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The Wall

Rock / Progressive rock · 1979

The Wall

Pink Floyd

Why listen

Familiar singles and brief connecting scenes work together, giving Pink’s story a scale that no isolated guitar solo can represent.

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Tracks · previews

English editorial edition

Album story

Knowing the two famous songs can make the rest of The Wall seem like extended background information. Yet a short track here may change the meaning and momentum of the song that follows. Musical boundaries do not always reset the narrative. Listen to what passes across those boundaries, and familiar highlights acquire different positions. The record’s large scale comes from assembling many pieces rather than stretching one performance into an uninterrupted epic.

Released in 1979, the album follows a rock star called Pink and draws partly on Roger Waters’s experience. Character and author need not be identical in every detail. Bob Ezrin, David Gilmour and Waters produced the album, with James Guthrie credited as co-producer. The selected distribution retains the complete 26-track studio programme across two discs, carrying 2016 rights information. Film recordings and later concert versions are separate.

Keep the brief scenes

Hear The Happiest Days of Our Lives lead into the familiar second Another Brick track. Their boundary creates momentum that isolated playback can miss. Later, the brevity of Stop does not make it unimportant. Ask where a song has been placed to begin, rather than only how loudly or extensively it makes its point. A track number is not necessarily a firm border between dramatic scenes.

A returning name changes position

Three numbered Another Brick pieces are distributed through the first disc. Joining them into one item would remove the intervening experiences that change their weight. The opening In the Flesh? and the later In the Flesh also require distinction. Small differences in titles preserve different scenes. Repetition matters here through changing placement, not just through the recognition of a familiar phrase or tune.

After the celebrated solo

Comfortably Numb is not the end of the record. Subsequent pieces foreground voice and drama in other ways, eventually reaching The Trial and the brief Outside the Wall. Their pairing offers another scale of conclusion. You need not catalogue every character on a first encounter. Remember one particularly effective connection across the two discs, then return to its surroundings before substituting a synopsis for the listening experience.

The album through its tracks

Hear the transition into Another Brick Part 2 and continue beyond Comfortably Numb to the final dramatic and quieter scenes.

  1. Another Brick In the Wall, Pt. 2

    Before playing this track alone, hear how the preceding piece arrives at it. The familiar rhythmic repetition inherits a scene rather than appearing as an entirely independent slogan. Compare following the principal singing with hearing the effect of several voices together. Immediate memorability and a role in a longer narrative can coexist. The first and third parts share the main title, but this selection is specifically Part 2. It is neither a combined edit nor an extended concert arrangement. Continue into Mother afterwards to retain its position in the programme. Keeping the order prevents the best-known song from making its short neighbouring tracks seem unnecessary or disposable.

    Reference · Pink Floyd official album page: Pink, original four-side programme and producers

  2. Comfortably Numb

    Begin with the contrast between Waters’s and Gilmour’s voices, then consider the guitar’s continuation. Rather than separating singing and solo into two celebrated attractions, hear how tension and distance pass between them. Waiting exclusively for the guitar can obscure the sounds that prepare its scale. No predetermined emotional response is required; noticing when the scene seems to widen or draw closer is enough. This is the sixth track on the second disc in the original studio programme. It is distinct from Waters’s later new arrangement and extended Gilmour concert solos. The story continues afterwards, so let the next track challenge the impression that the solo must be the entire album’s conclusion.

    Reference · Pink Floyd Records: Comfortably Numb studio performance credits

Listen next

Return to Wish You Were Here and compare many brief connected scenes with two extended sections framing a five-track album.

Wish You Were Here ↗
References & editorial note

Written for English readers. Album facts are referenced below; listening suggestions are editorial interpretations. AI-assisted editorial review; not independently human-reviewed.