Another Brick In The Wall #6

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

We've just finished listening to "Vera" in which Pink mourns over how he will never meet his father who died in the war. We are then swept into a loud choral song called "Bring the Boys Back Home," which Roger Waters calls the central and unifying song of the whole Wall Rock Opera. In an interview with Tommy Vance in 1980 Waters says that the song is "...partly about not letting people go off and be killed in wars, but it's partly about now allowing rock and roll, ... or anything that anybody might do ... not letting that become such an important and 'jolly boy's game' that it becomes more important than friends, wives, children, or other people." Though the song is loud and full of people, the song ends abruptly on a minor chord when Pink realizes that he is still alone. 

Wall Projection During The Wall Live Tour For "Bring the Boys Back Home."

Segueing into "Comfortably Numb," we find that Pink has moved from lonely to delusional. Pink has just been found unconscious in his room, mostly likely from a drug overdose. The dialogue is between a doctor who treats Pink (the verses Waters sings) and Pink's thoughts (verses sung by David Gilmour). This song was written by Waters about being treated for Hepatitis right before a show and how numb and delirious he felt during the performance.

After being revived (in the film version at least), Pink knows that "The Show Must Go On" and he prepares himself to perform. It's very short and almost like a pep talk for him to get ready for the show he starts playing. The backing vocals were supposed to sound Beach Boys-esque, especially after the Beach Boys cancelled the morning of the actual recording. This song was omitted from the movie and has been omitted in post-Pink Floyd concerts in the 1990s.

The Iconic Crossed Hammers - Pink's Logo

We hear the show Pink is playing in "In the Flesh" - not to be confused with the introductory song "In the Flesh?" In this segment, Pink envisions himself as a fascist dictator and his concert is a large political rally. Pink questions his fans loyalty and singles out the "queers" and the "coons." The incited crowd chants "Pink! Floyd! Pink! Floyd!" until the end of the song. This song is where the iconic Hammer salute comes from and projections of marching hammers can be seen during performances and in the movie.

Now that Pink is in a heightened delusional state - what will he do next? Find out in Part 7!

"I'll See You On the Dark Side Of the Moon"

40 years ago today, one of the greatest and most popular Pink Floyd albums, Dark Side of the Moon was released. So I decided to shove aside a bit of school work and talk about this AWESOME album.

Following Meddle (1971), Dark Side was the 8th studio album for the group, written entirely by Roger Waters. Waters wanted to write an album that deal with things that "made people mad," focusing on the arduous lifestyle the band faced in day-to-day life, including dealing with Syd Barrett's mental problems that had caused him to leave the band. It's original working title was The Dark Side of the Moon: A Piece for Assorted Lunatics. The band agreed on Waters' unifying concept and went straight to work.

If you don't recognize the artwork, you should probably stop reading this blog.

In 1972, the band went a world wide tour to perform Dark Side as it would be recorded and the tour was praised by the public. The long tour allowed Pink Floyd to make some changes until they found the songs to be just what they wanted them to be.

Each side of the album is a continuous song and represents a specific part of life: it begins and ends with a heartbeat, and explores human nature throughout. "Speak to Me/Breathe" is about the mundane parts of life, "On the Run" shifts to an airport and explores Richard Wright's fear of flying, and "The Great Big Gig in the Sky" is a soulful metaphor for death. "Money" mocks greed and consumerism, "Us and Them" addresses the isolation of the depressed, and "Any Colour You Like It" concerns the lack of choice one has in society. "Brain Damage" is clearly a song for Syd and looks at mental illness from resulting fame. The whole album ends with "Eclipse" which forces the listener to recognize the common traits shared by humanity through the concepts of alterity and unity.

Some have said that Dark Side is actually about the movie The Wizard of Oz. Apparently, if you start playing the album when you start the movie, there are some coincidental match ups between lyrics and Dorothy's movements. Alan Parsons, who helped record the album, says that the band never brought up the movie even once during writing or recording.

A live performance of Dark Side in Earl's Court, shortly after the release.

"Money," ironically, has become one of the most popular songs off the album. It was one of the first songs that got me into Pink Floyd and I remember my father blasting it whenever it came on the stereo. It didn't matter what we were doing - bbqing, working outside, washing dishes, driving the car - "Money" was blasted very loudly and was accompanied with a certain foot thumping from my father. This song's got some great memories tied up in it for me.

One of my other favourites is "Speak to Me/Breathe." It's just a nice mellow song that you can really get into. I really enjoyed listening to it during my summer commute to work. But all in all, this a fantastic album and probably one of their most popular (next to The Wall, of course). If you haven't heard it, go listen to it - you're missing out a piece of musical artwork.

Another Brick in the Wall #4

In honour of the recent anniversary of "The Wall": Part 4 of The Wall series. To refresh your memory, read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

We left Pink while he was on tour, attempting to collect call his wife and finding out that she was cheating on him. So how does Pink react? "One of My Turns" shows Pink's twisting emotions after the revelation. 

Enter The Bimbo, a groupie who is Pink's company for the night. She keeps trying to make conversation with him while he stares at the TV (Fun Fact: He's watching The Dam Busters). She's got some lovely lines like "Wanna take a bath?" to try and get his attention but eventually she goes over to Pink to figure out what's wrong. Pink feels "cold as a razor blade, tight as a tourniquet, tight as a funeral drum" after he finds out his wife has cheated on him.

The Groupie from the film version of The Wall

And now, he goes and gets his "favourite axe" and starts on a highly violent rampage, destroying the room, frightening The Bimbo, throwing this at her, and eventually beating her up. In the film version, Bob Geldof (who played Pink) actually cut himself on a shard of glass as he threw a TV set out the window, but the producer to keep it in the film.

At this point, Pink feels remorse and self-pity and asks the groupie "Why are you running away?" We move into "Don't Leave Me Now," a song that Roger Waters says is about two people who have hurt each other very badly but are upset at the prospect at their marriage dissolving. The song is purposefully non-harmonic to show the emotion of the moment. I have an unanswered question about this song: in the background you can hear a respirator, so are we to assume that he's either a) beat up the groupie or b) is having thoughts of hurting his wife after her adultery?

All the major players from The Wall

"Another Brick in the Wall Part 3" is the loudest of all the parts and also the shortest. It really emphasizes Pink's rage and he has now decided to finish constructing his wall after his wife's adultery. He decides he doesn't need anyone at all since they're all "just bricks in the wall." The song then cross fades into "Goodbye Cruel World," the end of Disc 1 of The Wall.

Pink has now acknowledged his mental completion of his wall and his isolation from society. At a live performance, there is one brick gap left and Waters can be seen singing through it. On the word "goodbye" at the end of the song, the last brick is put into place and the music cuts immediately, as Pink has now cut all ties with the outside world.

And that ends Disc 1 of The Wall. Now that I'm on winter holidays, I'll be posting Part 5 soon and we'll start looking at Disc 2. 

A Memory of Richard Wright

Today in 2008, we lost Richard Wright, the keyboardist for Pink Floyd, at the age of 65. To be fair, Wright was more than a keyboardist, he also played synth, organ, bass, harpsicord, harmonium, and performed backing vocals. He was also a songwriter, though not as prolific as David Gilmour or Roger Waters, and produced a significant amount of lyrics for Division Bell, Wish You Were Here, Dark Side of the Moon, and Meddle.

At 12, Wright taught himself how to play guitar. In 1962, he enrolled in the Regent Street Polytechnic where he met future bandmates Waters and Gilmour. The three formed The Pink Floyd Sound in 1965. In 1967-68, Wright wrote and sang many of his own songs. He is not credited with lead vocals on several Syd Barrett penned tunes from The Piper at the Gates of Dawn.

Wright performing in Munich in 2006.

Typically, Wright contributed to the long, epic songs such as "Shine On You Crazy Diamond," "Atom Heart Mother," and "Echoes." He also extensively contributed to "Time" and "Breathe," and sang alternating lead vocals with Gilmour on "Breathe." But as the sound and goals of Pink Floyd changed, Wright focused more on his keyboard style for the extended instrumental breaks in songs like "Dogs," "One of These Days," and "Interstellar Overdrive."

Wright was forced to resign from Pink Floyd by Waters during the The Wall sessions. Waters threatened to axe the tapes if Wright didn't leave. However, he was kept on as a salaried session musician. He was the only member to not attend the film premiere of Pink Floyd-The Wall (1982) and Pink Floyd's Final Cut (1983) is the only album Wright does not appear on. He continued to appear alongside Pink Floyd as a salaried musician following Waters's departure.

One of the last times Pink Floyd played together (L to R): Gilmour, Waters, Mason, Wright

In November 2005, Pink Floyd was inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame. Wright was unable attend due to cataracts surgery. In 2006, Wright joined Gilmour and Nick Mason for the recording of the PULSE DVD. In 2008, Wright died of cancer while he had been working on a new solo album. His contributions to the music world have been and will continue to be missed.

Another Brick In The Wall #3

Click here if you haven't read Part 1 or Part 2.

And now, we continue on our journey with Mr. Pink Floyd. We last him while he was at school, and now he has declared that he doesn't "need [any] arms around me." Though we hears smashing at the beginning of "Another Brick In the Wall Pt. 3", he continues to build his wall.

Pink's Mum

Next, we find Pink conversing with his mother. In "Mother," Pink expresses his fears and asks many questions to his mum and instead of comforting him, she says that "Mama's gonna make all your nightmares come true." In this song, we find that his mother is very controlling and overbearing and she wants him to stay by her side even when he grows up and gets married. Mother encourages Pink to build his wall and says "Of course Mother's gonna help build the wall." In the end, Pink asks "Mother, did it need to be so high?" So is Pink questioning the necessity of the Wall or does he just feel overprotected?  [Fun Fact #1: Nick Mason had a tough time with the time signatures that he turned the drumming duties over to a studio drummer.]

We hear a skylark singing and a child takes our attention away from Pink and his mother by saying "Look, Mummy, there's an aeroplane in the sky." The lyrics describe a memory of the Blitz, the bombing of the UK during World War II. However, in Roger Waters' recent tour, he uses the song as a metaphorical cultural bombing and plays animated videos of corporate logos and religious symbols being dropped from planes.

Pink's wife, portrayed as a Praying Mantis since she seems to feed off of him, a trait of female Mantises.

But Pink is on the move (we can infer this from the airport announcement we hear at the beginning of "Empty Spaces") to America for his big Rock 'n' Roll Tour. This tune has Pink wondering how he should finish building his wall while his marriage is suffering due to his physical distance while on tour and the incomplete wall. But the Wall isn't completed until "Young Lust." Technically, the word "wall" doesn't finish until the bluesy, raunchy song "Young Lust" starts. 


Thus, Pink has found the way to work on the wall: cheating on his wife while on tour. He asks if a "dirty woman" would help "make [him] feel like a real man" since his wife is so cold. The real twist to this song is the ending when Pink calls home collect via telephone operator and a man at his residence picks up the phone and hangs up twice, implying that Pink's wife is cheating on him too. [Fun Fact #2: The collect call recording was done by co-producer James Guthrie while working on the album in LA. He phoned his neighbor in London, pretended that he had caught his wife cheating, and the studio recorded the surprised operator's reaction.]

To hear about how Pink deals with this revelation, look for Part 4, coming soon!

The Story of Syd Barrett

In 1975, Pink Floyd released the album Wish You Were Here. A conceptual album written all by Roger Waters, its about feelings of alienation, remembering former member Syd Barrett, as well as a critique of the music business. The album is definitely one of their more interesting ones to me at least. Fun fact: The cover was shot at the Warner Bros studio complex in California.

"Shine On You Crazy Diamond" is just one big tribute, split into two halves (Waters' idea), to Barrett. It's a song that shows how fond Waters (and most possibly the rest of the band) felt about him. He is recalled in many lines like "Remember when you were young? You shone like the sun." During the recording of "Crazy Diamond" a fat and bald man entered the studio, presumed to be an EMI staff member. Eventually, the band recognized him as Barrett, their former member. Some of the former band mates were reduced to tears as he sat in on the recording and did not understand its relevance to him. Supposedly, Barrett's conversation was not entirely sensible. He left later without saying good bye and never saw any of the band members again before his death in 2006.

Wish You Were Here album cover

 "Diamond" moves seamlessly into "Welcome To The Machine" which starts with a door opening, the symbol of the musical discovery and progress, and ends with a party, symbolizing the greed of the industry and lack of real contact with people. "Have A Cigar," the song from which this blog is named, further breaks down the music business filled with fatcats with such lines of "we call it riding the gravy train," and "the band is just fantastic, that is really what I think/oh by the way, which one is Pink?" which the band was asked on more than one occasion. The song ends with a radio being tuned to various stations and eventually settles on a station that starts playing "Wish You Were Here."


The title track was recording and produced to sound like it was coming from a radio (the radio part was recorded from the one in David Gilmour's car). It contains lyrics both referring to Barrett's condition as well as the dichotomy that Waters felt within him - an idealist and yet also a domineering personality. To me, it's a song about missing someone whether there is a physical or emotional distance. Also, I think that the line of the "two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl" is certainly a unique line. I can listen to this song on repeat for hours. The title track is then followed by the reprise of "Crazy Diamond," and it's just as spectacular as the first half.


If you haven't listened to this album yet, listen to it in its entirety. It's beautiful. It's not the most coherent of concept albums as it hits many points, but it's a beautiful album. Waters knows how to write a good set of lyrics and the band does an excellent job making the music work and make sense.

Another Brick in the Wall #2

If you haven't read the first post, click here to read it!

A baby cries: the official beginning of the flashback that is The Wall and Pink Floyd's story. "Thin Ice" is the start of a cautionary tale for Pink, told by his mother. Though it starts with a soothing mother cooing to her baby that she loves him and "Daddy loves [him] too," it warns that "the sea may look warm,...the sky may look blue," but "don't be surprised if a crack in the ice appears under your feet."

Eric Fletchers Waters, a victim of war.

This song also has reference to the toll that war can take not only on the populace, but the children left behind from it. When Waters performs this song, he displays a picture of his father who died in World War II. This photo is replaced with others that have been submitted by fans for those who were also victims of war, terrorism, or intolerance.

"Thin Ice" leads into "Another Brick in the Wall Pt. 1" in which Pink learns of his father's death in the war and starts to begin building The Wall. At the end, we hear wailing, screaming, shouting kids in the background and we crossfade into "Happiest Days of Our Lives."

The Schoolteacher

With the sounds of the helicopter, we hear the school teacher yelling at a student to "stand still." Pink's school life was strict and often abusive. In video versions of this song, Pink is hit by a belt by the schoolteacher in order to cover up his own humiliation at home.

We then segue with a classic Waters scream into "Another Brick in the Wall Pt. 2." After Pink is humiliated by his teacher, he dreams that the other school children are revolting against the schoolteacher. He sees education as "thought control" and forcing children to learn to conform, "just another brick in the wall" of life.With his abuse from the schoolteacher, Pink continues to build his wall.

We'll continue on again with Pink's story soon! Stay tuned for #3

Today in Music History: June 29

On this day in 1968, Pink Floyd released their sophomore album A Saucerful of Secrets. They also performed in the first free concert in Hyde Park with Tyrannosaurus Rex. Oddly enough, this concert was set to coincide with the release of the album. The concert also set the stage for many more free concerts in Hyde Park in the future.

The first free Hyde Park concert line up

Saucerful of Secrets is the last studio featuring Syd Barrett and the only album in which all five members contributed (Gilmour was brought in during January of '68 due to Barrett's increasingly unstable condition).  As the band's second album, it marked the transition from clear and concise songs to more dreamy and psychedelic songs that the band is now known for. This transition could have been caused by Barrett's condition/departure and/or a push from Waters to move into the more psychedelic genre.

A Saucerful of Secrets cover - only the second time that EMI allowed a band to hire an outside designer for an album jacket

If you haven't heard Saucerful before, "Let There Be More Light" is a great tune to get you started, and "Jugband Blues" is an awesome Barrett tune. And if you're looking for a jam that's closer to the Pink Floyd we all know and love, check out the song "A Saucerful of Secrets." It's way out there, but clearly a Pink Floyd original.


If you want to listen to the whole album, click here for a HQ recording.  It's definitely one of those albums that you can start and listen through the whole way and enjoy every moment of it. It might not be my most favourite album, but it's still a good one.

"One of These Days"

It never takes too long for me to go back to Pink.

My introduction to "One of These Days," off the Meddle album, was during my junior year. My mum had gone away for the weekend and it was just me and my Dad. We were driving to go see a Caps game and he had the iPod plugged into the car and said, "Ah, here's something just the two of us can listen to." Then he turned up the bass and the volume.

Meddle (1971) - Anyone know what it actually is? I've always thought a dragon...*

The bass line comes up and sticks with you - pretty hard not to since it's double-tracked. The song slowly adds instruments and builds to this echoing bass line part...and then the kick drum gets banged a few times. It's Mason's cue to say his one and only line - the only one in the whole song: "One of these days, I'm gonna to tear you up into little pieces." It's an eerie, large voice created apparently by a high pitched voice and a slowed down tape.

It's rumored the threat is a response to a music reviewer's poor review of one of their previous albums. Or it's a reference to the clips that they used to play at concerts in the 1970's of BBC's Sir Jimmy Young - apparently the boys didn't like his tendency to babble on.

However you cut it, "One of These Days" is one of my favourite Pink Floyd songs. Partly because of its ability to be a really mesmerizing instrumental song and partly because, as a drummer myself, I love that Nick Mason got to be vocalist.

*FUN FACT (11/5/12): The shot is actually a close-up of an ear underwater, not a dragon as I have previously surmised. I'm curious as to what others have thought it was...

Another Brick in the Wall #1

It starts with "...we came in?" Then we go to the real show. My favourite, and possibly the greatest, rock opera of all time, The Wall in which we follow the story of Mr. Pink Floyd.

I had the recent privilege to see Roger Waters perform The Wall live. It is officially the best concert I've ever been to. At 68, Mr. Waters still knows how to throw a good show. If I had the opportunity, I would totally go again.

Roger Waters performing "The Show Must Go On"

For those who are unfamiliar with the general story line of The Wall, it follows thusly:
Our main character is Mr. Pink Floyd, overprotected by his mother, abused by his school teacher, and cheated on by his cold wife. We follow his story growing up, becoming a rock star, his own infidelity to his wife, his violent tendencies, and his struggles with the wall. The wall, in this case, is an emotional wall built by the emotional stunting of his life. In the end, he goes on trial to figure out if he should tear down the wall or not.

"In the Flesh?" sets the tone and the scene of the world we are about to be immersed in.  A world where feelings are hard to come by, where conformity is the only way, and where "riff-raff" is put into a shooting line.

We find out that the band performing is actually a "surrogate band" to tell us Pink's story, and not Pink himself, since he "isn't well, he stayed back at the hotel." Should we take this to mean he's strung out on drugs? Or that he's recuperating from recently bringing down his (emotional) wall? Most likely, it's as the song says, "to find out where [we] stand" when it comes to Pink's story. This is probably because (as we find out later) he had a hallucination in which he was a fascist Neo-Nazi-esque dictator and started setting soldiers on fans at one of his concerts. But maybe this is just the world Pink lives in, since the surrogate band wishes to have everyone shot.

"Trust Us" - The Symbol of the world in which Pink Floyd lives

We'll continue to follow Mr. Pink Floyd's story in another post. This is just one of many considering how much there is to talk about this two-sided, inspired album.