SECRETS OF THE WALL REVEALED!
Imagine dusting off a beloved album, comfortable as an old pair of jeans, and one day discovering that it goes much deeper down the rabbit hole than you ever envisioned. The thematic intention of every note…The nuance behind every veiled reference…Until you finally recognize that hidden deep inside is a distinctly powerful message you never knew was there. It's like discovering buried treasure within the walls of your own backyard.
Seen by some as merely as story about how someone disintegrates when they become isolated, or how we, as a society, disintegrate when isolated from one another, Roger Waters’ semi-autobiographical rock opera about a burned out rock star who suffers a dark night of the soul while trying to examine his unhappiness — and along the way is haunted by his unhappy memories of his domineering mother, abusive schoolteacher and distant wife - is a deliberate gape down dark, uncomfortable corridors of the soul, searching for that wounded child within; a work that uses complex narrative structures to express typical Modernist concerns such as the shattering of consciousness and the decay of modern society.
Brilliantly crafted into the album’s message and production are elements of something bigger: a philosophy about the meaning of human existence that tread on the mental real estate owned by giants like Freud, Sartre, Camus, Kafka, Orwell and Kubrick, among others. Without being too obvious, some of these tiny, yet bare glimpses into existentialism are so deeply woven into the framework of The Wall that they remain mostly subliminal, yet there are few who listen to this work and don’t feel it resonate within.
The Wall, originally released in November of 1979, is a remarkable and thematically-rich canvas made powerful not only by how deeply it draws upon some very essential human struggles with anguish, abandonment and despair, but also the crafty way it ultimately reveals itself as a philosophical treatise about our interpersonal relationships with others.
Think you know what Pink Floyd - The Wall is all about? What if I told you at the very least it's a lot more than you may have previously imagined.
PRAISE FOR TEARING DOWN THE WALL
“Smart, sharp, insightful and profound...”
- Blake Morgan, President ECR Music Group
“The most complete study of any album I’ve ever read. Tearing Down The Wall is absolutely forensic!”
- Mike Yusi (UC Radio)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MARK YOSHIMOTO NEMCOFF
Is an award-winning and bestselling author who has been featured by the hit TV show "Access Hollywood" and Playboy Magazine. A former Sirius Satellite Radio personality and TV host, he has written about music for Blender.
Mark currently resides in Los Angeles.
