Aug 11 AOTD: Pink Floyd - The Wall

Aug 11 AOTD: Pink Floyd - The Wall

As the story goes ... Roger Waters and Pink Floyd were performing a concert when a fan in one of the front rows kept hollering for them to play a popular Floyd song - right in the middle of another song the band was playing. Waters, reaching a boiling point, spit at the man. Following the concert, Waters pondered the foulness of his act and began to despair regarding his alienation from the very people who had made him rich, given him his fame, and put him on that stage. At that point the idea of a "wall" began to form: somewhat mental - an internal, psychological wall; but also somewhat metaphorically between the rock star and the fans, and also between the rock star and his relations.  He also started to form the idea of a singular character (made clear as "Pink" within the movie) who rises to fame and then psychologically implodes.  The character is an amalgamation based on Water's own depression as well as Floyd's founder Syd Barrett, who descended into severe mental instability and left his own band in '68.

The Wall, a concept album (also referred to as a rock opera at that time) was always imagined - and eventually realized - as three separate formats that were all intended to support each other, each using the same music: a movie, an album and a stage show. The two-disc album stands - today - fully realized in all three formats as the most commercially successful rock concept. Indeed, to fully understand the "story" I'd suggest watching the film, my favorite movie of all time. The album was released Nov. 30, 1979; the concerts were held in 1980 and 1981; and the movie hit the silver screen in 1982. Shortly thereafter the band dissolved. By 1999, the album had sold 23 million copies.

There are several ways to listen to this album: 1) It's a great guitar album and displays why Gilmour is my favorite guitarist of all time. From lush acoustic strums to electric, writhing snakes of solos and wailing cries of forlorn fear, Gilmour demonstrates many moods and is often better at exploring the feelings of madness or depression than any of Water's lyrics. In "Comfortably Numb" especially listen for his solos - the first at 2:04 a sublime performance where Gilmour's fingers come to to life, driving the notes to a glorious urgency - and then the second solo at 4:30, much darker and grungier, spiraling down into electric shreds of pain and anger, still gasping away as the song fades, like a fighting, barking dog being dragged away and out of sight on a leash by its ownder, all the while desperately straining back to be heard; 2) It's a strong thematic, literal work.  Just follow the ideas of walls, worms, profit, materialism, emotion, and isolation as they wind around each other, eventually building to Pink's scream of STOP! and his internalized trial; or 3) Listen to it as a story and appreciate Water's voice variations - along with an abundance of fantastic musicianship - of the band and the orchestra conducted by Michael Kamen. 4) Listen to the album as a post-war exploration of the results of survivors' trauma and alienation (post-WWII in this case - but I think it applies to all violent assault).

Some interesting facts.
1) The story and album are about people fragmenting - and the band literally fights its way into a breakup during making of the album. Waters actually fires Richard Wright (keyboardist) before the album is even finished.  Gilmour and Waters would never effectively collaborate again (despite there being one more Floyd album to come, The Final Cut featuring only the writing of Waters who collaborated more with Kamen on that one).
2) "Mother" and "Comfortably Numb" are the only two songs that stand alone - every other one on the album segues into an adjacent track.
3) "Another Brick in The Wall," featuring a disco beat, would tie with Blondie's "Call Me" as the most popular song of the year.  But the disco beat was added by Gilmour begrudgingly after the producer, Bob Ezrin, told him to go hear what was popular in the clubs. And Waters thought the idea of a children's choir was silly - until he heard the final recording. The song's popularity reached a fevered in pitch in South Africa where a school movement against apartheid adopted it as a protest song.  Subsequently, the South American government banned the song from being played on the radio or sold in the country.
4) Listen carefully at the end of the last song: "This is where ..." and then the line is abruptly truncated. BUT start the album over and listen VERY CLOSELY and you will hear "...We came in." Waters did this on purpose to show the cyclical nature of trauma and alienation.
5) I fell in love with this album while trapped behind the violent, depressing walls of a military school. I would stare out the window of my room in Sage Hall - a large stone-built  barracks - across the streets to the civilian side of the road, a cassette of The Wall playing from my GE tape player behind me.  I understood the character's trauma, desperation and isolation.  It felt good to know that someone else had understood these feelings well enough to create an entire album exploring the concepts.  Rather than it depressing me, I felt less alone, a little more hopeful.