CD Odyssey Disc 335: Pink Floyd

Before I get into what is one of the great rock albums of all time, I'd like to give a shout out to another one of my loves - football.

No, not my usual joyful exclamations about the Dolphins (although we did win today. We're 1-7, baby!) No, today I want to congratulate the fans of the Detroit Lions. It seems they are petitioning the Powers That Be not to allow Nickelback to perform at the halftime show of their annual Thanksgiving Day game. You can read more about it here.

Some things go beyond loyalty to a single team, and righteously opposing the terrible things Nickelback inflicts on the music world is one of those things. Good luck, Lions fans.

Disc 335 is...The Wall

Artist: Pink Floyd

Year of Release: 1979

What’s Up With The Cover?: Fairly self-explanatory. It is a wall of white bricks. Tear down this wall, Mr. Waters.

How I Came To Know It: My brother is seven years older than me, and I am therefore lucky enough to have had an introduction to 'serious' rock and roll music at a comparatively early age. He bought "The Wall" when it came out, and I've known it ever since. I myself never owned it until I bought it on CD in the mid-nineties.

How It Stacks Up: I have five Pink Floyd albums, and they are all great, but "The Wall" is their best.

Rating: 5 stars

When I rolled this album, I was excited, but I was also determined to not simply fawn over it without a proper and impartial listen. I reminded myself that it is in part, a musical, which is hardly my favourite art form. I reminded myself there were lots of little songs that would no doubt turn out to be overly fragmentary, or would serve only as filler. Three songs into my first listen, I recognized these thoughts for what they were; the ramblings of an idiot. There is nothing wrong with this album.

At some point in your life when you find yourself alone on some late night, I encourage you to put "The Wall" on. Turn off all the lights and listen to it straight through without pause, and without any other activity. Watching the movie, with the marching hammers etc., or some concert DVD doesn't count. It should just be you, the dark and "The Wall". Feel free to lie down, on your couch, or the bed or even the floor, and let it soak over you, musically and lyrically. In fact, if you've never done this you've never truly given this record the attention it deserves.

I had done it twice already, and knowing how emotionally affecting it can be, my plans on this listen were more modest. I basically intended to just get it done in chunks, while driving or painting. Early on, I knew this was not to be, and that I was going to have to give "The Wall" its due once again. Sheila went to bed early on Friday, and so I took it on once again, with no small amount of trepidation. It did not disappoint.

Is "The Wall" about the disconnect between a rock star and his audience? Yes, but it is more than this. Is it a cautionary tale of a bleak and totalitarian future? Yes, but taken simply in these terms would actually sell the record short.

"The Wall" is an album about alienation at every level – from our childhood ("The Thin Ice"), our education ("The Happiest Days of Our Lives"), our parents ("Mother"), our lovers ("Young Lust"), our careers ("Nobody Home"), and ultimately from ourselves ("Comfortably Numb"). It is a stark record about all the walls we construct as we grow into adults, and the dangers of how those walls can inadvertently cut us off from ourselves.

Lyrically, my favourite expression of this is about a third of the way in on "One Of My Turns" when Waters sings:

"I feel cold as a razorblade
Tight as a tourniquet
Dry as a funeral drum."

It is some stark stuff, but "The Wall" is great art, and great art is sometimes hard to look at square on.

Musically, "The Wall" has all of the great atmospheric sound that Pink Floyd is famous for. Waters is the mastermind behind the lyrics and themes, but David Gilmour's guitar suffuses the record with its emotional tone. They may have hated each other while making and touring this record, but their talents are perfectly matched.

Gilmour's guitar solos do what all good guitar solos should do; they take the themes established in the rest of the song, build those themes out even further and then return us smoothly back into the main melody. The best example on the record is the long fading solo at the end of "Comfortably Numb." Without this guitar work, the song would still be amazing, but with it it becomes one of the greatest rock songs ever written.

As a "Comfortably Numb" aside, I have a folk version of this song (Dar Williams) as well as a disco version (Scissor Sisters) and both are excellent. It is a song that you'd have to really work to wreck, regardless of how it is re-imagined.

I am also a big fan of the production decisions made on this record. The children playing in the background of "Another Brick In The Wall, Part Two", fading to the telephone ringtone and then the single heavy sigh that leads into "Mother" sets us on edge, and gives us the emotional cue that you can't always phone home and expect to get all the answers to life's tough questions.

At the end of the first disc (or side two, for you vinyl warriors out there), "Goodbye Cruel World" plays the same simple line of music over and over, with the end of the note being clipped short. It is creepy (especially on headphones) and effective.

With the dreary mood firmly established in the first half of the record, Pink Floyd use the second half (sides three and four) to further explore these themes. In "Hey You" there are even moments where we get glimpses of an effort to re-establish some human connectivity, but they are short lived; Roger Waters has not finished with his apocalyptic exploration of our own minds.

Because ultimately, that is what "The Wall" is, at least for me. It is a series of songs that warn us not to lose our human connections, by painting a picture of what it would look like if we did. The last lines of the last song on the album, "Outside The Wall" describe what people do once they've escaped:

"Some stagger and fall - after all, it's not easy
Banging your heart against some mad bugger's wall."

A rather pathetic epilogue, especially when the mad bugger in question is you, and just how high and wide your wall has become is entirely your own doing.

"The Wall" is about as perfect as rock music gets. It is profoundly affecting, and it always makes me recommit to not losing touch with myself. Musically it is inspiring, and if it is lyrically dark and unpleasant in places, that's just how it makes sure you're taking it seriously.

Best tracks: all tracks