Pink Floyd - Another Brick In The Wall

I think a lot of people have the same experience as I had with my early discovery of Pink Floyd. It all began with “The Wall.” “The Wall” was one of the first and only albums I ever owned on cassette tape and it was listened to hundreds of times. To this day I hold “The Wall” as the single greatest rock album ever, barely edging out Led Zeppelin’s “Physical Graffiti.”

I guess really like double albums.

Before my mother got me my “The Wall” cassette for as a Christmas gift so long ago now, my only exposure to Pink Floyd was through the radio and in turn it was songs like “Comfortable Numb” and “Another Brick in the Wall Part 2” that brought me to listen to Pink Floyd and their magnum opus “The Wall.”

A powerful drawing emotion of rock and roll is the spirit of rebellion and affectively all youths go through a period of rebellion. “Another Brick in the Wall Part 2” has this as a chorus:

“We don’t need no education.
We don’t need no thought control.
No dark sarcasm in the classroom.
Teacher leave them kids alone.”

The message of “we don’t need no education” naturally resonates with young people, all of whom want to find themselves and develop their own identities which can only be done outside the confines of conformity. Like I said I think a lot of people have a similar experience to my own.

“Another Brick in the Wall Part 2” is a perfect song to garner a new young audience, and has been a contributing factor to Pink Floyd’s extreme trans generational appeal. Unsurprisingly a prudish culture was fearful of the message rejecting education, and apparently being incapable of listening a song’s lyrics in full failed to grasp the deeper and truer meaning of the song’s intent, which was a rejection of thought control. I mean it’s says it right there in the chorus, it is literally the second line.

Nonetheless “The Wall” and it’s highest ranking song “Another Brick in the Wall Part 2” were considered very controversial.

A lot of people fail to realize that most versions of the song they hear is actual two songs, “The Happiest Days of our Lives” and the afore mentioned “Another Brick in the Wall Part 2.” These two songs are meant to be heard together, but then again, the entire album “The Wall” is designed in such a way that every song leads into the next. However, in the case of “The Happiest Days of our Lives” and “Another Brick in the Wall Part 2” the two songs are truly linked as one. “The Happiest Days of our Lives” details the lives of the brutal teachers, and then Pink Floyd proclaims the lack of necessity that education offers.

A lot of people also fail to realize the song title is in fact “Another Brick in the Wall Park 2,” assuming a title like “We Don’t Need no Education” instead. A very specific title like “Another Brick in the Wall Part 2” should raise some questions to the casual Pink Floyd fan, like what is part 1 like? Or is this song a part of a larger whole? Anyone with any meaningful knowledge of Pink Floyd already knows the answers to these questions but we shall go over them anyway.

There are three parts to “Another Brick in the Wall” to properly appreciate what make them special one must understand “The Wall” the album, but more so the metaphor. Roger Water’s “The Wall” is a very real barrier separating the narrator from the rest of the world. The bricks, within this wall, at painful moments and events that damage the narrator, and create the divide between himself and the rest of the world. In the famous part 2, we see the abuses of overly determined disciplinary teachers and a soul crushing education system lasts with him forever.

Another Brick in The Wall Part 1:

The first brick in the wall is altogether different. “Another Brick in the Wall Part 1” is three minutes in length and is primarily a guitar song using a lot of long lasting notes creating a lot of atmosphere. The only lyrics is a single verse:

“Daddy's flown across the ocean,
Leaving just a memory,
Snapshot in the family album,
Daddy what else did you leave for me?
Daddy, what did ya leave behind for me?
All in all it was just a brick in the wall.
All in all it was all just bricks in the wall.”

The second world war has a lot of visual influence over Water’s creation, and anyone who has watched “The Wall” the movie will concur that the father’s departure is due to him leaving to fight in the war.

Another Brick in The Wall Part 3:

The third part of the “Another Brick in the Wall” set is sort of a conclusion to the brick laying as it were. Appropriately similar to the previous two parts of this trilogy the third part is a short song with very little actually being vocalized and once again we are left with a single chorus to develop this story:

“I don't need no arms around me,
I don't need no drugs to calm me,
I have seen the writing on the wall,
Don't think I need anything at all.
No don't think I'll need anything at all.
All in all it was all just bricks in the wall.
All in all you were just bricks in the wall.”

The rejection of everyone and everything finally comes. Enough bricks have been laid and the wall is now high enough for the narrator to hide himself away, socially and emotionally from the world. This is a fitting end to the first half of Pink Floyd’s “The Wall,” the only song to follow “Another Brick in the Wall Part 3” on side two is “Goodbye Cruel World” a lamenting song about letting go of everything and everyone. This is the true metaphor Roger Waters has created, a wall of misery standing too tall to climb, or ever look over. All that is left for the narrator to do is turn his back on the world and say goodbye.

And everything was just bricks in the wall.

I have often pondered over how to begin a conversation about my favorite album. “The Wall” has twenty-six songs in total; inarguably there are multiple launching points. At last I thought, what is a wall, metaphorical or otherwise, but a collection of bricks? Why not begin with those?

- King of Braves