Hello,
It was announced in the last few days that Pink Floyd will be releasing a CD full of new music. "The Endless River" is set to be released in October of this year. According to Rolling Stone.com this is a Rick Wright's farewell. The tracks were recorded during the same sessions that produced "The Division Bell". The additional tracks were initially titled "The Big Spliff". With the news that Pink Floyd is releasing their first new CD in 20 years, this seems to be a great time to write about "The Wall".
Who is Rick Wright? Wright was born on July 28th, 1943 and passed away on September 15th, 2008. Wright died at home of cancer at the too young age of 65. Wright is an original member of Pink Floyd and an extraordinary multi-instrumentalist. Wright was also involved in one of the more bizarre incidents in the history of Pink Floyd.
Wright was forced to resign from Pink Floyd during "The Wall" sessions due to personal problems and conflicts with Roger Waters. Although he was officially no longer a member of the band, he was retained as paid employee of Pink Floyd. Once Waters officially left Pink Floyd, Wright eventually returned to help with the recording of "The Division Bell". (Thanks to Wikipedia's Rick Wright page.)
Wright also released a couple of solo CDs, that didn't gain much traction with the public. He also formed a band called Zee. Not surprisingly none of Wright's solo work or Zee is available on Rdio.
("The Endless River" sounds like it will be mostly an instrumental work with David Gilmour and others singing on some of the tracks. To answer your next question, it doesn't seem Roger Waters is anywhere to be found on this CD.
In my opinion the chances of "The Endless River" being any good is about 1%. The CD seems to be driven more by Polly Samson, wife of David Gilmour, rather than David himself. Polly "helped" him on his 2006 solo CD, "On An Island", which frankly isn't very good. Although reading the several complimentary reviews on amazon.com, maybe I should give it another listen?)
I'll admit here that I have no insight into being a musician, having no musical talent whatsoever. The best I can do is to be as educated of an outsider as possible and I'll be writing from that viewpoint. I'll be using several sources to research and write this blog, as always all opinions are mine.
This could be the most difficult blog subject I ever write about. This subject will be broken into at least several individual blogs. I may change and update each blog as I continue to study and research. "The Wall" is a masterpiece without a doubt, a complex masterpiece. The movie version of "The Wall", starring Bob Geldof, is a brilliant look at the alienation and loneliness of being a rock star. Watch this movie to get an even better idea what Pink Floyd was trying to express in their seminal work.
"The Wall" was recorded June-December 1978 in London, England. Then "The Wall" recording was moved to France, where they worked on it from January to July 1979. They also worked on it at other studios. "The Wall" album was released on November 30th, 1979. The movie version of "The Wall", starring Bob Geldof as Pink, was released July 14th, 1982 in England. It was also shown at Cannes earlier the same year.
The four members of Pink Floyd during the recording of this CD were Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Rick Wright (sort of, see above) and Nick Mason. Obviously this CD is more than just the work of musicians. "The Wall" was produced by Waters, Gilmour, Bob Ezrin and James Guthrie. Also it would be criminal not to mention Gerald Scarfe's animation and sleeve design. He put much of "The Wall's" visual component on stage and the album cover. Since it's release it has sold millions of copies and it's influence continues to be felt to this day.
Some of the questions I hope to provide insight into include what is "The Wall" about? Why has it touched such a nerve over the years?
Here's the entire 2011 remastered version of "The Wall":
Pink Floyd performing "The Wall" in 1980, the full concert, the sound fades in and out:
This is the same Nassau concert as above, however the introduction has been eliminated. The sound is much better in this clip, however the video just shows the same picture throughout.
Roger Waters "The Wall" live in Wembley Stadium September 14th, 2013:
One song that you'll hear on "The Wall" movie, but not on the actual CD is "When The Tigers Broke Free". In the movie the song is actually broken into two parts. Here's both parts in one video, sadly the volume is very low. The lyrics and video give lie to the glory of war nonsense.
From the Wikipedia Battle of Anzio entry:
"Eric Fletcher Waters, father to Pink Floyd's bassist and songwriter Roger Waters, was killed during Operation Shingle at Anzio. The Pink Floyd albums The Wall and The Final Cut contain many references to this. In particular, the song "When the Tigers Broke Free" (featured in the soundtrack to the film of The Wall, and later added to The Final Cut) recounts the events at Anzio."
The lines that end the above song are "... most of them dead, the rest of them dying. And that's how the high command took my Daddy from me". The last few words are sung with a great deal of anguish.
Here's the Wikipedia entry about the Anzio bridge battle:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Anzio
Other sources for these next few blogs about "The Wall". Please don't expect me to keep track of where I get all the information from, I'll do what I can. 1) Andrew Means "A Brief History of Pink Floyd" by Andrew Means (You can buy the Kindle version of this book for $1.99.) 2) Multiple Pink Floyd related Wikipedia pages. Yes, I know that's not 100% reliable, so take any thing I write in these blogs with a grain of salt.
If you disagree with me or have additional insight, please don't be afraid to share in the comments or sending me an e-mail.
themusicaddict
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