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Lyrics: Part I: Daddy’s flown across the ocean
Part II: We don’t need no education We don’t need no education Wrong! Do it again! Part III: I don’t need no arms around me All in all, it was all just bricks in the wall Get It: Get your remastered copy (identifiable by the red writing on the cover) of The Wall here: If you’re looking for a Blu-Ray copy of Pink Floyd – The Wall, get it here:
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Attempting to write about any Pink Floyd album—particularly, the Pink Floyd album of Pink Floyd albums…the one album to rule them all—is somewhat like trying to describe Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. What could we possibly say about this record that hasn’t already been said ad nauseam? The Wall (both the double-album and the movie) occupies rarefied air in the worlds of music and film. It’s meaning is deep, dark, and open to much interpretation. First, let’s talk about the band. Pink Floyd formed in 1965 at London Polytechnic when bassist/vocalist/lyricist Roger Waters and drummer Nick Mason met while studying architecture. The duo performed in a variety of bands with a variety of musicians, including keyboardist Richard Wright (also an architecture student) who would later be a member of the original Pink Floyd quartet. Waters, Mason, and Wright would later be joined by Syd Barrett, a childhood friend of Waters who had moved to London in 1962 to study at the Camberwell College of Arts. The four named their band the “Pink Floyd Sound” based on the names of two blues musicians—Pink Anderson and Floyd Council—both of which appeared on records in Barrett’s collection.  By 1967, the band had shortened its name to simply “Pink Floyd,” and in August of that same year, released The Piper at the Gates of Dawn. As many know, Barrett struggled with severe mental issues as well as chronic drug abuse. By late 1967, Barrett was largely unable to perform, so the band brought in David Gilmour, a friend of Barrett’s from their time together at Cambridge Tech, to serve as a fifth member of the band (essentially a stunt double for Barrett who was often unable or unwilling to perform). By spring 1968, Barrett’s behavior had become so erratic that he spent many performances simply staring motionless at the crowd or strumming a single chord while slowly detuning his guitar until the strings were slack. Before summer of 1968 would arrive, the band was forced to part with Barrett, and Gilmour became the official fourth member of the band. Pink Floyd released a total of 11 albums after The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, including 1973’s The Dark Side of the Moon, which topped the Billboard charts for just a single week, but stayed on the Billboard 200 chart for a record-breaking 741 weeks (1973 to 1988) and sold an estimated 45 million copies. Almost unbelievably, The Dark Side of the Moon spent a total of 975 weeks on the Billboard Top Pop Catalog Albums chart. The Wall, released in 1979, is a concept album that tells the story of a fictional character named Pink who was modeled after an amalgamation of Waters and Syd Barrett. The story covers the London lad’s troubled childhood, the death of his father during World War II, an overprotective mother, abuse at school from teachers and classmates, a failed marriage, substance abuse and the eventual building of “the wall,” which isolated him from society. Each of the traumas in Pink’s life became another brick in the metaphorical wall. (In real life, Waters’s father was killed in 1944 at the Battle of Anzio when Waters was just five months old.) In 1982, The Wall became the backbone for the movie Pink Floyd – The Wall. Boomtown Rats’ frontman Bob Geldof portrayed Pink in the movie, and as part of the storyline, shaved his eyebrows, along with the rest of his body hair during one of the film’s scenes. The original script called for him to shave only his eyebrows, but he shaved his entire body to re-create an incident in which Barrett did the same during one of his manic episodes. Legend has it that the scene disturbed some of Barrett’s friends so badly, they were unable to continue watching the film.  As Pink Floyd fans know, the band would release just one more album with Waters at the helm, 1983’s The Final Cut. While many people deride the album, we here at the Dances with Bass padded room regard it as a classic. The album was written during a very contentious time between Rogers and his bandmates, and it was almost entirely created by Waters alone. After Waters’s departure, Gilmour became the band’s leader. Floyd released two albums without Waters, A Momentary Lapse of Reason (1987) and The Division Bell (1994) both of which are top-notch from beginning to end. In fact, Mr. Dances with Bass himself was lucky enough to see Pink Floyd live on both tours, and he can still detect the warm smell of colitas when the wind is just right. Waters sued Gilmour and the other members of Pink Floyd over the use of the band name and rights to songs created when he was in the band. Eventually, Waters toured on his own, performing his own grand reproductions of The Wall. The relationship between Waters and the rest of the band has been icy, at best, but the band did reunite in 2005 for a single show in London’s Hyde Park. Unfortunately, that performance did not lead to an official reconciliation or new Pink Floyd material. In 2014, Pink Floyd released its final album, The Endless River, which sadly, just wasn’t what just about everyone was hoping it would be. The single, Louder than Words, is absolutely spectacular, but it should have been released as a single. The rest of the album consists of instrumental/ambient music tracks that sound more like a loose collection of sounds as opposed to a cohesive album. For musicians of their ilk, it was an inglorious end to a musical juggernaut. Of course, the optimists here at the Dances with Bass Grecian sheep farm secretly sacrifice flying pigs (you’ll get that joke if you’re familiar with Floyd’s work) to the rock gods in hopes that the surviving members of Pink Floyd—Gilmour, Waters, and Mason—will officially bury the hatchet and record as Pink Floyd again. We can dream, right? Syd Barrett tried to resurrect his career as a solo artist in the early 1970s, but abandoned it after releasing two albums, The Madcap Laughs and Barrett—both in 1970. In a 1971 interview with Rolling Stone, Barrett said, “I don’t think I’m easy to talk about. I’ve got a very irregular head. And I’m not anything that you think I am anyway.” In 1972, Barrett very briefly joined drummer Twink Adler (from the Boogie Band) and bassist Jack Monck to form a trio known as Stars. The band performed just a few times and never released any material. Barrett would release two live albums, The Peel Session in 1984, and The Radio One Sessions in 2004. Eventually, he retired to life as a recluse and amateur painter, and he reverted to his birth name, Roger. After spending 38 years largely alone and out of the public eye, Barrett died of pancreatic cancer in 2006; he was 60 years old. Richard Wright died of cancer in 2008 at 65 years old. Nick Mason is 74 and is the only member of Pink Floyd to appear on every Pink Floyd album. Both Roger Waters and David Gilmour still record and tour today. Gilmour (a Dances with Bass god figure) released a new studio album, Rattle that Lock, in 2015, and a double-live album and DVD, Live at Pompei, in 2017. Gilmour’s solo work—including About Face and his eponymously named album—are fantastic, and in particular, his guitar sound is immediately identifable. Waters also has released several studio and live albums. In 2017, he released his first solo studio album in 25 years, Is This the Life We Really Want? Video: The entire three-part song is below. Though the three tracks do not appear contiguously on the album, this video stitches the three separate video sequences of the tracks as they appear in the movie into a single video experience. Part 1 begins (obviously) at the 0:00 mark.
And while you likely didn’t come to our little spot on the web to watch a full movie, you might consider bookmarking this video for watching when you have the time. It’s a documentary about the making of The Wall, and it’s required viewing for Dances with Bass acolytes. There will be a test.
You Might Also Like: (Note: We generally try to choose music we’ve featured previously that we think is similar in style to the day’s featured track, but that’s a bit difficult when trying to compare Pink Floyd’s apples with other artists’ oranges. We did our best. Don’t judge.)
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