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Today, I'm highlighting Pink Floyd's 1979 album "The Wall," but zeroing in on the song that was, by far, their biggest hit.
"The Wall," was a concept album...and the second part/song was "Another Brick in the Wall," which singer/songwriter Roger Waters wrote as an indictment of formal education in the UK.
It wasn't that he was against education as a whole; in fact, he was, and remains, a strong advocate for learning. But while growing up, he felt his teachers were more interested in keeping control in the classroom than actual teaching.
This was one of several reasons why young Roger felt alienated and caused him to build "emotional walls" around himself. His teacher was "Another Brick in the Wall."
In Roger's words: "Grammar school in the '50s was very controlling and demanded rebellion. The teachers were weak and therefore easy targets. The song is meant to be a rebellion against errant government, against people who have power over you, who are wrong."
Roger intended the song to be a short, barebones acoustical number, and in fact, the original version he recorded for "The Wall" was just that--and came in at about 1:20.
Producer Bob Ezren, however, had a few other ideas.
He thought the song would be stronger if parts of it were sung by actual children--so he hired a children's chorus from a local school, and overdubbed them to make it sound like a HUGE choir, integrated it into the song, repeated some lyrics, and then added a slow disco beat.
Roger was amazed at the result and gave the go-ahead--not just to add it to the album--but to release it as a single, something Pink Floyd rarely did with ANY of their songs.
And then, the single exploded all over the world, reaching #1 in FIFTEEN countries, including the US, Canada and the UK, and Top 5 in SEVEN more! Overall, it sold more than 4 million copies.
"Another Brick in the Wall" was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Performance by a Rock Duo or Group," won the 1983 British Academy Award for Best Original Song for its appearance in "The Wall" film, and spent several years on Rolling Stone's List of the "Top 500 Songs of All Time."
The only people who didn't like the song were some educators in the UK who didn't particularly like kids singing a protest song about teachers. But they somehow missed the point entirely.
"Another Brick in the Wall" by Pink Floyd: One of the best of the "Great Songs of the '70s! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IpYOF4Hi6Q
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