Analyzing The Wall

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.

When the band would perform the album it would almost be more of a trip to the theatre than to a rock concert. The band would play all of the songs in the same order of the story being told up on stage. As time would progress throughout the concert, the literal “Wall” would be built upon the stage. For almost half of the concert the band would be playing behind a literal wall. It sounds strange and confusing but it turned out to be a magnificent work of art.