waiting for the queers
and the coons/ and the reds and the Jews/ Waiting to follow the worms.” The allusion to the showers, the
ovens, and the final solution are obvious references to Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. The Fascist rally
that transpires in the movie is also strikingly similar to a Nazi rally. These kind of associations with racism shed light on a slightly different variation of isolation. Racists like the ones in The Wall exhibit a type of behavior that demonstrates the way one’s isolation can harm others as well as the individual.
One could reasonably attribute a large percentage of wars, riots, and domestic disputes to this brand of
isolation that we know as racial or cultural segregation.
At the end of the album (and movie), Pink has consciously realized what he has become and
decides that he might want to deisolate himself. “Pink essentially places his life on trial and his conflict with society is acted out internally” (Patterson 1023). Waters adds that immediately before the second to last song on the album, “The Trial,” the oppression becomes so overwhelming for Pink that he needs to take time out and evaluate his feelings (Vance). Andy Mabbett says, “The only possible punishment, and his salvation, is to tear down the wall, face up to his position and resume his interaction with society.” However, this is not an easy thing for Pink to do (85). After hearing testimony from Pink’s mother, wife,and teacher, who Waters claims are all figments of Pink’s imagination (Vance), the judge (also a reverie)
orders Pink to tear down his wall.
The audience then hears (or sees) the wall being destroyed. Despite the fact that the wall is
actually demolished, Patterson and Samuelson express that the collective impression that they received
from the film was a bleak one. “There is an animation sequence in which the wall is destroyed, but the
overall impact of the film is not a sense of liberation but of imprisonment” (1023). On the contrary, in a recent post to “Echoes,” Lee Kilpatrick referred to the very last scene in the movie in which a child is seen disassembling a Molotov cocktail (a kind of homemade explosive). Kilpatrick interprets this image as a sign of hope because the children seen picking up the pieces of the wall have the potential of avoiding “the cycle depicted by [The Wall].”
When making reference to The Wall, Roger Waters says that “...all of it is rooted in my own experience, but it isn’t my autobiography.” He adds that he hopes the album “...will touch other people,
which is what writing is all about” (Vance). I would have to say that as long as people have problems
interacting with others for whatever reasons, The Wall will hold some meaning. The album is not all about kids revolting against their teachers; bad teachers are just one of the isolation factors that surface in
The Wall. For Waters, the album served as a way of dealing with his isolation, and many others have
used it for the same reason.
However, not everyone understands or wants to understand the meaning of The Wall. In a review of the movie, Gerry Marta writes, “To pin any blame for the hero’s desperate state of mental health on the second World War or war movies or the British education system rather than his overuse of drugs
and booze is fallacious” (491). Waters maintains that The Wall does make a valid claim. He says that the
film gets criticized for pointing out the isolation that exists between all of us ”...either by people who say it’s not true, or by people who think it’s self-evident and therefore not worth saying. I believe that it is true and it is worth saying” (qtd. in Brown 16). Even one of Waters’ bandmates expressed doubt about The Wall’s universality. David Gilmour remarked, “I don’t think a lot of the things that happened to me in my early years, some of which weren’t so wonderful, adversely affected my life to the extent that Roger feels some of those affect his life” (qtd. in Schaffner 232).
That quotation best sums up my opinion of The Wall. For instance, the “brick” to which I most
personally relate is the overprotective mother, who can represent overprotective parents in general.
Another experience that has isolated me somewhat is attending college. Although these and other
occurrences in my life bring me down and make me feel alienated from time to time, I don’t feel that my
life should suffer indefinitely. I like to think that I surmount my “walls” and prevent myself from
exploding or releasing some aggression the way that Roger or Pink did.
Maybe this is one of the reasons that Waters wrote The Wall. Maybe he wanted to illustrate one
man’s alienation (deeply rooted in Waters’ own) so that we could learn from it, recognize the barriers
between all of us, and be better equipped to destroy those barriers or avoid building them in the first place.
To be frank, I bought The Wall for the same reason that most people did: the music. The message is certainly a welcome side effect though. Surely, what attracts more music lovers to The Wall are hit songs like “Another Brick in the Wall, Part II” and “Comfortably Numb.” However, I think the enduring success of the album can also be attributed to its ageless meaning, as can the success of other Pink Floyd albums. I’m not saying that Roger Waters is some kind of prophet for all mankind, but he certainly did a good job of coming to grips with his own alienation. Hopefully, The Wall will continue to aid others in doing the same.
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