Why Pink Floyd’s The Wall is the perfect album to make sense of 2016
I’ve decided what the ‘Album Of The Year’ is.
More and more, it strikes me that Pink Floyd’s The Wall is the record we need to make sense of what we are thinking and feeling in 2016 (well, some of us).
The overall concept and core themes of The Wall, first released in November 1979, are credited to band member, now solo artist, Roger Waters. His extensive touring of lavish production The Wall Live from 2010 to 2013 (the tour grossed $459 million) is evidence that he still feels the work’s many humanist messages (including various anti-state, anti-war and anti-fascist sentiments) are relevant in — or at least adaptable to — the 21st Century. Night after night, his production crew built a literal wall of up to 3,000 cardboard bricks between the band and the audience — once a grand statement of Waters’ alienation from modern stadium rock audiences, still a powerful, multi-layered metaphor.
In the same vein, 2016 has seen Kanye West soar above his audiences on a floating stage; elevating and separating himself from the masses.
I’m certainly not the first to point out how the central metaphor of The Wall relates to 2016’s most famous character: on the campaign trail, US President-elect Donald Trump promised to build a literal wall (although “for certain areas I would [accept a fence]”) between his country and its neighbour, Mexico. There are many other examples of the album’s lyrics that seem to resonate in this (for some) annus horribilis, not least: “Sitting in a bunker… In perfect isolation / Here behind my wall”. Everything Mr Trump said on the campaign trail — all the statements calculated to foment fury — could be seen as “…all just bricks in the wall”.
During the record’s second version of the song In The Flesh, a hallucinating character called ‘Pink’ plays the part of a dictator at a rally with the lyrics ominously reminiscent of the scenes at various Trump rallies:
“Are there any queers in the theatre tonight? / Get them up against the wall!
…that one looks Jewish! And that one’s a coon! / Who let all of this riff-raff into the room?
…if I had my way, / I’d have all of you shot!”
There are also lyrics that chime with some of the populist reasoning behind Brexit. Take the album’s most well-known track, Another Brick in the Wall (Part II): the key line “we don’t need no education” is presented as a defence of the fragile humanity of children before they’re moulded by ‘the system’. Taken in another light, “we don’t need no education” echoes leading Brexiteer Michael Gove — former Education Secretary — when he said: “people in this country have had enough of experts”.
Later in the album, during the song Waiting for the Worms, we hear a mocking recitation of the xenophobia and anti-immigrant sentiments that have come to be associated with the so-called ‘Little Englanders’:
“Would you like to see Britannia / Rule again, my friend?
…would you like to send our coloured cousins / Home again, my friend?”
As I, ostensibly a London-lefty-liberal-bleeding-heart-social-justice-warrior-remoaner-millennial, gaze into the Twitter mirror in daily disbelief (secretly thrilling at each new reason to be momentarily shocked or outraged), there is a clear warning to my generation in the shape of The Wall’s other popularly known song, Comfortably Numb. Just the song title alone is warning enough — don’t retreat into your shell, burying your head in immersive video games or binge-watching Game of Thrones. I’m distantly aware that activism exists, but it sounds like hard work (of which I have no concept 😫).
Listening to The Wall on Remembrance Sunday reminded me how rare Roger Waters’ strongly expressed anti-war sentiments seem among major music artists. That his grandfather died at the Battle of the Somme a hundred years ago (and his father at the Battle of Anzio in 1944) does not automatically entitle him to a megaphone; that he continues to question the wisdom of military conflict, both through his art and in person makes him someone worth listening to on the subject.
Goodbye Blue Sky seems apt, as towns and hospitals in Syria are reduced to rubble. The song opens with a child’s voice: “Look, Mummy. There’s an airplane up in the sky.” It continues:
“Did you see the frightened ones / Did you hear the falling bombs
Did you ever wonder / Why we had to run for shelter
When the promise of a brave new world / Unfurled beneath a clear blue sky.”
It’s Waters’ directness that makes such as impression. In 2009, my favourite band, Radiohead, recorded a tribute to the last surviving World War 1 soldier (Harry Patch (In Memory Of)). But their recent single, the excellent Burn the Witch, is a criticism of… I’m not really sure. The day after Donald Trump’s election, lead singer Thom Yorke cryptically tweeted lyrics from the song and a link to its music video:
When I listen to The Wall I almost wish that Radiohead would write as explicitly about the seemingly sorry state of 21st Century world affairs. Waters has the guts (many would say the egomania) to emblazon a giant wall, mid-concert, with the words ‘BRING THE BOYS BACK HOME’; also to add a song to the the overall work, performed as part of The Wall Live, in memory of Jean Charles de Menezes, the victim of a fatal police shooting in 2005.
There are some mainstream acts at it. Green Day’s post-election performance of their current single Bang Bang at the American Music Awards on November 21st saw the band chanting “No Trump/ No KKK/ No fascist USA!”.
Muse — a beneficiary of the thematic territory that Pink Floyd charted — released an anti-war album in 2015’s Drones which tackles some big themes including modern militarism, dehumanisation and mind control. Whether it goes down as a culturally significant rallying cry remains to be seen. It’s difficult to imagine it having the long term impact of Floyd’s opus. (I’m almost certainly missing examples from outside of rock.)
At the midway point of The Wall, during the plaintive Hey You, Waters offers a brief glimpse of hope:
“Hey you, don’t help them to bury the light / Don’t give in without a fight.
Hey you, don’t tell me there’s no hope at all / Together we stand, divided we fall.”
The album finishes with a poignant ditty (Outside the Wall) which plays once the physical wall on stage has been demolished during a cacophonous climax:
“…the ones who really love you / Walk up and down outside the wall
Some hand in hand / Some gathered together in bands
The bleeding hearts and the artistes / Make their stand
And when they’ve given you their all / Some stagger and fall after all it’s not easy
Banging your heart against some mad bugger’s wall.”
It’s not a perfect fit, but I believe that in listening to The Wall in this year, of all years, you’ll find plenty to reflect upon both musically and lyrically — mood and message. I’d love to hear about other albums or songs that you think could help shed some light on what the bloody hell is going on in MMXVI.
There are a number of recordings of The Wall including the original studio album (available via Spotify, Apple Music and all major music outlets) and the recent concert album and film Roger Waters: The Wall (Spotify, Apple Music). I highly recommend you chase down ‘Is There Anybody Out There? The Wall Live, 1980–81’ which is sadly not available on major digital music services beyond a partial user upload on YouTube — it can be found on CD.
