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Pink Floyd, The Wall (Part 2 of 4)

We fill the empty spaces left in the last post by moving into "Empty Spaces," a transition song in the album moving from Pink's childhood into his adult life. In the song, Pink asks how to "fill the final spaces," and how to "complete the wall." This song anticipates Pink putting himself behind a wall, so as to isolate himself. However, the song does use the word "we," instead of "I," reflecting that in this transition point in life between schooling and joining the real world, we all search for ways to fill the empty spaces.

Though the album does not contain it, the film goes on to "What Shall We Do Now?" which is essentially the full version of "Empty Spaces." This song expands on the transition of Pink's life, and questions all the things that we do in our fast moving lives. The song concludes with the answer that we "never relax at all, with our backs to the wall."

The album moves directly into "Young Lust," and a combination of this song and "Empty Spaces" makes one of those famous combo plays that you hear on the radio (others include "Happiest Days" and "Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2," Led Zeppelin's "Heartbreaker" and "Living Loving Maid," and Queen's "We Will Rock You," and "We Are the Champions.") Young Lust marks Pink's entrance into the rock world, and with it, sex, drugs and alcohol. All these things are new to Pink who is just a "stranger in this town," as Pink had been under the thumb of his mother and his teachers in his childhood. Pink is ushered into this new world by a "dirty girl" in the film version, and it seems like he's not really into it, but goes along with it anyways.

As Pink enters the rock and roll world as an adult, we are introduced to the dark side of Pink in "One of My Turns." This portrayal of Pink had only been briefly been encountered in the previous songs, but is fully exposed here. Here, all the emptiness that had been building up in Pink's life bubbles up into a violent expression of anger. Pink goes in a moment from an empty stare to tearing apart the room he's in. Still with the dirty girl from Young Lust, Pink lashes out at her as well. In addition, Pink is lashing out against his estranged wife (who is introduced in Mother, but I didn't cover). With Pink's outburst, he puts himself further behind the wall.

Asking why are you running away at the end of "One of My Turns," Pink implores us to not leave him in "Don't Leave Me Now." Pink realizes that with the loss of all those close to him, most recently with his wife, he does not want to be alone. In this song, we also see how Pink refuses to take any sort of responsbility for his actions, as he asks "how can you treat me this way?" Pink's inability to take responsibility and connect with the outside world isolate him further, and at the end of the song in the film, he further isolates himself by destroying the TV that he has been propped in front of for most of the movie.

AHHHH!!! Boom boom boom! With this outburst, we complete the Brick in the Wall trilogy with "Another Brick in the Wall, Part 3." All that Pink had repressed up to this point explodes as he proclaims he doesn't "need anything at all," and all in all, everything up to this point had just been "bricks in the wall." The other coping mechanisms are gone, as Pink has seen the writing on the wall, and decides to put himself behind it. This live version of Part 3 (along with "Goodbye Cruel World") has Roger Waters, as Pink, physically place himself behind the wall. The film shows several earlier clips, essentially chronically Pink's life up to that point, all the bricks that went into his wall.

As the music slows from the chaos of Part 3, Pink says goodbye to the world he has known in "Goodbye Cruel World." Though the song sounds as if Pink is about to committ suicide, he is not. Instead, Pink is saying goodbye to the outside world so that he can live behind his wall. And with this abrupt ending, the first half of Pink's story ends, and again, we see Pink in the same pose we saw him as the film began, slumped in a chair with a cigarette burned down with the ash to his fingers. With Pink now behind the wall, what will happen next is uncertain.

Full post as published by The Present Tense on May 24, 2007 (boomark / email).