Preview

Pink Floyd: Another Brick In His Mental Wall

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
780 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
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.
…show more content…
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 …show more content…
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

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Kanye West produced the popular song “All Falls Down” in 2004. He is well known for creating many wonderful tunes but this one stands out above the rest. While his other songs contain bass-heavy instrumentals and contain lyrics about money and women, this one is strays away from the previous structures. “All Falls Down” catches the attention of youth, with its mellow melody, to send a strong message concerning the overemphasis on money and education and how it can be harmful through the lyrics. The issues contained in the message are highly focused on the idea that money and education will not always be there throughout life. A person cannot always expect everything will go accordingly and he or she will be rich because he or she has an education. This is one of the few songs that convey a critical, yet positive, view of the harshness of reality for listeners.…

    • 1200 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The bell rings the end of class, Thomas gets sermoned and each word came in through his left ear and left from the right. Lunch time, Thomas heads to the washroom where he usually hides when feeling down. While sitting on the bathroom stall he hears two people having a heated argument. Slowly, he opens up the door as quiet as possible and peeks out. He sees nothing but the jock’s back covering whomever he was bullying . To put things clear, he was massive but one detail caught Thomas’ attention.…

    • 1152 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The quote stated by Randy Pausch in The Last Lecture about brick walls has an inspiring meaning behind it. Obstacles that anyone faces whether they overcome them or not, is the main idea in this specific quote; as is whether or not you have the will power and determination to get what you desire.…

    • 230 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    There are many different characters in the story. One of the two main characters is Tyrone Bittings. Tyrone thinks he has no future, so school is a waste of time. He is very racial towards Caucasians. This is proven in the beginning of the book, Tyrone says that white people are always talking about some future he has, and that white people do not know any thing about what his life is like. As the reader progresses through the book you see that Tyrone begins to develop tolerance for Caucasians. He begins to like school because of Mr. Ward's Open Mike Fridays..…

    • 423 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Shirley Jackson’s story “Charles is a story set in a humorous setting about a child that doesn’t always stay out of trouble at school. Laurie’s mom is telling the story about the experiences of him. Kindergarteners come home all the time with stories about the “bad kid” at school who always gets into trouble, and Laurie is not an exception. Every day, he tells his parents about the trouble a kid named Charles gets into. He tells them that this student punches the teacher, he also told them about how this kid was bouncing a seesaw off a girl’s head, and also he tells them that Charles often uses naughty Language. Laurie’s parents are worried about their son learning in such an environment with such inappropriate influences, but they don’t do…

    • 290 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The song takes on a more religious tone as it begins to question what people describe as “God”. It goes through the mindset of an individual who is troubled by the existence of a higher power and focuses on the idea that religious people think they hold a monopoly on the truth. The lyrics then attack God by giving it human traits, “If God controls the land and disease, and keeps a watchful eye on me, if it’s really so damn mighty, well then my problem is I can’t see who would want to be such a control freak”. This ideology then comes to a pessimistic conclusion that if no higher power exists, then nothing matters in the end. This theme then reappears in another song titled “Float On. Float On’s lyrics portray a man who goes throughout his entire day without letting his positive attitude spoil when bad things keep reoccurring. The title of this song is then revealed to point out the underlying lesson that you can have a nihilistic philosophy but be positive that nothing really…

    • 1058 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Scott Monk Raw Analysis

    • 1171 Words
    • 5 Pages

    This and the use of incorrect grammer, so common to rebellious teenagers, helps portray the message of the song, which is that today’s youth are prisoners of the older generations society, which alienate the younger generation and instead of looking for support and comfort, they thrive to rebel against these rules and law enforcement bodies, with the institution of society having no effect on the younger generation as they don’t comply and don’t want to reform. This creates the younger generations culture, arguing they are their own society.…

    • 1171 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    These labelled ‘protest songs’ became anthems for the American civil-right anti-war movements. His songs, and lyrics, have incorporated various political, social, and philosophical influences and appealed to the generation’s counterculture of the time.…

    • 516 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    cat on a hot tin roof

    • 1080 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The play starts out in the bedroom of Brick and Maggie, where Maggie is complaining to Brick about how Mae is making her monstrous children perform for Big Daddy. She goes on to rant about how Mae and Gooper are trying to cut them out of Big Daddy’s estate. Big Mama bursts in and screams the news that Big Daddy isn’t dying of cancer but only has a spastic colon. Once she leaves, Maggie informs Brick that the doctors lied to Big Daddy and Big Mama about Big Daddy’s condition and that he really is dying. Meanwhile Brick is hobbling around with an ankle injury he got from trying to jump hurdles at the high school while drunk the night before. After Brick makes a drink, Maggie catches him staring at her in the mirror and she then goes on to cry about how she is a “cat on a hot tin roof” because she is with a man that doesn’t love her. Maggie goes on to say she wishes she never confessed about her occurrence with the late Skipper and how she is jealous of the relationship Brick had with him. After Big Daddy’s birthday party is brought up to Brick and Maggie’s room, Bid Daddy and Big Mama start to fight about whether she truly loves him or not. After his argument with her he calls in Brick and starts badgering him about his drinking problem. Big Daddy suggests that Bricks relationship with Skipper was more than “friendly” and Brick gets so angry he confesses that he hung up on Skipper after a drunken confession and then Skipper committed suicide. Brick then reveals to Big…

    • 1080 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In "Crack and the Box" Pete Hamill explains why he feels that watching television in excess has the same effects on you as doing drugs. He begins to state that both drugs and television have the effect of escaping a person from reality. If you are blocking everyone out while your watching television you are doing pretty much the same thing as you would drugs because using drugs make you feel like you are in your own little world like television can make you feel if you let it.…

    • 582 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Brother pushed Doodle to hard. For example, he died. The parents told brother to be careful with Doodle, put brothers pride…

    • 260 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The simile signifies the bird’s fragility that is to similar to “a broken vase of red flowers” which leads to the ibis’s misfortunate death. The ibis didn’t fit in its new habitat, as it didn’t accept the bird and killed it instead. Likewise, Doodle experiences the same and receives the most inequity from his brother. As the narrator is a great conformist, he doesn’t accept Doodle’s individuality and forces him to undergo an intensive training program that will help him become ‘normal’ and be like everyone else in the…

    • 430 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    family was getting sick of exhaustion from working on the farm. He kept asking his mother why…

    • 440 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The little boy refers to McDonald as "Mister" and uses the word "hey" frequently to show the reader the youth of the boy and his innocence. The innocence of the little boy is shown when he makes comments such as ,"Would you help me please?" The author makes the little boy seem helpless and in need of guidance by having him fidget around to find his shrimp that he accidentally dropped on the ground. The author almost makes the reader feel sorry for the little boy, and this is brought out even more when the author will not stop to help the little boy. The reader feels angry when the author criticizes the way the blind boy is dressed, and the little boy's…

    • 307 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Sociology

    • 3041 Words
    • 13 Pages

    > Initially intended for the lower class Black communities, his songs were appreciated by members of all races and classes. In the essay I will try to explain the concepts of authority, sub-culture, roles, social-class and class-consciousness; I will then apply these concepts to the lyrics of My Block.…

    • 3041 Words
    • 13 Pages
    Powerful Essays