Information AboutThe Wall |
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''The Wall'' is a Rock Opera and Concept Album by Pink Floyd . Hailed by critics and fans as one of Pink Floyd's best albums (along with '' Dark Side Of The Moon '', '' Wish You Were Here '', and '' Animals ''), the album is known as a rock and roll classic, and its morbid, depressing anthems have inspired many contemporary rock musicians. This was the last studio Pink Floyd album to feature Richard Wright until his return in 1987 . Roger Waters was inspired to create the album during a 1977 concert tour for '' Animals '', dubbed ''Pink Floyd — In the Flesh''. In Montreal , a fan's disruptive behaviour resulted in Waters spitting in the fan's face. Waters was immediately disgusted with himself, and his alienation from his fans urged him to build a wall between himself and the audience, an idea which later evolved into the album. {Link without Title} All of the songs were penned by Roger Waters with the exceptions of " Young Lust ", " Comfortably Numb " and " Run Like Hell ," which were co-written with David Gilmour , and " The Trial ", which was co-written with Bob Ezrin . The album was first certified Gold and Platinum in the US in March of 1980 and has been since certified 23 times Platinum in 1999 and hit #1 on the Billboard Album Charts in 1980 . Originally released on Columbia Records in the US and Harvest Records in the UK, ''The Wall'' was then re-released as a digitally remastered CD in 1994 in the UK on EMI . Columbia issued the remastered CD in 1997 in the US and rest of the world. For ''The Wall'''s 20th Anniversary in early 2000, Capitol Records in the US and EMI for the rest of the world re-released the 1997 remastered CD. In 1998 ''Q'' Magazine readers voted ''The Wall'' the 65th greatest album of all time and in a similar poll in 2003, Rolling Stone magazine readers named it the 87th Greatest Album Of All Time . CONCEPT The album's concept and most of the songs are by Waters. The storyline portrays the fictional life of an anti-hero named Pink, who is hammered and beaten down by society from the earliest days of his life: having lost his father (killed in Anzio during World War II , as was Waters' own), smothered by his over-protective mother, and oppressed at school by tyrannical, abusive teachers who tried to mold him and the other pupils into the "right" shape for society. Pink withdraws into his own fantasy world, building an imaginary wall to isolate himself from the rest of the world. Every bad experience in his life is a brick in that wall. The first few bricks are made from the pain of his father's death, abusive teachers, and over-protective mother. After heavily contemplating how to fill in the last few empty spaces in the wall, Pink puts off the construction of the wall for a while. He becomes a rock star and gets married (although not to Vera Lynn , as some may think - she was an entertainer in the Second World War), only to be cheated on by his wife due to his distance and coldness, as well as the life as a rock star. After this he resumes building the wall and it is completed. Pink slowly goes insane behind his freshly completed wall. He is lost on the inside, but is forced to surface by his demanding lifestyle, and I.V. drug use distributed by his crew to "Keep him going through the show." This may be a reference to the drug abuse by Syd Barrett in the earlier days of Pink Floyd. Hallucinating, Pink believes that he is a fascist dictator, and his concerts are like Neo-Nazi rallies where he sets his men on fans he considers unworthy, only to have his conscience rebel at this and put himself on trial, his inner judge ordering him to tear down his wall in order to open himself to the outside world. At this point the album's end runs into its beginning with the closing words "Isn't this where......."; the first song on the album, ''In the Flesh?'', begins with the words ".....we came in?" hinting at the repetitiveness of Waters' theme. RECORDED VERSION During recording, Richard Wright was fired from the band but stayed on to finish the album and perform the live concerts as a paid musician. In an interview with Mojo Magazine from December, 1999 on the 20th anniversary of Pink Floyd's The Wall, David Gilmour remarked that many of the keyboard parts were played by him, Roger Waters, Bon Ezrin, Michael Kamen and Freddie Mandell. Co-producer/engineer James Guthrie remembers Wright's contribution as being slightly more significant: ''"Rick did some great playing on that album, whether or not people remember it - some fantastic Hammond parts."'' {Link without Title} The album was recorded at four studios in an eight month span. One in New York (CBS Studios), one in Los Angeles (Producers Workshop, which was also where the album was mixed) and two in the south of France(Super Bear and Miravel). It was revealed on the US radio show In the Studio with Redbeard, which spotlighted the making of The Wall(in a 2-part episode), that the jumping around from studio to studio were the results of English tax laws and in fact financial considerations dictated the way the album was made. According to Roger Waters on that episode, "we were going to record it in London then we had an extraordinary reverse and we had channeled a lot of money into a company(Norton Warburg) in London who was supposed to be investing it and so forth but unfortunately they stole it all instead. They stole it in a way that the revenue in England still wanted us to pay tax on it. So five years after Dark Side of the Moon, we were completely skin. Having got this piece of work, looked as it might be a good one, we decided reluctantly to go make the record in the South of France. I confessed the reasons for making the record in the South of France was purely for the fear of being broke". Around the world, the album produced a number of hit singles for Pink Floyd, including "Another Brick In The Wall (Part II)", "Young Lust", "Hey You", "Comfortably Numb" and "Run Like Hell". For "Another Brick in the Wall (Part II)", Pink Floyd needed a school , they sued. Music industry professionals estimated that each student would be owed around £ 500. CONCERT VERSION Pink Floyd performed the concert version of ''The Wall'' only a handful of times, in New York , Los Angeles , London , Dortmund , and Berlin . This was due to the grandiosity of the performance, which involved constructing a giant wall across the stage between band and audience, not to mention staple Pink Floyd props such as giant screens, Flying Pigs and pyrotechnics. The performances began with a "surrogate band" performing In the Flesh? composed of Andy Bown on bass (and miming Roger Waters who was singing on main stage), Snowy White on guitar, Willie Wilson on drums and Peter Wood on keyboards. The surrogate band wore masks of the faces of their counterparts in the real band whilst the real band were on the main stage in the dark. Then, a plane crashes and the "surrogate band" stops and freezes and the small stage sinks and the real Pink Floyd come in full view, and a giant wall was constructed by roadies out of 420 cardboard bricks throughout the first half of the performance augmented by appearances by an inflatable teacher, wife and mother. In the second half, the band would be completely obscured from view behind the wall, but still playing. Roger Waters sang from an open hotel room on "Nobody Home". Then on "Comfortably Numb", Roger Waters sang his parts dressed as the doctor wearing a white coat in front of the wall while guitarist David Gilmour was hoisted hydraulically on to the top of the wall singing his parts and playing his famous guitar solos in full view of the crowd. Then, the surrogate band had on deathmasks of the four band members and the four Pink Floyd members all wore Hammer shirts, jeans and shoes (Gilmour, Mason and Wright) except for Roger Waters who wore a long leather trenchcoat with hammer logos and storm-trooper boots. The wall was eventually torn down during "The Trial", and Pink Floyd themselves joined the surrogate band in front of the wreckage of the wall to perform the finale, "Outside The Wall". During the performance, giant puppets of the characters Teacher, Wife and Mother, designed by Gerald Scarfe , were used, and animations by Scarfe were projected onto a circular area and onto the wall itself. Added to this, a hotel room (where much of the story is set) emerges from the wall midway through the second half for Nobody Home. The large stage shows required huge equipment (including full sized Crane s), and cost an extraordinary amount of money to realize. As such, the band lost money from them, with the exception of Wright, who was retained on a fixed salary for the concerts after being fired during the mixing session of the album in Los Angeles. The intent of the band for these concerts was to give the audience a truly theatrical experience instead of just a show where the band played the songs. As such, during many songs, Waters assumed the role of the anti-hero, "Pink", singing despondently from a hotel room (a set on the stage). To this day, these performances are considered some of the greatest rock concerts ever. In 2000 , the best performances from these concerts were compiled into a live version of the album called '' Is There Anybody Out There? The Wall Live 1980-81 ''. The release includes two tracks not on the studio album ("What Shall We Do Now" and " The Last Few Bricks "). The former was left off the studio release due to space constraints, and the latter was a medley of the first half of the show to let the roadies finish building the wall. FILM VERSION Main article: Pink Floyd The Wall (film) ) at a facist rally during the ''In the Flesh'' sequence of the '' Pink Floyd The Wall ''.]] A Film version of ''The Wall'' was released in 1982 entitled '' Pink Floyd The Wall '', directed by Alan Parker and starring Bob Geldof . The screenplay was written by Roger Waters. The film features music from the original album, much of which was re-recorded by the band with additional orchestration, some with minor lyrical and musical changes. It also includes the two part song " When The Tigers Broke Free ", written for the movie. There were a couple of non-Pink Floyd songs featured in the film. The classic '') in a restroom stall before singing the Pink Floyd song " Stop ". Pink could also be heard singing a little bit of "Your Possible Pasts", which will appear in the album ''" When the teacher finds Pink's poetry and reads it aloud, the lyrics are from the song " Money ," from the Dark Side Of The Moon album. During the scene where Pink finds his father's items during the second part of " When The Tigers Broke Free ", Pink stumbled on his father's certificate of appreciation. The name on the certificate says "J.A. Pinkerton". It is assumed that Pink's real name is Floyd Pinkerton, and that Pink legally changed his name to Pink Floyd because he didn't like the name Floyd Pinkerton. STAGE VERSION Waters has licensed the story and music for a number of amateur dramatic versions performed by schools and youth groups. In was. Additionally, there are rumours that other Pink Floyd songs, possibly "Money" from the album '' Dark Side Of The Moon '', among others, will be included in the stage show. POST-SPLIT After Waters left the band, a legal battle ensued over the rights to the name "Pink Floyd" and its material. In the end, Waters retained the right to use ''The Wall'' and its material, as his name has been most closely associated with the album. Waters staged a Gigantic Concert Performance of ''The Wall'' (with the addition of the song "The Tide Is Turning (After Live Aid)" from Waters' solo album '' Radio K.A.O.S. '') at Potsdamer Platz in Berlin on 21 July 1990 , with guest artists including Ute Lemper , The Band , Van Morrison , Sinéad O'Connor , Cyndi Lauper , Marianne Faithfull , The Scorpions , Joni Mitchell , Jerry Hall , and Bryan Adams , to commemorate the fall of the Berlin Wall and as a fundraising effort for World War Memorial Fund For Disaster Relief . At the UK Live 8 Benefit Concert on 2 July 2005 , despite continued enmity between the former band members, Waters performed on stage with Gilmour, Mason and Wright for the first time in 24 years, their last performance together being at ''The Wall'' concerts. Their set included "Breathe", "Money", "Wish You Were Here" and "Comfortably Numb". TRACK LISTING (ALBUM VERSION) All songs are by Roger Waters except as noted. Side 1 (CD: Disk 1) #" In The Flesh? " (3:16) #" The Thin Ice " (2:27) #" Another Brick In The Wall (Part I)" (3:21) #" The Happiest Days Of Our Lives " (1:46) #" Another Brick In The Wall (Part II)" (3:59) #" Mother " (5:32) Side 2 #" Goodbye Blue Sky " (2:45) #" Empty Spaces " (2:10) #" Young Lust " (3:25) (Waters/Gilmour) #" One Of My Turns " (3:41) #" Don't Leave Me Now " (4:08) #" Another Brick In The Wall (Part III)" (1:48) #" Goodbye Cruel World " (0:48) Side 3 (CD: Disk 2) #" Hey You " (4:40) #" Is There Anybody Out There? " (2:44) #" Nobody Home " (3:26) #" Vera " (1:35) #" Bring The Boys Back Home " (1:21) #" Comfortably Numb " (6:23) (Gilmour/Waters) Side 4 #" The Show Must Go On " (1:36) #" In The Flesh " (4:13) #" Run Like Hell " (4:20) (Gilmour/Waters) #" Waiting For The Worms " (4:04) #" Stop " (0:39) #" The Trial " (5:13) (Waters/Ezrin) #" Outside The Wall " (1:41) Total length of album: 1 hour 21 minutes 29 seconds Additional tracks from the film
Tracks from the live concert The live version of The Wall, '' Is There Anybody Out There? The Wall Live 1980-81 '', included the following tracks not on the original album:
Tracks intended for use on the album, but not used The album was originally written to be a triple-LP album, although Waters cut it down and left material out for the band's next release, '' The Final Cut ''.
PERSONNEL Album This album used several personnel and session musicians; many uncredited. This list is a work in progress from various online sources and interviews.
with
TRIVIA
Roger Waters: "Congratulations, You have just discovered the secret message. Please send your answers to 'Old Pink', Care of 'The Funny Farm', Chalfonte..." "Roger, Caroline's on the phone..." It is supposed to make a reference to Pink Floyd's previous album ' Animals '.
We're (waiting to succeed) and going to convene outside Brixton Town Hall where we're going to be... WAITING...to cut out the deadwood... The Worms will convene outside Brixton Bus Station. We'll be moving along at about 12 o'clock down Stockwell Road... (Abbot's Road)... twelve minutes to three we'll be moving along Lambeth Road towards Vauxhall Bridge . Now when we get to the other side of Vauxhall Bridge we're in Westminster (Borough) area. It's quite possible we may encounter... Brixton Town Hall and Stockwell Road are both in South London, and in areas with large black populations. It also mentions Lambeth Road, Vauxhall Bridge and Westminster, which fit, if we move north from Brixton, crossing the Thames at Vauxhall Bridge. What was implied is unclear.
Outside The Wall : "Isn't this where..." In The Flesh? : "...we came in?"
QUOTES "In 1980 when we finished in New York, Larry Maggid, a Philadelphia promoter offered us a guaranteed million dollars a show plus expenses to go and do two dates at JFK Stadium with ''The Wall'' [... and I wouldn't do it. I had to go through the whole story with the other members. I said, 'You've all read my explanations of what The Wall is about. It’s three years since we did that last stadium and I swore then that I would never do one again. And The Wall is entirely sparked off by how awful that was and how I didn't feel that the public or the band or anyone got anything out of it that was worthwhile. And that's why we've produced this show strictly for arenas where everyone does get something out of it that is worthwhile. Blah-blah-blah. And, I ain't fuckin' going!'" :– Roger Waters, June 1987, to Chris Salewicz "Maybe the architectural training to look at things helped me to visualise my feelings of alienation from rock 'n' roll audiences. Which was the starting point for The Wall. The fact that it then embodied an autobiographical narrative was kind of secondary to the main thing which was a theatrical statement in which I was saying, 'Isn't this fucking awful? Here I am up onstage and there you all are down there and isn't it horrible! What the fuck are we all doing here?'" :– Roger Waters, June 1987, to Chris Salewicz "You can't tour The Wall, the show is too complex. I was asked to perform the Wall this summer on 4th July, somewhere in America ... the Indianapolis speedway. I almost agreed because they said it would be a "free" concert, the idea appealed to me because anybody could go if they wanted. However, as I looked further into this free concert idea I discovered the concert would actually be paid for by Corporate America like Coca-Cola or AOL and they would want control of the way their tickets were distributed so it would be like I was working for some big corporation, like buy two crates of Coke and get two tickets - it's not quite the same." :– Roger Waters, October 2005, in an MSN chat "I don't fully agree with the concept of The Wall. To me it's filled with a catalog of complaints and I don't want to blame everything on everyone else in my life but myself. I think it's too complaining myself. There's some wonderful stuff on the album. I think that's one of the wonderful things about music is that you can have a doom-laden lyric on top of an uplifting piece of music. It juxtaposes and gives you an uplifting feeling about it. I think the film got too black and bleak. Like I said, I don't fully concur with everything Roger says on it; I think some parts are very good and some parts are outright bleak to me." :– David Gilmour, May 1992, US Radio interview "As a phenomenon and as a record and a show I am very proud of it. At the same time, I don't agree with everything philosophically." :– David Gilmour, April 2000, US Radio interview for premiere of Is There Anybody Out There?: The Wall Live. SINGLES
CHARTS Album - Billboard (North America) Singles - Billboard (North America) AWARDS Grammy Awards In "Comfortably Numb," David Gilmour's guitar solo was rated #1 best rock guitar solo ever, according to digitaldreamdoor.com Guitar World magazine also listed the guitar solo from "Comfortably Numb" as #4 in its list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Solos, compiled according to reader polls. SEE ALSO EXTERNAL LINKS |
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