Pink Floyd: Another Brick In His Mental Wall

Erik Nicolaysen
Ms. Johnson
English 111
2/10/2015
Another Brick in His Mental Wall
Pink Floyd was an English rock band formed in London in 1965. Pink Floyd brought psychedelic music to the London underground scene. The band was well known for their philosophical lyrics and extravagant sound and light shows. Pink Floyd was successful, both commercially and musically, and influenced popular music throughout the US and Europe. Roger Waters wrote three songs with the title “Another Brick in the Wall”, based on different themes, Reminiscing, Education and Drugs. The music video “Another Brick in the Wall” was released in 1982. It is about isolation, independence or lack of independence, individuality or lack of individuality, and rebellion.
He was ridiculed for being an imaginative child and for writing poetry. The schoolmaster singled out children that were creative or tried to express themselves as individuals and took away a poem Pink wrote in class. His teacher made fun of him by reading it aloud in class. Pink was just trying to be unique and more than just “another brick in the wall”, but his classmates, who he called the bricks, made fun of him and only made him feel more isolated. He felt that the government and the school system were trying to keep him down. The Scottish school master threatened the children. The lyrics “If you don’t eat yer meat, you can’t have any pudding” were a reflection on the school master taking away the kids’ pudding. These were the consequences during the time when corporal punishment was active in schools. If they did not eat their lunch, no pudding was rewarded and they received
Waters was for education but he thought that the grammar schools were very controlling and did not allow for any kind of independent thought. The lyrics “We don’t need no education" are a double negative. The negatives of “don’t” and “no” cancel each other out. The music video really shows that “we do need education" and that education can be good in helping to make well-rounded individuals. The educational system was trying to take away one’s individuality. The music video was a comparison of the wall to society. Each brick made up an individual and if you did not have the individual bricks in the wall or in society, the wall or society, would fall down or fall apart. The lyrics “you're just another brick in the wall" was a reminder for people to behave a certain way and that everyone should be the same with no personality. Everyone was being manipulated and institutions were trying to take over young