The Wall: Difference between revisions

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[[File:PinkFloyd-wall1.jpg|frame| The movie is pretty weird, too.]]

 

 

 

''The Wall'' started as a [[Rock Opera]] released as a [[Concept Album]] [[Distinct Double Album|double album]] by the English Progressive band [[Pink Floyd]] late in 1979. The theme of this album is similar to the one found in the band's earlier work ''[[The Dark Side of the Moon]]'' as it involved descent into insanity.

''The Wall'' was heavily inspired by the [[Real Life]] trials of lead singer Roger Waters, who came up with the idea for the album after the last concert in Montreal during the 1977 tour in support of the band's album ''Animals''. During the concert he spat in the face of an unruly fan who was climbing the fence between the crowd and the band. The fan was overjoyed to be spat on. This event caused Waters to realize that he was starting to distance himself from others and that this "wall" was turning him into a cold and destructive person.

 

 

The album was later adapted into a feature film, entitled ''Pink Floyd The Wall'' in 1982, directed by Alan Parker and featuring Bob Geldof as Pink. It set the music and story of Pink to high-octane-nightmare-fuel-loaded scenes that shifted from live-action to the aforementioned animation by Scarfe. Most memorable were the animated scenes of marching hammers and nightmarish blitz-era London. Scarfe drew upon his bedridden childhood to come up with the grotesque imagery featured prominently in the concerts and film.

 

 

With us so far? Right.

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{{tropelist}}

* [[Anti-Love Song]]: "Don't Leave Me Now."

* [[Assimilation Academy]]: "The Happiest Days of Our Lives" and "Another Brick in The Wall (Part II)"

* [[Author Avatar]]/[[Composite Character]]: Pink is based on Roger Waters, with a bit of Syd Barrett.

* [[Beneath the Mask]]: "In The Flesh?"

* [[Black Comedy]]: "Mother". There are also isolated lines every now and then that manage to provoke some nervous laughs amidst all the horror, like ''Mother will they try to break my balls?''

* [[Blood Is Squicker in Water]]

* [[Careful with That Axe]]: During the transition between "The Happiest Days of Our Lives" and "Another Brick in the Wall (Part Two), as well as after the keyboard solo in "Run Like Hell."

* [[Celebrity Is Overrated]]: The overall theme of the album.

* [[Cherubic Choir]]: "Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)"

* [[The Cover Changes the Gender]]: Averted when Sinead O'Connor left the lyrics to "Mother" intact during Roger Waters's 1991 ''The Wall'' concert in Berlin.

* [[Creator Cameo]]: Roger Waters appears as one of the witnesses during the wedding scene in the film version of "Mother," and plays the doctor in "Comfortably Numb,"

* [[Contemplating Your Hands]]: Appears in "Comfortably Numb" when Pink is on drugs.

Now I've got that feeling once again }}

* [[A Crack in the Ice]]: "The Thin Ice".

* [[Crowd Song]]: "Bring The Boys Back Home".

* [[Dark Reprise]]: "Another Brick in the Wall Part 1" receives two Dark Reprises in the forms of Parts 2 and 3; whereas Part 1 is merely sad, Part 2 is angry, and Part 3 marks the point where Pink snaps and enters [[Heroic BSOD]].

** The second "In The Flesh" is darker than the first (titled "In The Flesh?"), in that Pink has gone fascist (or is hiding behind a fascist persona, as hinted by the singer) and is now ready to wage war against the world that made him that way.

* [[Disappeared Dad]]: Pink's father was killed in [[World War II]], when Pink was just a child, and, thus, is absent from his life.

* [[Distinct Double Album]]

** In fact, Waters went on to write several songs on "The Final Cut" from the teacher's POV, blaming his treatment of his students on his own trauma stemming from - surprise, surprise - WWII. "When you're one of the few/To land on your feet/What do you do to make ends meet?/Teach!"

* [[Faux Symbolism]]: A relative aversion in that the mind screw imagery actually has well thought out meaning behind it. [[Your Mileage May Vary|Your mileage ''will'' vary]], of course.

* [[Gainax Ending]]: {{spoiler|Pink puts himself through a hallucinatory "trial" where the most important people from his past life berate him for causing them so much pain, the monsters from within his mind condemn him for showing human emotions, and he has his mental wall torn down as a "final sentence". In the movie, we cut to a clip of a brick wall exploding, and see a strangely tranquil scene of children playing in some rubble and pouring out (what appears to be) a Molotov cocktail as "Outside the Wall" plays. Roll credits.}}

* [[Goodbye, Cruel World]]: [[Trope Namer]], though Pink [[This Index Is Not an Example|doesn't commit suicide]].

** [[Mondegreen|Which sounds awfully like]] ''[[Fridge Brilliance|Ein, Zwei, Drei, Hammer!]]''

*** [[Word of God]] says it's "Eins, zwei, drei, Anger!"

* [[Heroic BSOD]]: Especially "Comfortably Numb" and, well, the rest of the album.

* [[How We Got Here]]: The album opens with "In The Flesh?", where Pink is at full "dictator" mode, and decides to tell his story. It eventually returns to that moment with "In the Flesh", where shows Pink after his psychotic break turning his concert into a fascist neo-Nazi rally.

* [[Journey to the Center of the Mind]]: The "Trial" portion takes place well inside a very disturbed mind.

** Actually, the second half of the album/movie takes you into the mind of Pink. My guess, the 'Trial' portion is at the absolute center of the mind.

* [[List Song]]: "What Shall We Do Now?"

* [[Lonely Piano Piece]]: "Nobody Home".

* [[My Beloved Smother]]: Of COURSE Momma's gonna help build your wall...

** Mother, Did it need to be so...High?

** The scream from "Run Like Hell" and the beginning of "Another Brick In The Wall, Pt. 2" was used in "Pow R. Toc H." and "Careful With That Axe, Eugene".

** Pink's "favorite axe" brings to mind "Careful With That Axe, Eugene" and "One Of These Days".

** Floyd's use of war as a subject matter goes back as early as "Corporal Clegg", a man scarred from his experiences in World War II. Wonder if he was the one who brought the bad news about Pink's dad...

** "Hey you, won't you help me to carry the stone?" "The stone" was also mentioned in "Crying Song" (from ''More'') and "Dogs" (from ''Animals'').

** The rambling Scotsman from "Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together In A Cave And Grooving With A Pict" was probably the inspiration for the teacher.

*** She also mentioned about her hoping that they "throw away the key", which probably was a reference to one of the more famous lines from "Brain Damage".

** Sound effects from "Echoes", such as the piano "ping" and the whale calls, were used in "Hey You" and "Is There Anybody Out There?" respectively.

** The biggest one of all comes from ''[[Wish You Were Here]]'', and has connections in reality: the song "Have a Cigar" asks, "Oh, by the way, which one's Pink?" Which, naturally, came up in a radio interview.

* [[A Nazi by Any Other Name]]: Pink's Hammers -''snicker''- take cues from Mussolini's black shirts, SS troopers, and the KKK/skinheads.

* [[No Antagonist]]: The album is really about Pink's inner demons, how they got there and how they [[Mind Screw|may have been overcome]]. There's no real antagonist for Pink.

* [[No Name Given]]: We're never told Pink's full (or real) name. There are hints (the operator at the end of "Young Lust" tries to connect "a collect call from Mr. Floyd to Mrs. Floyd"; his father's name on the death scroll is "J. A. Pinkerton"), but not enough to put it all together.

** When he's putting the bullet on the traintrack, his friends refer to him as "Pinky".

* [[Precision F-Strike]]: According to the 2010 tour, the answer to the question "Mother, should we trust the government?" is "NO FUCKING WAY".

* [[Record Producer]]: Bob Ezrin had a heavy influence over the album, especially forcing Roger Waters to change the lyrics (if you ever listen to the demos, it's obvious that the changes are for the better), even if Waters made a dick move by refusing to give him any co-writing credits at first. Co-producer James Guthrie was similarly praised by Gilmour and others for playing a key part in crafting the album's overall sound.

** Pink Floyd, to be fair, made Ezrin sign a contract forbidding him from revealing details and plot points about the stage show, which Ezrin violated via a radio interview. This incensed Waters (and to a lesser extent, the other band members) to the point that Bob was not allowed to attend any of the shows, and his credits on the album were taken off for a while. They did patch things up with him to the point that Ezrin was asked to produce Roger's ''Radio KAOS'' (Ezrin declined as it was taking him away from his family) and eventually did produce Gilmour's Floyd albums (to Waters' disgust) and Gilmour's ''About Face'' solo album.

* [[Sanity Slippage Song]]: It's practically a Sanity Slippage Album. "The Trial" may be where it's most overt though.

* [[Shout-Out]]: The poem Pink's math teacher mocks is Pink Floyd's earlier hit, "Money".

** The Another Brick in The Wall sequence is a shout out to [[Metropolis]], with schoolchildren playing the part of the workers from said movie.

** ''The Wall'' is given a reference in ''[[Stilyagi]]'' during the Komsomol meeting, which is shot the same way.

'''Roger Waters''': "Okay". }}

** This bit can also double as [[Fridge Brilliance]] since in the context of the album, it's a bit of [[Foreshadowing]] about Pink's mental breakdown. Also, one ''[[Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory|incredibly detailed]]'' analysis of the album points out that Waters abandoning the message to pick up the phone reinforces the entire album's theme about the importance of communication. This interpretation's also aided by Waters' later admission that he would've ended up like Pink if it wasn't for Carolyne.

* [[Technology Marches On]]: Pink has "thirteen channels of shit on the TV to choose from."

* [[That Man Is Dead]]: After Pink's [[Freak-Out]] when his wife leaves him, he is forced back on stage to perform - but emerges as a neo-Nazi, and announces his change by claiming to be a new person:

* [[Those Wacky Nazis]]

* [[Through the Eyes of Madness]]: Particularly after Pink's revival.

* [[Title Drop]]: "When the Tiger Broke Free Part 2".

** "All in all it's just Another Brick In The Wall."

*** Let's face it, apart from "In The Flesh(?)", "The Happiest Days Of Our Lives", "Young Lust", "Run Like Hell" and "The Trial", every song in the album has its [[Title Drop]] (though some of them like "The Thin Ice" or "One Of My Turns" make it more subtle).

* [[Troubled Fetal Position]]: Pink assumes this position a few times throughout the movie.

* [[Villain Song]]: "In the Flesh," "Run Like Hell," and "Waiting for the Worms" can be seen as this, given they're sung from the point of view of Pink's fascist persona.

* [[Write What You Know]]: Aside from taking Roger's inner troubles and piling on the symbolism, the operator at the end of "Young Lust" was inspired by an incident on tour when Roger randomly called his ex-wife and had a man answer the phone.

* [[You Are What You Hate]]: A recurring theme. Pink becomes a fascist, the very thing his father had died fighting against, as noted in the later songs "In The Flesh", "Run Like Hell", and "Waiting For The Worms". And he tries to rebel against the conformity of his school by becoming a rock star, only to realize that his teenage fans are so mindlessly devoted to him that they've forgotten how to think for themselves--making him, in his own way, just as oppressive as his [[Sadist Teacher|teachers]] once were.

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{{reflist}}

[[Category:The Seventies]]

[[Category:Films of the 1980s]]

[[Category:Music]]