Pink Floyd Analyzed

[vvwSLAYwvv]

So I was a great fan of Pink Floyds music, even when I was a small child. Yet it was only a while ago that I started taking a liking to the old songs they did back when ol' Syd was the singer. I even like a little of Syd's solo stuff.

Recently my friend, who is a girl, offered to get me high for the first time over spring break, and I accepted.

Immediately afterwards, my entire viewpoint of their music and much other music back from the 70s and 80s for that matter completely changed. I didn't see songs as songs but stories and messages. Some were just drug propaganda, but others were very strong.

Especially since when Roger Waters joined Floyd they made much more political music.

For example, the most political of them all: The Wall.

I used to already think the songs were stories because they reminded me of the movie and all then went on and the pain that endured. Then, after blazing, I saw side stores behind it.

For example, one of the most popular lines in the album:

"All, and all, were just, bricks in the wall."

While at first I thought that just meant we were all equal in the world and no one over powers another, I got this other message.

Since they were mostly in England when they wrote the Wall, and it had much to do with WW2, especially since a strong focal point in the movie is how Pinks father died serving in WW2 in a plane crash.

(Which explains the crash sound at the end of "In The Flesh?" which is followed by a baby cry showing he was only a baby when such procured)

I believed the line was then about communist government.

Think about it, The USSR was very strong back then and what gave them their power was ALL of their people combined which gave them a wall of protection. Yet every single person alone was very insignificant, they were all practically powerless, like little bricks.

Another strong piece of subliminal messaging was in the movie during The Trial.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCMHmDnfD 6I

(Gerald Scarfe was such a trippy artist)

Notice very fairly into the movie they scream the line:

CALL THE SCHOOLMASTER!

Then the teacher which Pink dealt with in his childhood appeared, but what is this? He looks like a puppet! I then got the belief that they reason they make him look like a puppet is because teaching and education is strongly controlled by the government, to the point of which they believed that they could manipulate the teachers and make them do whatever they please.

I also notice how just before the trial we see "In The Flesh" followed by "Run Like Hell"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xk3-4dAlO js

The back story of this is that Pink decided to shave his head, and he then gained a crazy hallucination that he believed he was a nazi leader of part of a neo-nazi confederation.

Before I thought this was just part of some crazy fucked up shit which occurred from the madness in his own mind and while a normal concert was playing, this is what portrayed in his head.

Once again, while stoned, I believe that the reason they included this graphic scene was to show that media itself can control anyone who follows it and whatever media does, the fans will follow, similar to the nazis during World War 2. Also showing that modern day people will do whatever they are told when the media will bind them.

The Wall is just my only example because it is the only on with SO MUCH messaging in it.

Dark Side of The Moon has a little bit of it too, but like Wish You Were Here. Most of the messages were just to show tribute and sorrow to their dear fallen friend Syd, who we will remember forever.

Anyone agree with me about this?
Or will NGs average IQ base of 10 just say I am a stoner and then give me TLDR crap like you always do when exposed to over 30 words.

[Spartan204]

Mod this man.

NOW.

Seriously, though, I've been listening to Pink Floyd for years now and I never realized that there could be so much meaning behind their songs. Still, though, you could just be over-analyzing it all or simply finding all of this information not because it was really ever there, but because you simply had your mind set entirely on finding it.

[vvwSLAYwvv]

Well some of it is crazy.

But why would they show the teacher with strings? If there was truly no reason they he would just appear normal like everyone else.
There is also a small portion of The Trial where you see Pinks fat naked mother beating Pinks teacher while he beats Pink, while the teacher is also holding Pink like a puppet, showing while the teacher was controlled by Pinks mother, the teacher controls Pink, along with all the other students.

Also in Another Brick in The Wall, Pink is humiliated for creating poetry, which is lines from Dark Side of The Moon. I think it was to show that teachers (i.e. the government) did not approve of average people gaining free and independent minds.

[Luxury-Yacht]

At 5/1/09 10:40 PM, vvwSLAYwvv wrote:

There is also a small portion of The Trial where you see Pinks fat naked mother beating Pinks teacher while he beats Pink

I'm pretty sure that's supposed to be the teacher's wife, actually. His wife has him "on strings", so to speak, as a metaphor for controlling wives or some other thing.

[Tinkco86]

At 5/1/09 10:40 PM, vvwSLAYwvv wrote: Also in Another Brick in The Wall, Pink is humiliated for creating poetry, which is lines from Dark Side of The Moon. I think it was to show that teachers (i.e. the government) did not approve of average people gaining free and independent minds.

It was the lyrics to Money. Which I think is itself the example of a failed ideology. Money makes the world go round but is competative yet pointless that it exists.

There's also the part with Pink's girlfriends that always interests me. He meets his first crush at a dance and they had been with eachother for a while. I think she ran away with his manager or something for stupid reasons. She was absolutely perfect for Pink too, his mother approved of her. Then Pink went on a spree to find another girl, but none of them were the same as his first love. And in Mother, I think it pertains to both his childhood and his adulthood. He is trying to find a girl, but is also suffering struggles of life such as living without a father and the troubled life that he lives as a rock star. But he would always turn to his mother for guidance and comfort.

But I am going to go off on a limb here and say that his mother from the past could also be associated with the motherland, Soviet Russia.

There's some WWII references, especially the song Vera which refers to Vera Lynn who was a singer during these times. She would sing to the soldiers and promise safety to them. But as soon as everything turns upside down and Pink's father is killed, Vera's promises seem to just disappear as an outcome.

Sorry if I chattered, I'm not a writer, but I saw the movie and I listen to the music all the time. There's a lot to be dissected.

[vvwSLAYwvv]

At 5/1/09 11:01 PM, Luxury-Yacht wrote:

At 5/1/09 10:40 PM, vvwSLAYwvv wrote:

There is also a small portion of The Trial where you see Pinks fat naked mother beating Pinks teacher while he beats Pink

I'm pretty sure that's supposed to be the teacher's wife, actually. His wife has him "on strings", so to speak, as a metaphor for controlling wives or some other thing.

Oh well actually I could not tell, they only show the teachers wife for a while. She looked quite skinny. I know that Pinks mother was quite fat which was also shown in The Trial. I thought that if it WAS Pinks mother then it would have representation even more to how sheltering and over protective Pinks mother was, as shown in Mother.

I never thought about a controlling wife metaphor, that is quite creative, bravo.

[NavXIII]

Pink Floyd's music does have a lot of meaning behind it, on top of being kickass. That's what has made it, and kept it, so popular.

[GotTheBlues]

The Wall symbolizes the singer's abusive mother as a child, and how she was blocking off him from everyone, and she was "The Wall". "We're all just bricks in the wall" meant he was symbolizing that no matter what, if our parents are abusive, we can't help it, and are forced to fight back, symbolized by The Hammer guys, (who symbolize the government as well, yes, that does involve war as you said) but basically that phrase are both of those things in one.

In a way, the mother was being "The Wall" because of her child's (the singer's) bad progress in school, hence the professor, and the school meat grinder thing was symbolizing how school was destroying the children's lives, because of bad progress in it.

Basically, The Wall was a big symbol, that was branching off into all these things.

The Professor:

[vvwSLAYwvv]

I kind of had an idea for the wall representing the children, but I never came up with an idea of what the meat grinder had, that took thought. The best I ever came up with for the meat grinder was that the torture the kids had to endure during the failure of school was so brutal they would rather "grind themselves up into meat then go to school".

I also noticed that just before they show the meat grinder, they show its shadow, also leaving in a highly noticeable hammer, the sign of the neo-nazi party much later in the film. Does that represent that the death of the children is slightly caused by a nazi-corrupted government?

You can't just say I am crazy this time, they don't just put in a blatant as hell hammer for no reason, possible for another reason if I am incorrect?

Does anyone know what the masks represented? I never had a clue.

Another Brick in The Wall Pt2: Which told the whole story of the school.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3l1-QbsU5 gA&fmt=18

The shadow:

[Chumbawamba]

Oh come on man, you didn't need drugs to figure that all out!

Yes, Pink Floyd can be pretty political, more so in their "The Final Cut" album, where it's full of anti-war lyrics. "The Wall" is also somewhat anti-war, since it's the war which killed Rogers' father. Many Pink Floyd albums are concept albums, but from my experience, "The Wall" and "Dark Side of the Moon" are based on sociology, and the vices/illness within the individual.

[afuckingname]

I don't like their sound, "pink floyd sound. its too loud

[vvwSLAYwvv]

At 5/1/09 11:54 PM, Chumbawamba wrote: Oh come on man, you didn't need drugs to figure that all out!

Yes, Pink Floyd can be pretty political, more so in their "The Final Cut" album, where it's full of anti-war lyrics. "The Wall" is also somewhat anti-war, since it's the war which killed Rogers' father. Many Pink Floyd albums are concept albums, but from my experience, "The Wall" and "Dark Side of the Moon" are based on sociology, and the vices/illness within the individual.

Pretty much all of Final Cut was anti-war. I figured that one out WAY before I did pot.

Especially in the beginning with "The Post War Dream" "Two Suns In The Sunset" and "Get Your Hands of my Desert!"

[commune628]

"WE DONT NEED NO EDUCATION"
And
your
ANALYZATION

[TheTrooper5]

Immediately afterwards, my entire viewpoint of their music and much other music back from the 70s and 80s for that matter completely changed. I didn't see songs as songs but stories and messages. Some were just drug propaganda, but others were very strong.

Err no...the early albums weren't "TAKE DRUGS THEYRE KEWWWL", they were explorations of musical sound and innovation.

Especially since when Roger Waters joined Floyd they made much more political music.

Again, a bit of a hyperbole.
Dark Side of the moon is about problems and worries people face throughout life.
Wish you were Here is about Syd Barrett
Atom Heart Mother is just an exploration of sound and musical advancement.
The only 'political' album per se is The Final Cut which is a statement against the Thatcher-ite government.

For example, the most political of them all: The Wall.

No...it isn't. It's a story about a rockstar who builds a mental wall to shield himself from the world he finds disgusting. It's more an album about ignorance and human physcology in all fairness, inspired by Roger Waters spitting at a fan during in gig in '75.

"All, and all, were just, bricks in the wall."

There is no line in that album that says We're, the line is "All in all you're just another brick in the wall", stating that these people are reasons why the character of Pink builds his mental wall to shut out the world.

Since they were mostly in England when they wrote the Wall, and it had much to do with WW2, especially since a strong focal point in the movie is how Pinks father died serving in WW2 in a plane crash.

(Which explains the crash sound at the end of "In The Flesh?" which is followed by a baby cry showing he was only a baby when such procured)

Again no...it's a reference to how Roger Water's father died in the war in 1944 in Italy.

I believed the line was then about communist government.

Think about it, The USSR was very strong back then and what gave them their power was ALL of their people combined which gave them a wall of protection. Yet every single person alone was very insignificant, they were all practically powerless, like little bricks.

Actually no, the USSR was strong because of dictatorial styles of rule from Lenin to Stalin, they didn't care about individuals or citizens, Stalin murdered over 30 million people simply because he wanted to advance the industry.

Notice very fairly into the movie they scream the line:

CALL THE SCHOOLMASTER!

Then the teacher which Pink dealt with in his childhood appeared, but what is this? He looks like a puppet! I then got the belief that they reason they make him look like a puppet is because teaching and education is strongly controlled by the government, to the point of which they believed that they could manipulate the teachers and make them do whatever they please.

A good observation, but again this was just Gerald Scarf's style of animation and cartoons.

I also notice how just before the trial we see "In The Flesh" followed by "Run Like Hell"

Because that's the track listing on the album.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xk3-4dAlO js

The back story of this is that Pink decided to shave his head, and he then gained a crazy hallucination that he believed he was a nazi leader of part of a neo-nazi confederation.

Before I thought this was just part of some crazy fucked up shit which occurred from the madness in his own mind and while a normal concert was playing, this is what portrayed in his head.

Once again, while stoned, I believe that the reason they included this graphic scene was to show that media itself can control anyone who follows it and whatever media does, the fans will follow, similar to the nazis during World War 2. Also showing that modern day people will do whatever they are told when the media will bind them.

This is just you overlooking the story and assuming everything has a DEEPER MEANING, kudos but mostly based on...being high.

Anyone agree with me about this?
Or will NGs average IQ base of 10 just say I am a stoner and then give me TLDR crap like you always do when exposed to over 30 words.

I read it, you made some good points but they were mainly exagerations or trying to find a hidden meaning because of again...being high.

[Ericho]

And I thought the Wizard Of Oz synchonization was ridiculous.

[GiantDouche]

Once you hear bands when you are high, nothing else cuts it. Music just sounds better.

[Ericho]

At 5/2/09 10:39 AM, GiantDouche wrote: Once you hear bands when you are high, nothing else cuts it. Music just sounds better.

I'd imagine most things are better when high.