The Wall/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Alternative Character Interpretation: The Trial sequence: Pink's personal despairing nightmare of being judged, or his subconscious' moment of personal triumph in having the strength to look at himself honestly at last and then destroy the Wall with the help of the "Bleeding Hearts and Artists" outside who never lost faith in him?
  • Awesome Music: While the entire album is a good contender, some song examples include: Another Brick in the Wall (Parts All); One Of My Turns; Comfortably Numb; and The Trial.
  • Breakaway Pop Hit: "Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2", a #1 in the US and UK. The film is well known, but the song even moreso. It's also the band's Black Sheep Hit, since they never did anything as dancey as "ABITW Part 2" before or since.
  • Freud Was Right: The massive amount of phalic/vaginal-looking forms, particularly in the scenes involving Pink's mother.
  • Funny Moments: In the album version of "Nobody Home", the television in the background is airing an episode from Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.. When Pyle delivers his famous catchphrase "Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!", Waters (as Pink) immediately follows it up with the line, "There's still nobody home".
    • 'Go on, Judge, SHIT ON HIM!'
  • Growing the Beard: Waters' 2010 revival of the stage show concentrated much more on anti-war and anti-government themes and played down the tormented rockstar angle.
  • Nightmare Fuel:
    • The Gerald Scarfe animation sequences, namely "The Trial".
    • The flowers animation for "What shall we do now?"
    • The meat grinder.
    • The Teacher in the live show. The sheer size of it changes it from being a simply creepy character into a particularly horrifying one, while simultaneously being a Moment of Awesome in the show.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: P!nk, anyone?
    • Not only that, but Michael Ensign, who plays the Hotel Manager. It's funny if you consider that he might have quit LA and moved to New York City, where he would suffer another series of migraines as manager of the Sedgewick Hotel.
  • Less Disturbing in Context: Sometimes understanding the meaning behind the bizarre imagery makes it a little less disturbing, or in some cases, just makes it more fucked up.
  • Misaimed Fandom: Although the last quarter of The Wall was an attack on neo-Nazis, regrettably some individuals failed to grasp this, as the ADL's page concerning the Hammerskin Nation makes abundantly clear.
    • To a lesser extent, grungy teenagers who use songs like "Another Brick In The Wall, Pt. 2" as an actual rallying cry for their own social isolation are kind of not getting the message.
    • "We don't need no education." has several meanings, to believe it is a song against learning or education is to miss the subtlety. In fact, the sentence is a double negative, which literally means "We need education", suggesting that yes, education can be a good thing in developing well-rounded individuals. The song is a protest, however, against cruel teachers and systems who mold the school children into mindless drones of society. It is saying "We don't need this type of education." It's a criticism against the types of teachers and systems that, as in Pink's case, ridicule an imaginative child for writing poetry.
  • Tear Jerker: "Hey You", "Comfortably Numb", "When the Tigers Broke Free", "Is There Anybody Out There?" and many more.
    • In the live tour, the footage of soldiers being reunited with their children in "Vera" and the memorial images of people who'd died in wars during the first half of the show are bound to have the audience in tears.
  • The Woobie: Pink really needs a hug. Of course, as his descent into madness and fascism progresses, he slides from a standard woobie into a Jerkass Woobie and, if he actually did manage to raise a small army of fascists and terrorize the countryside, a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds.