When the Tigers Broke Free

Before I get to the first part of "Tigers," I'd like to address the non-Floyd song vaguely heard in the background of the movie's opening section. It's called "The Little Boy That Santa Claus Forgot," by Vera Lynn (see "Vera" later in this analysis). The lyrics are as follows: "Christmas comes but once a year for every girl and boy/ The laughter and the joy/ They find in each new toy./ I tell you of the little boy who lives across the way/ This fella's Christmas is just another day..." At this point, the vacuum cleaner whirs into electric life and "When the Tigers Broke Free, Part 1" begins. After the song ends and we get that wonderful close-up of the Mickey Mouse watch, Vera's song continues with : "He's the little boy that Santa Claus forgot/ And goodness knows, he didn't want a lot./ He sent a note to Santa, what he wanted was a drum/ This broken little heart when he woke and he hadn't come/ In the streets, yes he..." Once again, the vacuum drowns out the song. From the outset, Waters sets up a few brilliant parallels that will recur throughout the movie (and album). The very title of Vera's song, "The Little Boy That Santa Claus Forgot," is steeped with ideas of anticipation and disappointment, of longing for something and being (seemingly) overlooked. The connections with Pink are fairly obvious when viewing Vera's song in this light of hollow expectations. Maybe the little boy of Vera's song received nothing because Santa does not exist in reality. I know this seems a bit oversimplified, but perhaps the point is that placing your faith and hope in the unseen and the unreal is as futile as, say, expecting to be born into a loving world, a stable country, and a loving family complete with two parents. If anything, "The Wall" is a postmodern requiem for both former and present times, lamenting the pass of a pre-war era that will never be again while grieving the state of the post-World War II world. Correspondingly, Vera's song becomes less a charming song about a down-on-his-luck kid and more a dirge concerning the uncertainties of life during and after the War. In a sense, her message is the very first message one would learn in a highly fragmented, postmodern world: there is no certainty. Accordingly, Pink's life is bookmarked by post-war fragmentation and uncertainty, both literally and symbolically. The artistic "first chapter" of Pink's life (i.e. the opening of the movie) is Vera's song about the futility of hope while the real "first chapter" finds Pink fatherless. Even more interesting is the vacuum cleaner that interrupts Vera's song in order to segue into "When the Tigers Broke Free, Part 1." The vacuum is both the object that obstructs Pinks thoughts in the present as well as the physical embodiment of the void around which Pink's entire life is based. Therefore it is only fitting that Waters, known for his fascination with cycles (as evidenced throughout most, if not all, of Pink Floyd's albums), leads us from Pink/the-little-boy-that-Santa-Claus-Forgot to the vacuum/void before taking us to the main root of this abyss…the absent father.

"When the Tigers Broke Free" is perhaps one of my favorite songs from "the Wall" movie simply for its astounding emotional depth. Although it is one of my favorite songs in the movie, I can see why it wasn't included on the album: it's too straightforward. (On the DVD commentary, Waters says that "Tigers" was written specifically for the movie, although he later says that it was a song that was just lying around. Could be that it was a fragment during the album's recording but wasn't polished until the movie was in production.) The album "The Wall" is beautiful and compelling in the very fact that it is so hazy and cryptic. Rarely is there a song with astraightforward narrative chronicling one incident at one point in time with such a clear and concise point of view. But that's what we get with "When the Tigers Broke Free," a rare and extremely raw portrait (at least in terms of "the Wall") of personal loss more in tune with the songs from the follow-up (and quasi-sequel) album "the Final Cut: a Requiem for the Post-War Dream." Yet even this is fitting for the album's beginning as a sort of parallel to the beginning of Pink's life. Pink doesn't start building his wall until after he is born and, even then, after he comes to certain key realizations. Therefore it is fitting that Waters uses "Tigers" during Pink's symbolically pre-birth state (with his birth taking place during "In the Flesh?"), a time when there are no bricks and therefore no wall; a quiescent time when emotion is just that, raw and unfiltered. While the narrative voice is grown up and reflective and, in this first part, almost detached, like a historian recounting events of the past, it is still very prenatal both in terms of chronology and narrative action. Chronologically speaking, the events recounted are, as previously noted, events of the past taking place before or just after the narrator's birth, thus accounting for the semi-detached tone of the first half of the song. In terms of the album's story, the song acts as a kind of prelude to Pink's own story, with Pink still lethargic in his hotel room/wombuntil his metaphorical birth into narrative action with "In the Flesh?"

The tone of the first part of "Tigers" is very detached and observational, only hinting at the more personal voice that breaks out in the second part of the song later in the movie with certain colored (and therefore subjective) adjectives such as "miserable," "black," and "ordinary." As previously noted, the song is very straightforward and calm in comparison to the rest of the album, lacking the more dense metaphorical imagery of subsequent songs. As such, the actual song lyrics need little explanation in terms of narrative and symbolism: the action takes place in a trench at the frontline of the Anzio bridgehead in 1944. Waters comments on "the Wall" DVD commentary that his father, who served as the model for Pink's own dad, was 2nd Lieutenant of the 8th Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers Company C. The company held the frontline in February 1944 when the Germans launched a counterattack against the Allies in an attempt to drive them back to the sea. The fate of the men is still undetermined at this point in the film / album as is that of the still unborn Pink. Yet history (and Waters) reveals that the Royal Fusiliers Company C was completely destroyed by the counterattack, taking a "few hundred ordinary lives," among which was Roger / Pink's father.
One of the most interesting things to me, cinematically, at this point is the plethora of extreme close-ups during "the Little Boy that Santa Clause Forgot" and "When the Tigers Broke Free, Part 1." The movie opens with a gorgeous long shot of the hotel hallway, very ghostlike and almost sterile in its absolute barren whiteness. The shot also is evocative of the birth canal leading to the womb/room that Pink currently occupies. Yet from here, the viewer is treated to one close-up after another, from Pink's father lighting his lantern with Lions matches (perhaps suggesting the noble cause and hearts of the Allied forces) to Pink in his hotel room with a cigarette burned down to his fingers. Every scratch on the glass of Pink's Mickey Mouse watch is visible (the watch serving as a reminder of the childhood he never had) as is every hair on his arm. The effect is both intimate and unnerving; we feel a certain closeness with Pink's father as he lights his lantern and a cigarette, utterly alone in a womb of darkness as sounds of bombs and guns fire sporadically all around him; yet at the same time, we feel a paranoid sense of scrutiny as the camera details every pore and hair of Pink's arm. In an instant we become both the rabid media / fans obsessively observing every facet of Pink's being as well as Pink himself under the world's microscopic eye as a result of his fame.

Another shot which has many fans guessing is the transition between Pink's father and Pink in which a young boy (presumably Pink) runs across an open rugby field with only a goal post breaking the horizon. I've received many e-mails specifically addressing this one shot alone, a few even speculating that the goalpost, resembling the letter H, foreshadows Pink's drug addiction, particularly heroin. While this is quite possible, I believe that the shot is used to set up the contrast between Pink's psychological stages at many points during his story. The young child running across a playing field as well as the quick cut to the Mickey Mouse watch both denote a certain childlike innocence that Pink seems to keep trying to revisit throughout the narrative. The field is open and limitless save for the goal posts, alluding to the infinite possibilities of life before birth and during childhood. Yet as every scratch and blemish on Pink's watch shows, one's past childhood is etched and unattainable, especially for Pink whose innocence was marred far too early by the loss of his father. Like the watch, Pink's mental landscape is quite different in later, parallel scenes when the older Pink sits in a chair watching television surrounded by a hostile, barbed landscape. Even the childlike innocence of the child on the rugby field is underscored by his very solitude. He is the only visibly living being in the landscape. Viewed in this light, the scene might not only foreshadow Pink's drug dependence but also his alienation as a child as the result of losing his father in the war. As such, the sequence creates both a visual and thematic chain of events, starting with Pink's father engulfed by the darkness of war leading to Pink's pre and after-birth isolation eventually spawning thedrugged-out, unresponsive man who is so mentally fragmented that he doesn't even notice that his cigarette has burned down to his fingers let alone the maid's knock athis door.

Interestingly, the conclusion of the calm, pre-album sequences (those cinematic events that take place before the album-proper begins) focuses on both the chain on Pink's door as well as the locked doors preventing the concert-goers from entering the stadium. The chains which held Pink together to this point are about to burst, not only allowing for Pink's conception and birth on the chronological plane of the story but also for the release of the very emotions and memories against which Pink is building his wall.

http://www.thewallanalysis.com/firsttigers.html

In the Flesh?

Unlike the movie's rather calm introduction into Pink's life, the album begins with as much roaring lightning and thunder as the "Let there be light" of Genesis. The pounding guitars, monstrous organ, and heavy bass and drums automatically inundate the listener with an abundance of aural spectacle, propelling the audience into the story without a preparatory breath…or so one might think. Actually, those with attentive ears will notice a little prelude to the musical story in the form of background music and a quick, nearly imperceptible voice. The music is from the ending of "Outside the Wall," the last song on the album and the spoken message is "…we came in?" Now if you crank up your speakers and listen to the ending of "Outside the Wall" you'll hear, at the VERY end, "Isn't this where…" If you were to set your CD player to automatically start the first disc at the end of the second one, you'd hear the continuous, uninterrupted music of "Outside the Wall" with "Isn't this where we came in?" Why the disjointed message? Put simply, it introduces us to Roger Waters' fascination with cycles. The story of "The Wall" is not limited to the war babies, those who grew up feeling the first-hand effects of World War II. The story is universal, portraying the (possible) lives of anyone who has lost a loved one, whether they are like Waters who lost his father in the war or any number of countless people whose parents, caretakers, or loved ones are absent from a great portion of their lives. No matter what era we are viewing or experiencing, we will always "come in" to the story of one person whose life is affected by the loss of another. The story is cyclical, spanning every generation since the beginning of civilization; the music is never-ending. Once one man's story ends, the next one begins. When Pink's wall comes down, the children in "Outside the Wall" collect the bricks, perhaps building their own walls and thus restarting the cycle with "In the Flesh?" In fact, as is the case with Pink, the very moment of conception is often the moment the cycle begins.

Just as the cycle begins with Pink's conception, his father having already left and died when Pink was born (George Roger Waters was born September 6, 1944, nearly seven months after his father's death that previous February), the album begins with two birthing transitions on two narrative planes: the conception and birth of young Pink in 1944 and the current, rock-star Pink's transition into the Wall's completion and his subsequent final descent into insanity in the present. Young Pink's conception isn't so much as portrayed as implied in the movie and album. From the very first time I watched the movie, the procreative process immediately sprang to mind upon the opening sequence of the song. The countless young concert-goers bursting through the doors and encountering obstacles like the police before reaching their destination, the coveted inner room of the concert house, perfectly parallels procreative sperm obstructed by the body's natural defenses. The title itself suggest conception as well with the question mark after "In the Flesh?" suggesting that a physical body has not been formed yet, that there is still potential either way towards birth or miscarriage. Accordingly, the lyrics can be read as instructions for a child who has not yet entered life, although the speaker is quite uncertain by this reading. Whether the speaker is God, the parents, or Life itself, the message automatically sets up the theme of expectation and disappointment. The unborn child wanting to "go to the show," a metaphor for life, expecting to feel the warmth of love and acceptance from the world will most certainly be disappointed when that expected love eludes him, replaced by a world teeming with "cold eyes" and "disguise(s)." Although the song doesn't introduce the idea of the Wall, it does prepare the child/listener for a world of disguises that can only be torn down by "claw[ing]," implying that violence rather than love is necessary in order to get along in life. This violence is further cemented by the ensuing images of the concert-goers being beaten by the police cross cut with grisly images of war. After giving the instructions, Pink's birth is arranged as the Speaker yells for "lights," "sound effects," and "action," further equating "the show" with life, much like Shakespeare's Macbeth comparing life to a play and every person an actor on the stage: "Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player/ That struts and frets his hour upon the stage/ And then is heard no more: it is a tale/ Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,/ Signifying nothing." (Act 5, scene 5) The final "Drop it on 'em!" and the airplane dropping a bomb introduces Pink's birth as well as his first brick, the death of his father.

The second and more obvious plane of narrative is Pink's concert taking place in the present. As you will notice in the film, Pink's eyebrows have already been shaved, an event that doesn't take place until the second half of the album/movie. This technique of starting the story in media res or "in the middle of things" is a characteristic of most traditional epic works such as Homer's Odyssey and Vergil's Aeneid. By design, starting the narrative in the middle of the story immediately grabs the audience's attention, forcing them to accept the current situation while waiting for the exposition to be revealed in flashbacks. Such flashbacks not only set up the present story but also offer a sort of chiaroscuro between the character as he was and what he is. "The Wall" offers an interesting beginning in that the story-proper (the album's beginning and the "beginning" of Pink's story in the movie) starts in media res, but more towards the end rather than the true middle of the story. The first few songs introduce us to Pink as a child as well as Pink as a famous and equally alienated rock-star, but "In the Flesh?" shows us Pink further in the future, after his wall is complete. Consequently, the audience is getting three different versions of Pink almost simultaneously: the way he was (Pink as a child), the way he is (isolated Pink whose Wall is almost complete), and the way he will be (dictatorial, delusional Pink completely shut off from the world). By starting "in the middle of things," we can see just how far Pink has come from his innocent birth, making us all the more eager to find out why he is that way, to witness his development from "Baby Blue" to "Comfortably Numb" as revealed in flashbacks.

Interestingly, all of the original ideas and emotions that spawned the original concept of "the Wall" are buried within "In the Flesh?" The song title itself is taken from the 1977 tour entitled "Pink Floyd in the Flesh" which promoted their "Animals" album. On the DVD commentary, Waters comments that the police and riot scenes are inspired by true events which took place on that tour, most notably an incident in Los Angeles when the local police chief Davis attacked "rock and roll in general" because he was upset that there was to be a rock show in a downtown sports arena (Waters, DVD). The police apparently beat many fans, searched everyone with a ticket, and made numerous arrests, all for the sake of "order." The original spark, though, is recreated in the images and lyrics of "In the Flesh?" when Pink, in the role of demigod, dictates a set of instructions and clues to the mindless audience. Pink's balcony performance is reminiscent of the theatrical portrayal of gods and other supernatural entities who are often portrayed on a balcony overlooking the action of a play, both observant and detached from the world. Such is the very feeling that produced the idea of "the Wall" in Roger Waters' mind during the "In the Flesh" tour; standing on stage while the audience members either got drunk and broke out in fights with each other or starred in rapt and almost brain-washed attention at the band as if Waters and company were gods rather than men. These observances made Waters feel completely detached from his audience and the world, eventually causing him to take on the godlike persona that his audience was placing on him, resulting in the infamous "spitting" incident in which Waters spat on a fan in the front row just because he could. This idea of blind obedience lavished on a rock star is fully unleashed later in the album with the second "In the Flesh" and will be discussed in further detail there.

The juxtaposed shots of the concert-goers being brutally handled and the soldiers who appear to be roughly the same age as Pink's audience signal a birth in the metaphorical narrative, that of the world coming out of the World War II era. Whereas the Allied soldiers fought a centralized enemy, the kids in the present must fight the world devastated by the war. The postmodern fragmentation stemming from the world's loss of innocence caused by the war can be seen in many forms during "In the Flesh?": the brutal force used by supposedly civil protection, the brain-washed look of the audience trained by social norms to humble themselves in front of celebrities, even the commercialization of the "Feelin' 7-UP" billboard looming godlike over the crowd outside the venue, observational and detached. It's a disjointed world that tries to fill the void of personal meaning with reverence for corporate products and celebrities; a postmodern world introduced by Hitler's campaigns and the total devastation of the firmly-rooted familial and social milieu. While the world's population increased with the baby boomer generation, humankind never regained its sense of purity and innocence, arguably corrupted with WWI and the birth of Modernism and fully shattered with the second war. Thus it is only fitting cinematically to cut from the death of Pink's father to an English garden and little Pink in his stroller, already doomed to construct a wall.

http://www.thewallanalysis.com/firstflesh.html

Shine on you, Satriani!

O exceptionala varianata a lui "Shine on you crazy diamond", a celor de la Pink Floyd, in interpretarea lui Joe Satriani. Auditie placuta!

An introduction to The Wall

Pink Floyd's the Wall is arguably one of the most intriguing and imaginative albums in the history of rock music. Since its release in 1979, and the subsequent movie of 1982, the Wall has become synonymous with, if not the very definition of, the term "concept album." Aureally explosive on record and visually explosive on the screen, the Wall traces the life of the fictional protagoinst, Pink Floyd, from his boyhood days in war-torn England to his self-imposed isolation as a world-renownedrock star, leading to a climax that is as questionably cathartic as it is destructive.

From the outset, Pink's life revolves around an abyss of loss and isolation. Born to a war-ravaged nation that takes his father's life in the name of "duty," and an overprotective mother who lavishes equal measures of her love and phobias onto her son, Pink chooses to build a mental wall between himself and the rest of the world so that he can live in a constant, alienated equilibrium free from life's physical and emotional troubles. Every incident that causes Pink pain is yet another brick in his ever-growing wall: a fatherless childhood, a domineering mother, a country whose king signs his father's death certificate with a rubber stamp, the superficiality of stardom, an estranged marriage, even the very drugs he turns to in order to find release. As his wall nears completion, each brick further closing him off from the rest of the world, Pink spirals into a void of insanity, cementing in place the final brick in the wall. Yet the minute it is complete, Pink begins to realize the adverse effects of total mental isolation, helplessly watching as his fragmented psyche coalesces into the very dictatorial persona that antagonized the world during World War II, scarred his nation, killed his father, and thereby defiled his own life from birth. Culminating in a mental trial as theatrically rich as the greatest stage shows, the story ends with a message that is as enigmatic and circular as the rest of Pink's life. Whether it is ultimately viewed as a cynical story about the futility of life, or a hopeful journey of metaphorical death and rebirth, the Wall is certainly a musical milestone worthy of the title "art."

As with most art, Pink Floyd's concept album is a combination of imagination and the author's personal life. The album's germinated during the band's 1977 "Animals" tour when frontman Roger Waters, growing disillusioned with stardom and the godlike status that fans grant to simple rock stars, became disenchanted with the seemingly mindless audience and spit in the face of a concert-goer. Drawing on these feelings of adult alienation as well as the those springing from the loss of his own father during World War II, Waters began to flesh out the fictional character of Pink. The band's first frontman, Syd Barret, and the wild stories surrounding his drugged-out escapades and subsequent withdrawal from the world provided Waters with further inspiration for the moody rock-star Pink. The contributions of bandmates David Gilmour, Nick Mason, and Richard Wright, provided the final brush strokes for Pink, a contemporary anti-hero, a modern everyman struggling to find, or arguably lose, self and meaning in a century fragmented by war. Sursa: http://www.thewallanalysis.com/

We will meet Again

Una din putinele ocazii in care David Gilmour si Roger Waters se intilnesc, stau relaxati de vorba si la urma se mai si imbratiseaza. Se stie ca mult timp, cei doi nu prea si-au mai vorbit, ba mai mult, pe timpul in care inca mai activau impreuna la Pink Floyd, nici macar inaintea concertelor nu schimbau doua vorbe.

Eu unul inca mai sper ca Pink Floyd va reveni la vechea formula, asa cum mai sper ca oamenii astia sa nu imbatrineasca prea curind si inca ceva, mai sper ca odata si odata ii vom vedea undeva pe o scena din Romania. Pina la urma, chiar si in formatii separate, asa cum cinta acum, numai sa se intimple minunea sa-i vedem intr-un concert in Romania. Vise...

Pink Floyd would reunite again

Pink Floyd have revealed they would reunite again — for charity. Drummer Nick Mason says they just have to find the right cause to support. The band have made up after a 20-year feud. Nick Mason said: “I’m pretty sure we’ll play together again.”

Pink Floyd last gigged at Live8 in July 2005, healing the rift between David Gilmour and Roger Waters. They fell out in the Eighties over who owned the band’s name. Nick Mason added: “We’re not at each other’s throats now.” Sursa: thesun.co.uk

Bucuria de a cinta - Roger Waters - Time / Breathe

O secventa recenta marca Roger Waters, (din 3 Septembrie 2007), un excelent exemplu in care se vede ce inseamna bucuria de a cinta, a domnului Waters si a companiei. Auditie placuta! Cu volumul putin mai sus, de asta data. Ca sa puteti simti exceptionala introducere pe tobele elctronice, pe fundalul secundelor batute in ritm de metronom, execuatat magistral pe basul de aur al lui Roger.