Seventies-Music-Fan's Album Of The Week: Pink Floyd- The Wall (Part 1)
This is undeniably one of the greatest albums of all time, now I will proceed to break apart each song and review it based upon quality/lyrics, insightfulness etc. The reason why I'm splitting this into two parts is well, I want at least an hour of sleep today.1. In The Flesh?: Boy is this an intro or what? It starts with a riff that flies extremely under the radar and when I first heard it, I couldn't get out my head for weeks. There is also interesting lyrics where Pink is playing a rock concert and despite his outward expression he is completely different "behind these cold eyes" and if you want to know what's really going on in him you have to keep listening. These lyrics could easily describe a lot of people (especially people that are very closed in.)
2. The Thin Ice: This song is much softer and frankly, it's still really good instead of going on with the setting of the concert it starts where Pink is born, then realizes the cruel and disappointing form that is called living. The instruments don't really stand out to me but are still enjoyable and combined with the lyrics, is a good song to go into deep thoughts to.
3. Another Brick In The Wall Part 1: This song is a song that represents events that happen in life that you are just not the age to understand properly this one being his father's death and getting on with life without him. When I first heard this song ( I was 5) and I didn't understand it either (funny story: when I heard leaving just a memory I went to my parents and said I'm going to sail across the ocean and leave a memory then I proceeded to run out the door then ask people where the ocean was.)
4. The Happiest Days of Our Lives: This song definitely can make you see how different things were back then where teachers would stop at nothing to punish children. This leads to one of their most famous songs and one of the most famous songs of all time.
5. Another Brick In The Wall Part 2: This is while their most successful song it's also the most overrated song (mainly because of either 9-11-year-olds or annoying millennials praising this song just because they don't like school or anti-government.) It's still a good song but it really is nothing special. I've got to say, though, the music video is my third favorite music videos of all time it's slightly disturbing, in some ways funny (unintentionally) and I can still quote what the teacher is yelling to this day.
6. Mother: This song is another soft song and in my opinion is much better than the previous (The Thin Ice) it's about Pink's overprotective mother that tries to control everything Pink does. This ultimately refers to the metaphorical "wall" that Pink builds to socially isolate himself than not knowing what's out there he is worried that his "wall" would break then his mother reassures him. Then in the last line of the song, it says that it "Mother did it need to be so high" suggesting that he realized that it wasn't nearly as cruel as he thought it was.
7. Goodbye Blue Sky: I really like the instrumentals and vocals on this one, the instruments are very interesting and they really can't be explained in words to an extent that it makes sense. The vocals are the same thing as well this one is definitely one you just have to see for yourself.
8. Empty Spaces: This and the next one are my favorites of the first part of the album they are just so outstandingly mysterious it's inspiring. No one exactly knows what this song is about and leads to the most powerful vocal performances of the whole album maybe the whole Pink Floyd career.
9. Young Lust: This song is when Pink starts to go into the life of rock music and it starts to describe what really happens when you go too far deep into drugs, sex etc. As well as great vocals and surprisingly good lyrics it has great instrumentals with a blaring guitar and saxophone that is hard not to be starstruck by.the guitar solo.
10. One Of My Turns: This song represents when you eventually start to break and be sick of it. Pink.. when sleeping with a group he has a breakdown and destroys the room and then goes insane.
11: Don't Leave Me Now: Pink mentally lashes out at his wife and switches to begging her to come back and threatening her consistently and the instruments are very eerie and hypnotic but maybe that was supposed to be there like he was manipulating his wife to come back to him. Then it breaks into a cinematic outro than some indistinct talking.
12. Another Brick In The Wall Part 3: This song nearly was my favorite, the only problem is that it's really short. It talks about the obviously insane Pink refusing any empathy directed to him then isolates himself yet again. The instruments were also very dramatic and powerful as well with David making his guitar literally sound like a symphony and then it leads to the next song.
13. Goodbye Cruel World: this song is really just him finishing his wall and saying goodbye to everything he ever encountered a lot of people think this is him killing himself but it really isn't at all.