Pink Floyd - The Wall Review

The album's overriding themes are the causes and implications of self-imposed isolation, symbolised by the metaphorical wall of the title. The album's songs create a very approximate storyline of events in the life of the protagonist, Pink. Pink loses his father as a child (Waters' own father was killed in Anzio during World War II), is oppressed by his overprotective mother, and is tormented at school by tyrannical, abusive teachers, each of these traumas becoming "another brick in the wall". As an adult Pink becomes a rock music star, his relationships marred by infidelity, drugs and outbursts of violence. As his marriage crumbles, Pink finishes building the wall and completes his isolation from human contact.

Pink's mindset deteriorates behind his freshly completed "wall", with his personal crisis culminating during an onstage performance. Hallucinating, Pink believes that he is a fascist dictator, and his concerts are like Neo-Nazi rallies where he sets his men on fans he considers unworthy, only to be tormented with guilt and put himself on trial, his inner judge ordering him to "tear down the wall" in order to open himself to the outside world, and apologising to those who are hurt most by his self-isolation. At this point the album's end runs into its beginning with the closing words "Isn't this where..."; the first song on the album, "In the Flesh?", begins with the words "...we came in?" - with a continuation of the melody of the last song, "Outside the Wall" - hinting at the cyclical nature of Waters' theme.