What is Pink Floyds The Wall album about?
The wall is psychological; children have a free spirit, and incidents and occurances that happen during their life erode that freedom not only on a surface level but in a more core way. A “brick” is that which chips away at the open spirit and creates a follower, devoid of individuality. The wall is complete when the spirit is gone and the person is a follower, in full.
It’s about a period of time in England (post WWII) and the social forces (tow the line, status quo, obey your crazy oppressive teachers, respect the caste system – no interracial dating) at work on the kids at the time, and how the pressure warped and cracked some of them. My friend Mike Wyatt told me about a lot of the symbolism in a lot of albums, but this one’s not veiled in any secret meanings like American Pie had a lot of meanings in just one song – The Wall is just down-to-earth about the main character, the pressures he faced and how he built a wall around himself and thought he had to find a way to break through it, tear it down and the sense of relief or catharsys he experienced in doing so.
I belive it is more about how a wall is a barrier to exploring the world around you…it can protect you from what is on the other side of it, but also keeps you from expanding your horizons, and learning what the options are. So, “The Wall” in this album is anything (such as the establishment, rules, society’s mores & customs, anal-type individuals, or ANY authority figure, such as a teacher) that restricts you from discovering youself and the world around you. “One more brick in the Wall” is any piece or part of this barrier one faces. Which is why it was so significant that Pink Floyd held a concert at the Berlin Wall, afteer IT came down: this was just more oppression being overcome.
It’s about the pressures of life, and how someone – in this case Pink – can cut themselves off emotionally from it and other people by a metaphorical wall. But, as the album shows, the problem is then one is left completely alone, something much worse than facing the things one builds the wall to get away from in the first place. Behind his wall – and with the copious amounts of drugs that Pink ingests – his mind deteriates, becoming obsessed and engulfed by all his negative emotions and, with no outlet, they turn him into a horrible, dictorial monster, until he’s able to see what’s happen, stop himself and, in the song the Trial, his conscious judges himself, forcing him to answer for all the choices he’s made and accept responsibility that HE built up the wall, and nobody else. The last song, Outside the Wall, is ambiguous as to whether or not Pink meets a happy ending.
