Once a year, usually at the start of summer, I go on a #PinkFloyd binge. Musically, this album is brilliant, but as a whole it’s so dark and twisted, I’ve thought many times how unlikely it was that this album was so phenomenally popular.
I listened to this when I was young enough to not have any clue what “break my balls” meant, but my true immersion was the year after high school graduation (‘87) when I’d listen in my car, volume at 11, likely 10,000 times.
Decades later...
it has become deep and nuanced in meaning, and I know now why I love Gilmour’s guitar most of all: the way the notes linger while they pull at your heart and then once caught, the notes cascade down as you tumble with them. No other guitar is as emotionally articulate.
The album has other, darker emotional connotations that I’ll write about next. It’s truly a pivotal album, the ultimate concept album in every sense of that word. It ended a musical era, with a finale as huge as “In the Flesh”.
“The Wall”— emotional Show more
“The Wall”— A little secret Show more
“The Wall”— political Show more
For the first time, the political last third of #TheWall stood out strongly to me. It was written when artists like Eric Clapton publicly vocalized racism, and the Britannia movement had popular support. (“Would you like to see Britannia rule again, my friend?”) Brown Shirts and fascists goose-stepped in to the narrative, and now it’s happening again in our lifetime. Nazis, Brexit, xenophobia. No happy ending here, just a disturbing observation.
Deeper every time.