Just another Brick in the Wall (Riley)

Introduction
Technology of the “Wired World” has really changed the way people access media. Before the age of computers, and even television, people had to leave the comfort of their homes if they wanted to find a new book to read, album to listen too, or movie to watch. Now that virtually everyone has access to the internet, they have the power to access their favorite Medias and even interact with them. Authors and artist now have the ability to branch out to their fan base and really connect with them over the internet. The music industry has rapidly changed over the last few decades with the coming and going of Napster and new music groups are using the internet to get their music out there. Many indie bands today upload their songs on music community sites and allow free access to listeners. The internet helps these bands share their music and hopefully get noticed by a record company. Before the age of the internet, bands would have to know specific people before they would even be let in the door. Now they can gain popularity and a fan base by simply uploading their songs on the internet.

Media has always evolved through remediation, whether it's fan art, cover songs, retellings, or conversion to another media. Remediation with media, especially music, can give readers and listeners the opportunity to see the story in a different light. With the concept of Web 2.0 users all over the world can create their own work and share it with other users across the internet. The music and literature producers and publishers probably don't agree with the Web 2.0 concept because "people will pass around digital copies of books [or music] and never pay for them anymore!" But with the power of Youtube, and other similar sites, users can do everything with a piece of music, from cover songs, teaching users how to play a song, or interpret the meaning of lyrics and create their own story from it.



For my project, I will be analyzing Pink Floyd's double album The Wall and will be finding the online communities that love to listen and interpret the music. With over 30 million albums sold, The Wall is one of Pink Floyd's most powerful and inspiring albums to date. It speaks heavily about society and the danger of building social barriers, out of fear, that keep us from opening up to other people. Over the years, with the development of the internet, fans have been able to reach out and find out Floyd fans to discuss their own interpretations of The Wall. Pink Floyd is an interesting band because, despite their record sales, most people can only recognize Pink Floyd by their name rather than their faces. Even with the internet to spread their fame and music, Pink Floyd is still considered to be where the music is more important than the people who played the music and wrote the songs  I will also be examining how remediation has expanded The Wall to an even broader audience with the creation of the film ''Pink Floyd - The Wall. ''We see how the album being made into a film can allow fans of the album to physically see the story unfold and maybe even show a perspective they have yet to experience.

Interpretative Disputes
From my analysis of the album, and the film, the first half of the album goes through Pink's childhood displaying that his father, mother, and wife were nothing more that just bricks in the wall. I feel that there was a lot of focus towards Pink’s outlook and feelings about the war. His father being shipped off to war and dying in the war obvious is a crucial part of his childhood and why he builds the wall in the first place. The interesting part about The Wall is that there are several layers of themes when trying to interpret the album.


 * "It's not about Roger Waters, it's not about his father, and it's not about World War II. Of course there are tons of references to his own life and experience, simply because he's the one who wrote it." Pink-floyd-the-wall-alan-parker.jpg


 * "The Wall is about society. The album speaks about every single individual on this planet. Everybody has their weak sides, which are described in songs like Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2, for example, speaks about how authority corrupts people. Of course this song describes teachers in particular, because almost everybody has experience with this; I don't think any of us can honestly say that they have never hated a teacher. But its meaning is to be to be interpreted more widely; the teacher in this song is a person who abuses his authority for his own sadistic pleasure, and this is as common thing in society.), Mother, Don't Leave Me Now, The Thin Ice, etc. Pink, in the album, is a characterization of many extreme weaknesses, as well as a person who is subject to people who torment him because they have similar weaknesses."

Another Brick in the Wall Pt. 2 is a great example of the depth that The Wall's themes express. The torment Pink recieves from his schoolmaster shouting "Wrong, do it again!" and, the more famous, "How can have any pudding if you don't eat your meat!?" is just one brick in this part of the story. The students being stripped of their individuality and herded like cattle, from the film, into the meat grinder is a strong metaphor to the society that we live in today. People are so stimulated and commercialized by the amounts of technology that we have today that creativity and self expression is being snuffed out by the authority. I find an interesting comment that talks about a segment in the song where the school children are singing "We don't need no education..." and a good point is made about the contradictory nature of the lyrics.


 * "When the school children are all chanting 'We don't need no education' together in unison, this act, in a way, is MORE conforming than the education they have grown to hate. If you think about it, Roger Waters was saying that even in a revolt against conformity there will still be the presence of conformists, or uniformed followers."

In the Flesh is another great song that draws a lot of discussion because of the offensive nature of the song. This is near the end of the album and Pink has been drugged up and sent out on stage to perform. This track sounds familiar to the first In the Flesh?, the instruments sound more distorted and Pink goes on to say "Pink isn't well, he stayed back at the hotel." Physically, Pink is on stage, but with a new persona, driven by hatred and bigotry, brought on by his tormented past and a journey towards self discovery interrupted by the doctor's shot in Comfortably Numb. Because the audience gazes upon him in amazement, he tests their loyalty by demanding them to gather up the "queers", "Jews", and "coons," as they scream and applaud.




 * "Starved of meaningful human connection, and feeding solely on the torments of his past, the darker facets of Pink turn into the very zeitgeist that killed his father. He spews Nazi-esque propaganda at his unsuspecting and equally ignorant audience in an attempt to mold them into his warriors, so to speak."



One of the biggest disputes that I have seen for The Wall is the end of the album. When Pink is sentenced to tear the wall down, the bricks come tumbling down. This leaves Pink suddenly exposed in front of the audience as Outside the Wall begins. Pink's fate, however, is left open to interpretation since we never actually see what happens to him. There are a few different scenarios that could be possible for Pink's future. Near the very end of the album, you can hear a faint voice say, "Isn't this where...we came in?" which to, to some fans, displays the albums never ending nature. Pink, once exposed, immediately begins rebuilding his wall and the album basically starts all over again. In the film, the final scene shows severval small children wandering a worn torn street collecting debree. They begin to find bricks and gather them together, potentially preparing them for the rebuilding of the wall. For fans that prefer a happier ending, some think that Pink has been elightened and realizes the importance of his journey and begins to live his life. He doesn't let fear and hatred keep him from connecting with people, especially the people who love him the most. A truely inspiring tale of enlightenment.


 * Trial6.jpg
 * Pink's "judgment to de-isolate himself…is a very good thing." Perhaps for the first time in his life, Pink is unfettered by past burdens and is able to experience life to the fullest without the hindrance of dulling mental defenses. While Pink was born into the world in "In the Flesh?" and continually born into new incarnations throughout the album, the destruction of his wall marks his true rebirth of self. Though he is now more vulnerable to the pains of life, he is also more opened to life's pleasures, allowing him to truly connect with his emotions, his loved ones, and the world. As Pink's story attests, the wall-like defense mechanisms are in reality more oppressive than protective, replacing humility and understanding with egotism and decay. And though the world remains imperfect despite one man's enlightening journey, the destruction of this one wall removes yet another brick from the larger wall of humanity. The destruction of this one wall becomes another broken link in the vicious, circular chain of oppression and violence. With enough bricks and links gone, the social wall of prejudice will collapse and the circuitous cycle of injustice will be broken. 

Another possible ending, that is a little darker, for Pink and The Wall is that Pink commits suicide once his wall comes down. Pink is so overwhelmed by the sensation of his wall crumbling that he decides to put an end to it and commits suicide. Pink Floyd's following album, The Final Cut, "he decides to "pull the curtains down" (commit suicide and die) and holding a blade in his shaking hand, he attempts but with the ringing of the phone he halts and could not continue the motive that was to make a final cut (to finally conclude his life) because he could not gather that courage again."

No matter the ending, Pink's story becomes less about a singular rock star and more about us, the audience, and the world we live in. While the characters in The Wall are only called by their titles, their roles in Pink's life define their personalities as Mother, Father, Teacher, and Spouse, possibly mirroring the people who exist is everyone's lives. The underlying themes of humanity and its subsequent degradation as a result of personal and societal disconnection are universal. Just like the "bleeding hearts" in "Outside the Wall," Pink Floyd has taken it upon themselves to convey this timeless story of personal decay, perhaps in the hopes that these omnipresent patterns, these cycles of violence, might be averted. Such is the ultimate aim of art: to illuminate, to edify.


 *  Pink's story is finished. He constructed his wall, fell into moral decay because of it, and ultimately destroyed this isolating barrier. Our story, however, is still taking place. What happens to Pink soon becomes nowhere near as important as what happens to us. How do we live our lives? Are we currently constructing or tearing down those hindrances that produce disconnection and degeneration? How do our personal walls contribute to those of our nation, our world? How much of the world's ills are we really responsible for? Most importantly, which versions of Pink will we choose to be? 

Remediation


A great example of remediation of Pink Floyd’s The Wall is the film The Wall, released in 1982. The film really helps create an image of a few themes behind the wall. For example, during Another Brick in the Wall Pt. 2 they display the school children marching through an assembly line and dropping into a meat grinder. Near the end of the song, however, the children break out in rebellion and start tearing down the school. This is good imagery to display the commercialization of society and how the school system is just producing “Bricks for the Wall,” yet the children are crying out for rebellion. One of my favorite scenes in the film is during The Happiest Days of Our Lives while Pink is in class. The Headmaster walks up to his desk and finds that he is writing poems and proceeds to read them to embarrass Pink in front of his classmates. He reads aloud, “Money, get back. I’m all right, Jack. Keep your hands off my stack. New car, caviar, four-star daydream. Think I’ll buy me a football team,” which is a lyric from Money off of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. This is a great example of remediation because this scene isn’t expressed in the album and it reinforces Roger Water’s connection to Pink. Some other great examples of remediation within the film are during Goodbye Blue Sky, Empty Spaces, and The Trial where animation, created by Gerald Scarfe was used instead of real life actors.

Goodbye Blue Sky


In Goodbye Blue Sky, a seemingly peaceful scene quickly breaks out into a war ridden waste land with a sky filled with war planes. The planes that fill the sky turn into white crosses, representing the soldiers dying at war, and finally wraps up by saying “Did you hear the frightened ones? Did you hear the falling bombs? The flames are all long gone but the pain lingers on.” This is clearly a reference to the war that his father fought and die in.

Empty Spaces


When Empty Spaces begins, we are at the point in the story where Pink is building the wall and is looking for anything that he can fill the empty spaces in his wall. There is great imagery of all the possessions that Pink has, like cars, TV’s, motorcycles, and guitars, being stacked into the wall. The lyrics in Empty Spaces, “shall we set out across the sea of faces,” refer to one of the major themes of The Wall. Along with the animation creates a strong feeling of society being a mindless horde of faces that only live and obey.

The Trial
The Trial  is an interesting track on the album because it sounds much mo re like a courtroom trial than a musical number. At this point of the story, Pink has had enough of his behavior and decides to put himself on trial. The prosecutor, who calls himself Worm, appears and explains that Pink has been “showing feeling of an almost human nature. This will not do.” He proceeds to bring out the schoolmaster, his wife, and his mother and they each explain their case. Then the judge appears and states that the “evidence before the court is incontrovertible. There’s no need for the jury to retire.” He finally sentences Pink to be exposed before his peers and tears down the wall. You really gain a good image of the influential people in Pink’s life; from the schoolmaster, who is beating a student in the classroom as his wife beats him in the background, to his mother, who puts her arms around Pink and her cradled arms forms into the wall. "Throughout the trial, Pink is shown as being a rag doll. He no longer cares that he is being prosecuted. He's just a doll being tossed around from accuser to accuser, occasionally whimpering ("crazy, over the rainbow") but never defending himself."

These animated scenes really create a different visually interpretation of the story and what’s going on inside Pink’s head.  

Authorial Intentions
With millions of people listening to The Wall over and over, I'm sure there is a countless number of interpretations that each person has once they have listened to the album in its entirity. But the true meaning behind the bricks in the wall can only be described through the man who wrote The Wall, Roger Waters. Many fans have stated that The Wall is an autobiography of Roger's life and career as a rock and roll legend. In an interview with Roger Waters in 1979 he said:



 "I, personally, became so upset during the show that I *spat* at some guy in the front row, he was shouting and screaming and having a wonderful time and they were pushing against the barrier and what he wanted was a good riot, and what I wanted was to do a good rock and roll show and I got so upset in the end that I spat at him, which is a very nasty thing to do to anybody. Anyway, the idea is that these kinds of fascist feelings develop from isolation."

Roger's inspiration for writing The Wall was introduced by his feeling of isolation when he went on stage to perform. It was that occurance with a roudy fan, and many others I'm sure, that gave him the idea to build a giant wall between the band and the audience. "He originally conceived of a black wall, built over the course of the concert. And that, at some key point, eventually the band would be entirely hidden from the audience. Thus was the initial germ of an idea that would become The Wall". Other parts of the album also came directly from experiences Roger had when he was a child. The schoolmaster, for example, had a direct impact on Pink's life and there seemed to be a message of authority "molding" the children into shape.


 *  Roger_stage.jpg"My school life was very like that. Oh, it was 
 *  awful, it was really terrible. When I hear people whining on now about bringing back Grammar schools it really makes me quite ill to listen to it. Because I went to a boys Grammar school and although... I want to make it plain that some of the men who taught (it was a boys school) some of the men who taught there were very nice guys, you know I'm not... it's not meant to be a blanket condemnation of teachers everywhere, but the *bad* ones can really do people in--and there were some at my school who were just incredibly bad and treated the children so badly, just putting them down, putting them down, you know, all the time. Never encouraging them to do things, not really trying to interest them in anything, just trying to keep them quiet and still, and crush them into the right shape, so that they would go to university and do well. " 

Another interpretation I found to be interesting was the "Worms" in the story. During Waiting for the Worms, Pink is on stage and at the point where he is just barking orders from a megaphone. It continues with the fascist/nazi-esque theme throughout the song, making notions to ready the showers and fire the ovens as the crowd chants "Hammer" almost mindlessly. The first time I listened to this track I was confused and didn't understand what the worms were or why Pink is waiting for them.

 

''"Waiting for the Worms" in theatrical terms is an expression of what happens in the show, when the drugs start wearing off and what real feelings he's got left start taking over again, and he is forced by where he is, because he's been dragged out his real real feelings. Until you see either the show or the film of this thing you won't know why people are shouting "hammer," but the hammer, we've used the hammer as a symbol of the forces of oppression if you like. " ''

Roger explains that the Worms are the feelings that Pink feels that are being numbed by the drugs he receives during Comfortably Numb returning to him. The film really helps display this meaning because you can see Pink jumping in and out of consciencness. The marching hammers is another great piece of imagery in during this song. It really reinforces the sybolism of opression that is displayed through much of the album.