The Wall 44th & Stories

[NuffM]

Happy 44th Birthday to The Wall! A masterpiece in its own right and a true landmark in music history and production.

I'm opening this thread because I'm curious if any of y'all have any stories surrounding this album that you'd like to share!

For a lot of people, this was their proper introduction to the band. That was the case for me. A lot of folks can probably resonate with the writing in the lyrics or the story.

For me — since I'm a younger fan — I only just got into this band a handful of years aago. This'll be a slightly long post but I'd rather share my story asap just so that some folks here don't need to ask for it and wait for a response. Anyway! I had no real intention of getting into them but basically, everybody knows Brick pt. 2, right? Well, the song popped into my head one day and I wanted to see if there were videos of them playing it live. I found stuff from the David era but I wanted to see it with the original lineup, with Waters. All I found back then were the crappy VHS pro-shots. Even the Nassau VHS only had a higher gen copy back then. This was before any of the 8mm films were made public, so when it came to a full length presentation, this was the absolute best you could get. I came across the high quality excerpt of 'The Happiest Days of Our Lives' from The Wall immersion box set, and it spawned a whole new rabbit hole for me because I'd then realized: "wow, then this must mean that they have the entire recital in this quality", so I set out to find as much as I could.

As a young, dumb and naive fan, I somehow acquired a small 8mm clip many years ago from somebody I had contact with back then and, not having understood the entire trading/permission/liberation idea back then (and even frowning upon it), I shared that clip online. It was perhaps a very dumb decision of me to make, but ultimately that clip being posted lead to the several hours of 8mm to surface just less than two years later, because the filmer dropped a comment on my video and the rest is history. A rough history, but a history nonetheless. I'm very glad that all of that stuff is for public eyes now, as the filmer wanted.

I would love to hear your guys' stories regarding this album. Maybe the first time you listened to it or a perhaps lower part in your life where this album saved you. I'd love to hear it!

[DesertRat]

Nice idea! The Wall is strongly connected to my Pink Floyd journey, like you I am a *younger* fan, having been born after PULSE was released!

When I was young, my dad bought me a compilation CD called the Greatest Air Guitar Volume II and I used to listen to it all the time in my bedroom, but one song in particular stood out. Of course, it was Another Brick in the Wall Part II. Dad had the full album on vinyl but the motor of his turntable had packed in, though he obviously wanted me to hear the full album so he got it for me on CD.

At the time I didn’t really know any difference, but he bought me Is There Anybody Out There! This for me remains the stand out version, and I very rarely listen to the studio version (I am looking for the remastered ITAOT version from immersion btw if anyone has any pointers). I played this CD to death really, brought it everywhere with me in my portable CD player until it was so scratched and battered that most songs would skip. Importantly, it prompted my search for more, which happened quite organically as I didn’t really get into using the internet a bit later, so I bought CDs whenever I had the chance, a knockoff copy of DSOTM, then WYWH, and on to the rest.

[NuffM]

Cool story. Always awesome to see how others got into the band!

Btw...I could help with that pointer. PM me!

[PFC67]

The first Pink Floyd song I ever heard was Hey You, having borrowed the double cassette of The Wall from a friend in about 1988 when I was 14 years old. I had no idea it wasn’t in fact the start of the album, and on hearing this and the rest of the album, having never heard anything but standard pop songs before, was immediately transfixed by the background voices, odd noises, musique concrete, and sweeping nature of the flow of the album. I’m 49 now and remember that precise moment like it was yesterday.

[aybesea]

The first time I ever heard anything from The Wall was when I was on a road trip from college to visit a buddy in Ft Lauderdale. We were tooling around town on the way to the beach listening to local radio. Apparently, they really didn't know what to play from the album so we suddenly hear the big announcement "New Pink Floyd!" and they whip out Mother. It jarred me enough that I still remember that scene vividly.

[MGoBlue1989]

That's kinda crazy. Mother? Really?? of all the songs, that's what they chose??

I was also jarred quite a bit by the Floyd but when TFC was released. They'd play the opening track in the morning on local radio (either WRIF, WLLZ or WIQB in those days). I'd awaken peacefully to the ambient sounds and the nice quiet "Tell me true, tell me why..." and then jarred fully awake with "Should we shout, should we scream." This happened over and over for a couple weeks leading up to the official release.

There is a short TV advert for TFC and Journey "Frontiers" on the 'Pink Floyd - ZapPink - Rare TV Clips '67-'94' video torrent that nipote started a short while ago. That commercial hit home for me because a.) I remember similar and b.) I bought both of those LPs at the same time.

[aybesea]

Indeed. I mean honestly, nothing would have prepared me for the gloom and doom that is the Wall. Up til then Floyd was more about space rock than anything else (well maybe a little of Animals). But the first thing I hear is "Mother do you think they'll drop the bomb?" Holy crap!!

[daemonspudguy]

One day during the 2020 lockdown, my Internet was down (my Internet at that house did that constantly) so I couldn't really watch anything other than our DVDs or Blu-rays. I had for a while been considering watching Pink Floyd - The Wall, and so I did. I really liked it. A few days later, I decided to go listen to the album on Apple Music. This was my introduction to Pink Floyd.

[voices2010]

Thinking about this series of remixes, remakes and artificial intelligences, I thought that maybe at some point they could "complete" the film with some new animations by Gerald Scarfe and make the story a little more rounded. Also of course I would love a clearer remix of the album.

[daemonspudguy]

Nothing has been annoying me more as a techie than people constantly calling everything from an image upscaling job to an audio remaster as "artificial intelligence." I'm so sick of that term from everything being labelled as such this year that it's starting to make me lose interest in something I would otherwise care about.

[voices2010]

Uy..... perdón.... jajajaj

[YASHA]

I will continue the deviation from the main topic a little.

Imagine that a button appears on electronic keyboard instruments: Richard Wright style.

I mean, actually "artificial intelligence" as a set of certain programs has been around for a long time. It has been around for a long time.

Artificial intelligence, in my opinion, is a kind of extensive network of computers with a giant database and having its own view on the future of its creators.

Without exceptions.

Do not smile, an ordinary computer, from the screen of which you are now reading these lines, 40 years ago was a kind of very distant and transcendent future.

I remember how, as a child, I read a certain fantastic story in which it was casually mentioned about a certain calculating machine that "began to program" itself. 40 seconds after the start of operation of this calculating machine, it was completely de-energized, all communication cables were disconnected, all cable sockets were tightly plugged. This building was surrounded by barbed wire and watchtowers were installed. Just in case.

The contents of the last paragraph completely fall into my understanding of "artificial intelligence".

At first, I wrote about a "certain button": everyone understands that this will be exclusively an imitation, despite the characteristics of the sounds being played. No more than that.

[beeco]

I came to The Wall after hearing DSOTM while high at a pals dad's house. I went to HMV and picked up DSOTM, The Wall, Meddle, Division Bell and More...
I didn't instantly love it. Obviously Hey You and Comfortably Numb were great on those first listens but it wasn't until I got more into the story of Floyd and Rogers story that I really started to get it. As a 17 year old that alienation stuff started to resonate.
It just had too many great preceding albums to compete against!
I liked getting high (DSOTM, WYWH, Meddle)
I worked in sales (Animals man!)
20 years later and I very rarely listen to the studio album. I think vocally Roger just can't carry it at all. No wonder the highlights come when David gets on the mic. Does David sing on Mother on the album? I honestly can't remember.

Conceptually, it's gone from being an album of alienation to an album of someone whinging that everybody else fucked him up. For me anyway.

I love the story of how it came to be, the grandness of it, the visuals the myth.

I wouldn't ever suggest it to someone as a 'listen to this!' album.

If it ever gets a spin it's always ITAOT.

I saw it live at Wembley in 2010 (?) and was one of the greatest pieces of theatre I've ever seen. I imagine the real gigs back in the day were mind blowing.

As part of Rogers output of the time, The Final Cut is a more emotional listen and Pros and Cons is a far more interesting concept.

I rambled on a bit there... Just like the album haha

[daemonspudguy]

Yes. He does. In the chorus.

[MGoBlue1989]

... I very rarely listen to the studio album. I think vocally Roger just can't carry it at all. No wonder the highlights come when David gets on the mic. Does David sing on Mother on the album? I honestly can't remember.

Conceptually, it's gone from being an album of alienation to an album of someone whinging that everybody else fucked him up. For me anyway.

I love the story of how it came to be, the grandness of it, the visuals the myth.

I wouldn't ever suggest it to someone as a 'listen to this!' album.

If it ever gets a spin it's always ITAOT.

I saw it live at Wembley in 2010 (?) and was one of the greatest pieces of theatre I've ever seen. I imagine the real gigs back in the day were mind blowing.

As part of Rogers output of the time, The Final Cut is a more emotional listen and Pros and Cons is a far more interesting concept.

I rambled on a bit there... Just like the album haha

I agree with all of this. Sums it up quite nicely for me. I liked the album when it was released as a kid in middle school / high school but my attention span just wasn't there for repeated listens of a double LP. Any double LP actually and not just The Wall. I ended up preferring the movie to the studio album because of the visuals and errrr... a certain smokable substance. I must have seen it 20+ times at the midnight shows with my mates when everyone else we knew was going to see Rocky Horror (gag!!) I was just a couple years too young to see The Wall in 1980 but did see it in 2012 in Nashville and enjoyed it quite a bit. I even appreciated the official release of that tour and the cuts to Roger travelling to Anzio. I found them emotionally moving in context.

11 years later though and I'm left saying "Enough already Roger. We all have issues and we all have to move on." I can't imagine going my entire life bitter and angry like that. I'm sure he isn't always that way in private but his public persona is played out for me these days.

[Floydfan2410]

I'm 42 and one of the very first Floyd songs I remember hearing on the radio in the late 80s or early 90s was Another Brick pt. 2. I had no idea at the time who Pink Floyd was, but I did find the song quite catchy. Years later around 1997 a teacher at school screened The Wall movie for us and I remember that it made quite an impression on me and it made me want to dive deeper into the band.
it wasnt until I watched Live at Pompeii on VHS that I got completely turned over and had never looked back since. I dived head first into the entire back catalogue and it was amazing!
at one point I got a copy of the Wall at Nassau Colosseum and copied it to a VHS tape so I could watch it on my 24" TV and even though the quality was barely watchable, it felt very special and I enjoyed it so much! That must have been around 1999 or 2000 and ever since then I have been hoping to see that concert officially released in great quality! It's just so much better than the album version and far better than Rogers own version both 1990 and 2010-2013. Then I got the "Is There Anybody In There" CD box and that was a great companion to the video. since then my collection have grown a lot and and I have ventured deep into everything Floyd related. Now I dont collect much anymore, only occasionally. I am still researching the history of the band and I still learn something new from time to time. I used to listen to The Wall a lot, but at some point I just had enough of it and now I very rarely give it a spin. I still prefer the live version and I still very much hope to get an official live film of the original show, Maybe that would help me gain interest for the album once again.

[Son of Nothing]

I'm with you there beeco for the first half, but differ at the end. I'll get into my story in a bit, but what you say here is likely what happened to me:

As a 17 year old that alienation stuff started to resonate.

But yeah:

20 years later and I very rarely listen to the studio album.

Check. Maybe not the same number of years, but definitely I have very rarely listened to the album in any form for many years now.

I think vocally Roger just can't carry it at all.

Yes.

Conceptually, it's gone from being an album of alienation to an album of someone whinging that everybody else fucked him up. For me anyway.

For me too.

So, basically, I think I followed a similar journey to you: from an album that spoke to me as a typical angsty teen to something that (much) older me now feels to me (and this is just my reaction) like a massive, indulgent whingefest. "Oooh, big rock star feels tortured about life and alienation from an audience." That doesn't come across to me as a universal theme. And Rog has been moaning about stardom since at least 1969 ("your manager and agent are both busy on the phone").

As part of Rogers output of the time, The Final Cut is a more emotional listen and Pros and Cons is a far more interesting concept.

And that's where we differ. I personally find TFC even more of a whingefest and Pros and Cons just loses me, both conceptually and musically.

So, back to the OP's question. I got into Floyd when I was in high school and a friend loaned me a cassette of DSotM. I was hooked, initially by the interesting sounds (On the run in particular; I think synths were fairly new to me). And then as a teen, the "upper middle fifth" lyrics really spoke to me. More than anything Rog has written since, except for maybe chunks of Animals. I went forward and backward from there. A cassette of Relics from the local library may have figured in there somewhere too. But, significantly, The Wall was the first Pink Floyd album that was released after I started listening to them, and therefore was the one I most anticipated the arrival of. And I think I'm the type that (at the age I was back then at least) has to be totally dedicated to a band. So in a way I made myself love the album. Even though even then I think I found the sound of it quite sterile in its polish. And the sappy (IMO, and certainly un-rocky) orchestrations.

Interestingly enough, I guess as that album came out when I was in my late teens, by the time I hit my twenties and 1983 came around, I had already moved on and started listening to music made by my own generation rather than the older one Pink Floyd were from. Plus I was taking a musically way more experimental turn also. Think some of the more obscure reaches of what later became called post-punk but wouldn't even really sound anything like the formulaic stuff currently going under that banner. So by the time The Final Cut came round, it was no longer an album I anticipated the arrival of. I remember back in those days there were some of the more "adult" radio shows that liked to play whole albums. So I got wind of one which was going to play the full album, and I recorded it and I was underwhelmed.

Of course, in later years, I have returned to listening to and loving Pink Floyd (that's why I'm here with you all), but my sweet spot is the Meddle to Animals period and of course the live shows of that era where there was still some room for ad libbing and experimentation and wasn't a rigid click track spectacle. And when I go out of that sweet spot, it's almost always to go earlier rather than later.

So, despite my personal journey with leaving The Wall behind, I still wish it a happy birthday, so to speak. Because a bunch of you still really relate to it, and musical reactions are all personal.

[Emdy]

My introduction to The Wall and the band happened when I was 6 or 7, I walked in on my folks watching the film right around the bit where the kids were going through the meat grinder.

The next day I was running around the classroom getting the other kids to chant “we don’t need no education”. I don’t remember if I got into any trouble for that, but I am fairly confident that my life would have been a bit more “normal” if I hadn’t walked in on that.

[beeco]

I've decided to give the old girl another whirl. I'll dedicate an afternoon on Sunday to the studio album. In the meantime I've been checking out some of the live stuff on YouTube (I know I know) just because it's easy access.
Feb 28th seems to be recommended as a good show but as an English man I'd like a decent Earls Court show to dive into.

Also, I watched the PFRG video of master reels (?) how come it's all so blue? But, that really hit home how amazing those live shows must have been! Surely the ultimate expression of the album.

[NuffM]

I've decided to give the old girl another whirl. I'll dedicate an afternoon on Sunday to the studio album. In the meantime I've been checking out some of the live stuff on YouTube (I know I know) just because it's easy access.
Feb 28th seems to be recommended as a good show but as an English man I'd like a decent Earls Court show to dive into.

Also, I watched the PFRG video of master reels (?) how come it's all so blue? But, that really hit home how amazing those live shows must have been! Surely the ultimate expression of the album.

Those film/tape clips are blue because...well. Roger just put a blue monochrome filter on it. Couldn't tell you why but that's his own choice.

February 28th, in my opinion, is a very overhyped show. People mostly seem to go to that recording solely because of how good the quality is, but the actual performance itself is full of many flaws. If you want a great sounding show AND recording, there are many other ones such as February 13th 1980, February 25th/26th/27th 1980, August 5th/9th 1980, February 14th/17th/20th 1981, and June 14th/16th/17th 1981. If you need links on YouTube, I'd be happy to provide. Hope this helps in that regard!!!

[Edufloyd]

February 13th 1980 is AMAZING!! my favorite by far!!

[beeco]

Loving the Feb 13th show. ABITW3 has some Breathe/ACYL shit going on. Fantastic