#ThrowBackThursdays Pink Floyd The Wall

Produced by David Gilmour, Bob Ezrin, and Roger Waters
Released November 30, 1979
Recorded in Super Bear Studios between April and November 1979 Sleeve Design by Gerald Scarfe and Roger Waters

TURN OFF THE PHONE PLUG IN THE EARBUDS CRANK OUT THE VOLUME

Pink Floyd's the Wall is one of the most intriguing and imaginative albums in the history of rock music. Since the studio album's release in 1979, the tour of 1980-81, and the subsequent movie of 1982, the Wall has become synonymous with, if not the very definition of, the term "concept album." Aurally explosive on record, astoundingly complex on stage, and visually explosive on the screen, the Wall traces the life of the fictional protagonist, Pink Floyd, from his boyhood days in post-World-War-II England to his self-imposed isolation as a world-renowned rock star, leading to a climax that is as cathartic as it is destructive.

From the outset, Pink's life revolves around an abyss of loss and isolation. Born during the final throes of a war that claimed the lives of nearly 300,000 British soldiers (Pink's father among them) to an overprotective mother who lavishes equal measures of love and phobia onto her son, Pink begins to build a mental wall between himself and the rest of the world so that he can live in a constant, alienated equilibrium free from life's emotional troubles. Every incident that causes Pink pain is yet another brick in his ever-growing wall: a fatherless childhood, a domineering mother, an out-of-touch education system bent on producing compliant cogs in the societal wheel, a government that treats its citizens like chess pieces, the superficiality of stardom, an estranged marriage, even the very drugs he turns to in order to find release. As his wall nears completion - each brick further closing him off from the rest of the world - Pink spirals into a veritable Wonderland of insanity. Yet the minute it's complete, the gravity of his life's choices sets in. Now shackled to his bricks, Pink watches helplessly (or perhaps fantasizes) as his fragmented psyche coalesces into the very dictatorial persona that antagonized the world during World War II, scarred his nation, killed his father, and in essence defiled his own life from birth. As much as this story told mostly from Pink's point of view tips toward nihilistic victimhood, there also runs a strong existentialist countercurrent in which freedom cannot be separated from personal responsibility. Culminating in a mental trial as theatrically rich as the greatest stage shows, Pink's tale ends with a message that is as enigmatic and circular as the rest of his life. Whether it is ultimately viewed as a cynical story about the futility of life, or a hopeful journey of metaphorical death and rebirth, the Wall is certainly a musical milestone worthy of the title "art."

As with most art, Pink Floyd's concept album is a combination of imagination and the author's own life. The album germinated during the band's 1977 "Animals" tour when frontman Roger Waters, growing disillusioned with stardom and the godlike status that fans grant to rock stars like himself, spit in the face of an overzealous concert-goer. Horrified by his disenchantment, Waters began drawing on these feelings of adult alienation as well as those springing from the loss of his own father during World War II to flesh out the fictional character of Pink. The wild stories surrounding Pink Floyd's original frontman, Syd Barrett - including his drugged-out escapades and subsequent withdrawal from the world - provided Waters with further inspiration for the moody rock-star. The contributions of bandmates David Gilmour, Nick Mason, and Richard Wright provided the final brush strokes for a contemporary anti-hero - a modern, existential everyman struggling to find (or arguably lose) self and meaning in a century fragmented by war.

Lyrics To The Wall Click HERE 

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• The Wall the Movie in HD free on Youtube
  (it may not be a licensed copy, so beware. we have to say that.)

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