Today, Nov. 30, marks the 35th anniversary of Pink Floyd's last great album The Wall, a disturbing rock opera that tells the story of a rock star named Pink who gradually drives himself insane through complete emotional isolation. In honor of the anniversary of this incredible album, here are its five best songs.
5. "Hey You"
Due to the structural nature of The Wall, with each track being a piece in a much larger musical statement, few of the individual tracks on the album are arranged like proper pop songs, with verses, choruses, bridges, etc. One of the few exceptions to this is nocturnal "Hey You," which hypnotically opens up the album's second half and serves as one of Pink Floyd's simplest, most direct and most satisfying singles.
4. "Goodbye Blue Sky"
What makes "Goodbye Blue Sky" so brilliant is the way it continually tricks the listener over and over into a false sense of comfort. At some points, the song is a gorgeous, Beatles-esque folk ballad, but when those ominous minor key synths start creeping in, the song becomes a dark cloud over a Memorial Day picnic.
3. "In the Flesh?/In the Flesh"
Though these are technically two separate tracks at completely different parts of the album, they are companion pieces based on the same musical idea. “In the Flesh?,” the album’s opening track, establishes the main character Pink as a somewhat self-important rock star, but by the time the song comes around again on the album’s fourth side, Pink has completely descended into madness, believing himself to be a fascist dictator and weeding out the gays, Jews and blacks from his audience, along with anyone else who does not “look right.”
It is absolutely chilling, and the lyrics are made even more disturbing by the soaring, upbeat nature of the music behind them.
2. "Run Like Hell"
Because of its accessible pop-rock structure and arrangement, "Run Like Hell" was one of the songs from The Wall to be released as a single, and though it may not be as acclaimed or popular as "Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 2" or "Comfortably Numb," I have always enjoyed it more. The shimmering chorus is pretty much where 1980s guitar playing began, while the verses have elements of the era's post-punk bands, such as Wire or XTC.
1. "The Trial"
Though The Wall is a “rock opera,” it does not sound truly operatic until its climactic number “The Trial,” a nightmarish song that almost entirely eschews the band’s typical rock instrumentation in favor of a classical orchestra and ends up sounding like the score to a Disney movie directed by Werner Herzog.
Roger Waters delivers the greatest vocal performance of his career, portraying every character in the song himself with such intensity and conviction that it is a wonder he never ventured into voice acting. "The Trial" might be a bit too much for most Pink Floyd fans, but that's precisely why I admire it so much and find it so haunting. It pushes the album toward absolute lunacy.
What are your favorite songs from The Wall? What did I get wrong? Let me know down in the comments section.
