art showcase: The Wall

Music is the form of expression that, to me at least, has suffered most from the commercialization of today’s art. Good films still appear periodically, being a form only a century old, and books in general are so unpopular that writing hasn’t been turned into a grinding machine quite yet (Stephen King and John Grisham aside). But while books can exist on their own, rotting in dust in a library, read only by professors and intellectuals, and still be respected, music begs to be heard, to be experienced, and the mass media has capitalized on this with a monopoly on “popular” music, targeted towards the bulk of the herd, which, to put it mildly, has been less than impressive in their tastes. Of course, my purpose here is not to whine about the present, so I will simply say that in the brief but powerful creative spark that occurred in the 60s and 70s, bands like the Beatles and conditions inherent in the times made possible a wave of music that was actually quite good. Here I hope to talk about what I feel is one of the greatest albums of all time, by a band all of you should take a second look at.

First, there are a few things I should go over. The band in question, Pink Floyd, may be known to a few of you. It is probable you have heard at least one song from “The Wall” (probably “Another Brick in the Wall, part II”). You may be more familiar with their other massively successful (and also very good) album, “Dark Side of the Moon” (it was so popular that at one point there was a large factory in Germany that did nothing but churn out copies of Dark Side). Besides being popular, however, their music is layered and complex, much like the later works by the Beatles. Their work is extremely musically interesting, but as a literary man, I will deal primarily with the lyrical aspects of the album. Incidentally, the band had three stages of existence, the first of which is not our concern here, and the last of which continues today but lacks the main creative forces behind their earlier success. The movie based on the album, sharing its name, is also excellent. It is essentially a two hour long music video which some might find somewhat confusing, but I think adds a great deal to one’s comprehension of the themes involved. Anyway, on to “The Wall”.

While most music, especially of today’s variety, is broken up into three minute individual ditties, which one can easily separate from the whole album without any loss in continuity. “The Wall” does not work this way. It is two hours of musical narrative, following an indefinite protagonist through childhood, life, and insanity. There are musical and literary themes carried throughout, and it truly should be listened to in its entirety, and without distraction. It does not classify as “background music”.

The wall in “The Wall” is, of course, a metaphor. As the character and the audience progress through the work, we see experiences in childhood and adulthood begin to add up as bricks in this “wall”, a construct built around the “self”. This introduces a second layer of the story, as a perfect example of Freudian psychology. Sigmund, as well as behavioral psychology, can be seen everywhere on the early tracks of childhood (“Mother”), reappearing later (‘When I was a child…’ in “Comfortably Numb”). One of these childhood experiences (autobiographical of Roger Waters, the lead writer) involves war, seen in several tracks, but perhaps best shown in the film, which adds a later Pink Floyd song (from “The Final Cut”), adding yet another layer to the work as an anti-war parable. Included are bizarre fantasies of fascist-style totalitarianism, images of school (in the film) as a meat factory, and copious amounts of drug use, developing the story further as both a satire on modern society and an anti-establishment tale.

As we listen to the character’s descent into madness, we see how the ultimate psychological defense mechanism, the wall, gradually traps Pink in a self-created prison, rendering him incapable of connecting to the world outside. This culminates in the penultimate track, in which he undergoes a bizarre trial, essentially convicted of humanity after witnesses from his past testify against him. His sentence is the destruction of the wall, leaving him “exposed”, insane, with the “bleeding hearts and artists”. It is not all hopeless, however, as the final track indicates some sort of rebirth, or perhaps just the emptiness of lunacy.

Ultimately, we are left with many questions. Is it better to suffer the cold confinement of the wall, or live in free insanity in a mad world? What walls do we put up around our own selves, and when will those bricks of our past return to haunt us? Next time you are a passenger during a long car trip, put in “The Wall” a couple of times and play close attention. If you are driving and listening, you’re not giving the music the attention it deserves.