The most uncomfortable song in the history of Pink Floyd
Hidden behind their ostensible prog tag and the playful psychedelia of the Syd Barrett era lies a distinctly political undercurrent to Pink Floyd. While the band created some of the most arresting sonic arrangements popular music has ever known, former creative director Roger Waters also brought to life a selection of profound social commentaries.
While these can be found across his time with the band, undoubtedly, the 1979 rock opera The Wall is the most distilled and famous of them all. It tells the story of Pink, a fading rock star who constructs a psychological “wall” of social isolation from fans and the outside world. Exploring themes of mental illness, political tyranny, fame and drug abuse, it was the last great album Waters made with Pink Floyd before his acrimonious departure in the mid-1980s.
The album opens with ‘In the Flesh?’, introducing the overall concept. It is the first time we meet Pink, beginning at the start of a rock concert. The lyrics tell us that things are not as they seem for the rockstar, with a much different landscape “behind these cold eyes” and that the listener will “just have to claw your way through this disguise” to find out what’s actually going on inside his mind. It is also suggested that Pink’s father died in a war, leaving his mother to fend for herself and her newborn, which left an indelible imprint on him.
Much later in the story, the 21st song on the album, ‘In the Flesh’ is a reprise of the opener, with more prolonged instrumentation and a choir. This is the first of a series of tracks where Pink, now in a drug-induced hallucination, believes he is a fascist dictator, rejoicing over his devoted audience. In this way, the song is likened to a political rally from right-wing ideologues. To bring this sentiment to life, it is also the most uncomfortable and on-the-nose song of Pink Floyd’s career.
Here, Pink urges his fans to show their unwavering loyalty to him by throwing undesirables, which he calls “queers”, Jews, and “c***s”; “up against the wall”. The feverish audience then chants “Hammer! Hammer! Hammer!” in response, as it segues into ‘Run Like Hell’.
Using the song to parody mindless stadium rock and right-wing politics, Waters told Rolling Stone in 2010 that he needed the right riff to convey such absurd thoughts. He explained: “We needed a beginning, so I went into a room with a bass guitar and went, ‘I need something that’s really stupid-sounding. Really loud, monolithic, dumb.’ And I’ve grown rather fond of that riff in the intervening years.”
The Wall and the title of the ‘In The Flesh’ duo were directly inspired by Pink Floyd’s 1977 tour of Animals. While the title doesn’t appear in either song, it references the name of the run for their previous album, the In The Flesh Tour. At the time, the quartet played expansive sports stadiums meant for that and not music concerts, and Waters noticed that their audiences relished in abuse, often getting black-out drunk. It was then that he conceived the idea of a wall between the band and the audience, which gave him the embryo for the next album.
Listen to ‘In The Flesh’ below.
