miercuri, 7 iulie 2010

Don't Leave Me Now

Having finally come to the realization that he is absolutely alone in the world after having failed to form a true connection with his wife or the groupie, Pink lapses into the depressive bout of "Don't Leave Me Now." Perfectly reflected in the sluggish rhythm of the piano and the reverb-laden synthesizers, the reverb itself hinting at the hollowness and void of Pink's life, "Don't Leave Me Now" finds Pink in "the depths…of deprived depravity" (interviewer Tommy Vance, 1979 Roger Waters interview). At first the song seems to follow in the tracks of the few songs before it, wearing its meaning on the surface. Distressed at the thought of his wife's infidelity, Pink gives voice to the plethora of warring emotions teeming within his heart, mind, and soul. In one instant he pleads with his wife not to leave him, not to say that their relationship is over. Seconds later, the rage over being left boils to the surface and Pink threatens to put his wife "through the shredder" or to "beat [her] to a pulp on a Saturday night." It's certainly a shock for most listeners to hear the previously docile Pink (submissive to the point of being non-responsive) not only conjure up brutal images of physical abuse but also relish the thought of meting these very images on his adulterous wife. So is Pink physically abusive to his wife? Are these random beatings that he sings about true? As I mentioned above in "One Of My Turns" concerning Pink's "favorite ax," there is a certain danger to interpreting these lines in a literal context. First and foremost, it must be remembered that this character is uttering these lines at the extremes of his emotional capacity. In "One Of My Turns" he is at the height of his violent rage and now in "Don't Leave Me Now" Pink is at the bottom of the darkest depression. I cannot stress enough how important it is to keep a character's mental state in mind when interpreting, or even reading / listening, to their narrative. Many writers love to use the unreliable narrator, presenting the protagonist's skewed views as truth in order to reveal fully the instability, deceptiveness, or simply playfulness of the main character's mind. I think that is what Waters is doing with Pink at this moment, using these false recollections of beatings in order to show just how far gone Pink's mind really is. Keeping this in mind and judging by the complete absence of spousal abuse throughout the rest of the album, I personally would say that Pink never physically mistreated his wife. One can argue, and rightly so, that Pink mentally abuses her, belittling her rather than physically beating her to "a pulp" in front of his friends. Perhaps he says these things to justify her leaving him. Perhaps he says them in order to get some amount of revenge on her, using the very thought of beating her to placate his own wounded pride. Whatever one's interpretation of these lines might be, it is most interesting to see how quickly Pink flips from one apparent extreme to the other, wondering where their relationship went wrong before lashing out at the very thing he supposedly held dear.
Along with the rapid shifts in feelings, it is also interesting to note Pink's obliviousness throughout the song in which he blindly asks, "how could you treat me this way?" As I'm sure I've mentioned countless times before, Pink is still ignorant of his liability in the
 formation of the bricks for his wall, believing this whole time that it is the world and everyone in it who have created and continue to create bricks through their injurious relationships with Pink. Accordingly, Pink sees himself as the hapless victim in all of his failed relationships. At his very core he wants to connect with someone, to forge a personal bond with another person, but is unable to leave himself so vulnerable. But rather than realizing that he is as much, if not more, to blame for the distance he creates between himself and the rest of the world, Pink projects each one of his faults onto the external world, blaming everyone except himself for "running away."
Not surprisingly, it seems that cycle of Pink's mother's overprotection has come full circle, causing Pink to protect himself from the world almost by means of the same neurotic behavior of his mother. Notice that Pink repeats "oooh babe" throughout the song, a phrase that until now has been uttered numerous times by his mother alone in songs like "The Thin Ice" and "Mother." And so the cycle of obsession continues,
paralleling such haunting ideas like the mother putting "all of her fears into you" with Pink's equally disturbing threats of putting his wife "through the shredder." Even the image of an actual shredder quite possibly alludes to Pink's childhood education in which the teachers attempted to mold their students into model citizens (the movie scene of "Another Brick In The Wall 2" uses a hamburger shredder to perfectly convey this point). Pink alludes to the shredder here as being an implement of personal humiliation, an instrument that produces submissiveness. Simply put, he fantasizes about molding his wife in much the same way that the teachers tried to mold him. In other words, Pink has adopted both his mother's obsessions as well as his teacher's methods of using humiliation to create the desired product. Pink is becoming the very things that he detests in a cyclical pattern that culminates in his final, corrupt transformation later in the album.
Heretofore I have been discussing "Don't Leave Me Now" as Pink's degenerate mental address to his adulterous wife. Yet in a 1979 interview with Tommy Vance, Roger Waters states that Pink doesn't sing the song "to anybody; it's not to her [the groupie] and it's not really to his wife, it's kind of to anybody. If you like it's kind of men to women in a way, from that kind of feeling." Generalizing the song in the way Waters does really stresses that Pink's relationship with his wife is seemingly the same as his
 polar love-hate relationship with everything in his life. He loves his father but hates him for dying. He loves his mother but hates her for stifling him. He loves his celebrity but hates it for being so shallow and materialistic. He loves his wife but hates her when she cheats on him. And as we shall see soon enough, he loves his wall for the protection it gives but will eventually hate it for nearly entombing him.
The movie scenes accompanying "Don't Leave Me Now" once again depart from simply depicting the ideas conveyed by the lyrics (as seen in the past two songs) and instead offer up many densely packed images. The song begins with a close-up of the debris in Pink's hotel room, littering the screen with shots of broken glass, overturned tables, and smashed guitars. While the chaos might not seem like much out of the ordinary at the moment, I think it is important to note so that the development between this point in time and the ordered chaos depicted later in "Is There Anybody Out There?" can be truly understood. The Christological parallels of "The Thin Ice" depicting Pink floating in a crucified form are furthered here, first with a close-up shot of Pink's blood-soaked hands reminiscent of the stigmata and then with a full screen shot of the "crucified" Pink, his blood dispersing and staining the clear blue water of the swimming pool. This shot is interestingly superimposed over images of Pink's wife and her lover, the faded image of Pink's crucifixion standing out in sharp contrast to the almost animalistic movements of the lovers. Though he is a sort of anti- or mock-Christ, Pink presumably imagines himself otherwise as evidenced in the shots. In his mind, he is a martyr who is betrayed by the sinful acts of a loved one (notice that Pink's wife has red hair, supposedly the same color as Judas Iscariot, the disciple who betrayed Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane). As a result, he is suffering for their sins by means of his own mental crucifixion, the depressing anguish that he is experiencing because of his wife's transgressions. Though Pink is presented in such 
a light, the audience is far more cognizant of his mock-Christ role, knowing that Pink was not so much betrayed by his wife as he was by himself, that he is only victimized by his own blindness and ignorance.
Pink is next shown sitting in a chair watching TV while each splash of blood that falls from his fingers takes on a cataclysmic, Christ like resonance. Despite the apparent ordinary reality of the scene with "the Dambusters" still playing on the television, this scene is quickly revealed to be another one of Pink's hallucinations. Far from the littered screen that opened the song, the room, though sparsely furnished, is still intact just as the TV is still in working condition. The hallucination continues as the shadow of Pink's wife emerges onto the back wall before transforming into a preying mantis, the very name of which creates a hunting / hunted scenario in which Pink, the "hapless victim" is hunted by his wife. The mantis's face soon transforms into the female flower from "Goodbye Blue Sky" which itself is suggestive of a woman's vaginal lips, a "symbol of womanhood" as Gerald Scarfe suggests on the DVD commentary. Pink cowers in the corner, tortured by both the mantis in front of him and the thoughts of his wife's adulterous acts superimposed on the screen. And so the song ends with Pink crouching in the corner, helpless in his mind, surrounded by the massive blue walls that possibly allude to the "baby blue" innocence which he believes he still possesses. In his mind, he is as innocent and unaccountable as the crucified Christ who, according to Christian beliefs, suffered and died on the cross as a result of the world's transgressions. Yet here we find another separation in the characters of Christ and Pink, further supporting the argument that Pink is a mock-Christ rather than a Christ figure. While Christians believe that Jesus gave himself to the world when he died so that all might live, we will see in the next song that Pink takes the opposite course by completely isolating himself from the external world, symbolically sacrificing himself so that he alone might live.
Resurging from the depths of his depression, Pink commits one final violent act before completely isolating himself from the injurious external world. With the rage that has built up over his life, Pink symbolically attacks the burdens that he feels has been placed on him. He destroys the television with one fell swoop of his guitar, striking out against his past afflictions (represented by "the Dambusters" that was playing on the
 TV) and his present burdens (embodied in everything from the materialistic symbol of the television and the surrounding hotel room to his very solitude in the scene). It is also interesting to note that Pink destroys the TV right before the couple on the screen kiss, alluding to his own severed relationships and his inability to truly connect with anyone. In an instant Pink is propelled into the uncharted reaches of mental dementia. (Sursa)

sâmbătă, 3 iulie 2010

Pink Floyd members discuss recording "Money"

Pink Floyd members discuss recording "Money" - From Classic Albums: Pink Floyd - The Making of 'The Dark Side of the Moon, a must-see documentary for any Floyd fan.

duminică, 20 iunie 2010

Roger Waters tours The Wall

Considering the response when I wrote about Pink Floyd recently (ostensibly about the album The Final Cut) I figured there might be some interest from Blog on the Tracks readers now that Roger Waters has announced that he is touring The Wall. He is celebrating the 30th anniversary of the album - taking it out on the road. At this stage it's just American dates (from what I can tell) and then, presumably, the tour will roll on through Europe. And perhaps it will make its way, brick by indulgent brick, to Australia - and maybe to New Zealand - sometime in 2011...
So - what do you think? Would this be the best night out - seeing Roger Waters performing The Wall? Or would you prefer that the wall was actually built up around you so that you didn't have to hear it?
I am pretty sure I do not need to see Richard Gere's twin brother reliving/rebuilding The Wall.
I'm all for seeing old heroes play old classics - I loved seeing Leonard Cohen last year. But isn't this just a bit ridiculous? The Wall: 30 years on. Do people really care?
It would be hard to re-form Pink Floyd now, granted. But what has Roger Waters really done since leaving Floyd? He's released three studio solo albums that sound like Floyd. And while he has dabbled in opera and written some new tunes, his live shows focus on recreating Floyd-without-Floyd; essentially he travels the globe in a bid to prove authorship.
We know he wrote the songs.
He was here a while back doing The Dark Side of the Moon album in its entirety. Before that - with the In the Flesh live album - there was a heap of Floyd material; not just Floyd songs but Floyd recreations. Roger Waters performing his Pink Floyd songs as he wants to hear them now - and that means that next up you will get to hear The Wall.
The Wall is something of a polarising album - some Floyd fans love it, many can't stand it. It is rightfully regarded as the height of the band's excess - in terms of overwrPink Floyd The Wallought and overarching song/album concepts. And it also has some of David Gilmour's greatest guitar playing and a few good songs.
I am not sure I am much of a fan of The Wall.
But - don't get me wrong - I definitely was a fan. I watched the movie so many times through my high school and university daze. I even watched it three times in a row one day. Hey, I grew up in Havelock North, pre-flat whites and vineyard lunches. It was either watch The Wall three times or watch people be subtly racist (ironic, I know).
I also had a videotape of when Roger performed The Wall in Berlin with all sorts of famous guest vocalists (Van Morrison, Cyndi Lauper, Ute Lemper, Bryan Adams and so on). I watched that videotape - recorded from the TV during an all-night music festival - in 1990.
The double-CD was soon part of my collection.
I've even got the country-cover of The Wall: Rebuild The Wall by Luther Wright & The Wrongs. (I thoroughly recommend fans and non-fans check out this CD. It's ace).
So I've done my time with Pink Floyd, been a big fan - but you know that from the previous post I linked to at the top of today's entry; I still have every Floyd album - and everything that Roger Waters has done since leaving the band. I just don't listen to the material that often these days.
The thing that killed The Wall for me - probably - was seeing the tribute act, The Pink Floyd Experience, doing their version of it live. It just seemed such a redundant concept. The weirdest thing that happened that night was hearing a person ask at the merchandise counter whether the band had any CDs available. I wanted to lean over and go, "yeah, they've got about 14 albums - they're in stores under the name Pink Floyd!" But I didn't. I just waited until the bricks came tumbling down, the show was over, and it was time to leave.
I won't write any more about The Pink Floyd Experience because one time I mentioned them on the radio and received threaRoger Waters relaxing on tour...tening phone calls. And when I reviewed the show where they performed The Wall, there were angry letters and phone calls.
I guess just seeing them doing it - and I'm not knocking their skills as musicians at all - made me realise what a strange idea it is to want to hear this music recreated live; to have the need to hear something played note-for-note as you remember it. No spontaneity, no soul. No energy. Not even the anger that is in parts of the album. A live version of The Wall - and you can see this on Roger's Berlin show that I mentioned earlier - is all just stupid pantomime. It is the band at its worst. And to see Waters doing it live just shows he has nothing to offer at all beyond working on his retirement fund.
If you are keen to go see Roger Waters "tear down the wall" (again) - you'll be pleased to hear that Snowy White is playing guitar for the tour.
So are you up for a rebuilding of The Wall? Or would you prefer it stayed in blocks on the ground?
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http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/blogs/blog-on-the-tracks/3579156/Roger-Waters-tours-The-Wall

vineri, 4 iunie 2010

Rogers Waters tour 2011

Roger Waters a anuntat datele turneului in cadrul unei conferinte ce a avut loc in data de 27 mai in Londra unde a declarat ca noua interpretate va fi mult mai politica decat cea initiala. Cele 28 de concerte nu includ si Romania, cea mai apropiata locatie pentru a vedea spectacolul fiind Budapesta, Ungaria.

Datele turneului european sunt dupa cum urmeaza.
Mar 21, 2011 Atlantico Pavilion Lisbon, PT
Mar 25, 2011 Palacio de Deportes Madrid, ES
Mar 29, 2011 Palau Sant Jordi Barcelona, ES
Apr 1, 2011 Mediolanumforum Milan, IT
Apr 2, 2011 Mediolanumforum Milan, IT
Apr 8, 2011 Gelredome Arnhem, NL
Apr 12, 2011 Sports Arena Budapest, HU
Apr 15, 2011 O2 Arena Prague, CZ
Apr 18, 2011 Atlas Arena od, PL
Apr 23, 2011 Olympiski Moscow, RU
Apr 25, 2011 SKK Arena St. Petersburg, RU
Apr 27, 2011 Hartwall Arena Helsinki, FI
Apr 30, 2011 Telenor Oslo, NO
May 4, 2011 Ericsson Globe Stockholm, SE
May 7, 2011 Parken Copenhagen, DK Tickets
May 11, 2011 O2 Arena London, UK
May 12, 2011 O2 Arena London, UK
May 17, 2011 O2 Arena London, UK
May 20, 2011 Manchester Evening News Arena Manchester, UK
May 21, 2011 Manchester Evening News Arena Manchester, UK
May 23, 2011 O2 Arena Dublin, IE
May 27, 2011 Sportspaleis Antwerp, BE
May 30, 2011 Bercy Paris, FR
Jun 3, 2011 SAP Arena Mannheim, DE
Jun 6, 2011 Hallenstadion Zurich, CH
Jun 10, 2011 Colorline Arena Hamburg, DE
Jun 15, 2011 O2 Arena Berlin, DE
Jun 18, 2011 Esprit Arena Dusseldorf, DE

The Wall a fost interpretat de Waters de 31 de ori inclusiv turneul de promovare din 1980-1981.

'Intrebarea inca ma macina. Vom suferi din pricina tehnologiei sau ne va ajuta pentru a ne intelege mai bine? Ne va insela, ne va destrama?' declara Waters.
'Acum 30 de ani am compus The Wall din perspectiva unui om plin de frica. Cred ca acel concept ramane valabil si in ziua de azi. Cred ca este responsabilitatea mea sa impart optimismul meu si sa-i incurajez pe altii sa faca la fel

marți, 9 februarie 2010

Pink Floyd - Is there anybody in there?

Înainte de a începe efectiv această cronică, trebuie să recunosc că eram inconştient de potenţialul estetic, distructiv sau revoluţionar al muzicii celor de la Pink Floyd. Îi consideram nişte precursori apolinici ai gothic-ului transcendental, concept cu sferă largă, în care încap Dead Can Dance, Tiamat sau The 69 Eyes. Nimic mai greşit. "Pink Floyd The Wall" (1978) este un film inimaginabil, în care acordul dintre muzică şi suportul vizual ajunge, uneori, la perfecţiune. Este un punct de referinţă, care face inteligibile proiectele lui Stone (The Doors - 1991) sau ale lui Steve Ericsson (Lyckantropen - 2002), opus relativ necunoscut, care se foloseşte de aceeaşi tehnică. În filmul lui Alan Parker avem o halucinantă moştenire culturală, o adevărată enciclopedie a sufletului, în care încap Vian, Foucault, Brecht, Keoruac, Philip K. Dick şi mulţi alţii. Cum poate aţi ghicit deja, filmul foloseşte paradigma anilor '68, care poate fi caracterizată pe scurt prin: dezordine socială, libertate sexuală, televiziune "globalistă", marxism şi psihanaliză. La fel ca alte două filme-cult ale acestei generaţii, "Clockwork Orange" (1971) şi "Apocalypse Now" (1979), opera cinematografică a lui Parker explorează şi exploatează tematica inconştientului, cu o asemenea prospeţime şi acuitate, încât demersul din "The Wall" devine punct de referinţă. Nişte observaţii tehnice sunt totuşi de menţionat, doar câteva din zecile care s-ar putea face. Momentul hentai din post-modernul "Kill Bill vol.1", în care o scenă din "realitate" este continuată printr-un desen animat, îşi are originea în această peliculă. Procedeu atât de actual, cumulat de Fincher/Palahniuk prin "life is a copy of a copy...", metonimie atotputernică şi nimicitoare a ceea ce înseamnă lumea/viaţa/virtualitatea contemporană. Faţa de plastilină a personajelor, o mască ce le amputează imaginea exterioară este preluată de Parker din "Pădurea de fragi"(1957) a lui Bergman. Şi aici, impresia generală este de fiinţă golemizată, supusă unei pierderi ireversibile a identităţii. Bineînţeles că un asemenea film face ca videoclipul celor de la Pearl Jam, "Do The Evolution" să pară plagiat. Iar acum, o influenţă de fond. Sistematica anti-individualistă şi percepţia asupra poeziei ca "pierdere de vreme" (scena în care personajul principal al filmului este umilit pentru că citeşte la ore o carte de versuri) aminteşte de reflecţia asupra poeziei din "Dead Poets Society" (1989).

"The Wall" este un film psihologic, dacă înţelegem prin psihologie un demers lărgit, atot-cuprinzător, predominantă fiind pentru ea acea călătorie a sufletului, care apare în picturile medievale flamande. Metoda cea mai potrivită este tocmai onirismul bestial (the bad trip), metaforele morţii, nebuniei şi ale sexualităţii, fiind pilonii discursivi pe care este construit filmul. Din punct de vedere strict psihanalitic, figura mamei devoratoare este cea constitutiv-distructivă, piesa "Mother" fiind una referenţială:

Mama's gonna check out all your girlfriends for you.
Mama won't let anyone dirty get through.
Mama's gonna wait up until you get in.
Mama will always find out where you've been.
Mama's gonna keep baby healthy and clean....

Nebunia personajului principal (un star rock numit Pink) este inserată în trama organică a "Zidului" tocmai pentru a cunoaşte şi a învăţa mai multe din dezintegrarea şi fărâmiţarea progresivă a psyche-ului. Iar moartea irumpe în scenariu prin punerea în scenă a războiului (şi aici pesimismul social al unor Brecht sau Böll sunt evidente) sau prin intercondiţionarea ei cu sexualitatea (scena în care două flori fac sex şi una dintre ele se transformă într-un dragon nimicitor, dizolvând-o şi aneantizând-o pe cealaltă). Sunt convins că din punct de vedere iniţiatic şi simbologic, filmul are mai multe conotaţii; dar această reducţie psihologică are avantajul de a se situa în directa descendenţă a generaţiei '68.

Alan Parker a gândit foarte bine acest film; la fel ca şi albumul conceptual "The Wall", pelicula foloseşte contrapunctul. Practic, aşa se îmbină până la o perfecţiune perversă pasajele agresive cu cele meditative sau melancolice. Cu alte cuvinte, filmul nu agresează printr-o violentare banalizată prin repetare, scenele care îţi taie respiraţia fiind secondate de reprise-uri nostalgice, care conturează personajele şi nuanţează mai bine.

O scenă-cheie a filmului este cea introdusă de piesa "Comfortably Numb". Personajul principal este scos de sub incidenţa penală, ca să fac o altă trimitere anti-psihiatrică, cu alte cuvinte este internat în ospiciu. Din punct de vedere filozofic, acest lucru echivalează cu o regresiune în minorat; din punct de vedere imagistic, internarea este asimilată cu o punere în mormânt, la fel de splendidă precum cea clasică. Regresia vine ca o continuarea a scenei în care starul rock îşi rade sprâncenele şi părul de pe piept şi devastează toată casa. Poematic este şi momentul când aruncă televizorul de pe geam (tv-ul este un drog mediu, după cum demonstrează filmul, angajând o receptivitate şi o pasivitate ieşite din comun), tăindu-se adânc în cioburile de la geam (din punct de vedere imagistic, momentul este iar o reuşită). Astfel, prin toate aceste determinative, "Comfortably Numb" vine ca o metaforă a nebuniei estetice:

When I was a child I had a fever
My hands felt just like two balloons.
Now I've got that feeling once again
I can't explain you would not understand
This is not how I am.
I have become comfortably numb.

Bineînţeles, anestezia totală (şi confortabilă) este programul acestei metafore halucinogene. De fapt, multe din personajele filmului par anesteziate: mama apare într-o scenă redusă la anestezia macabră a somnului (ea doarme, în planul oniric, lângă un cadavru), profesorul refulat are un comportament de marionetă, chiar şi şobolanul -pe care copilul şi-l doreşte ca animal de casă- este catatonic. Impresia schizofrenă a acestei lumi de vată, fără conştiinţă, raţiune sau identitate este un alt simptom al golemizării globale, care se reflectă asupra personajului central. Cu adevărat, doar stranietatea sau alteritatea radicală sunt conceptele pe care i le mai putem aplica.

Ca să închei, acest film merită văzut nu doar pentru calitatea sa psihedelică, ce combină muzica cu imagistica, poezia cu meditaţia filozofică. El este mai mult decât atât: un produs cultural, care avertizează asupra deprecierii relaţiilor interumane, asupra eşecului oricărei pedagogii (we don't need no education), bazate pe violenţa programatică şi asupra totalitarismelor, care păstrează o mezalianţă pregnantă cu aureola religioasă. (Sursa)

luni, 1 februarie 2010

Pink Floyd - Shine On You Crazy Diamond

Pentru Bianca si pentru toti cei care cred ca "Shine On You" este poate cea mai mare realizare a muzicii progresive care s-a facut vreodata pe lumea asta...



One Of My Turns

Although we've always had glimpses of Pink's darker side before this point in the album, "One of My Turns" gives us our first extensive view of the present turmoil teeming beneath the surface of Pink's detached persona while simultaneously shifting the tone of the album. Up until now, the album is arguably dominated by young Pink's naïvete as he grows (or at least tries to grow) into the life handed to him at birth. Even the cynically didactic tones of "In the Flesh?" and "the Thin Ice" are counterbalanced by a certain paternal, instructional quality. Beneath the gravity of the previous songs lurked a sense of exploring, of seeking self and searching for one's place in the world no matter how misguided that search might be. While songs like "What Shall We Do Now?" and "Young Lust" portray Pink as exploring the physical pleasures of life, they portray searches nonetheless that insinuate the desire to grow. Even the carnality of "Young Lust" is embedded within a certain sexual innocence, a feeling of sensual discovery and exploration. As we shall see, though, "One of My Turns" is the brick wall, so to speak, against which the naïve explorations of self and the world crash.
Following the young groupie's quasi-theatrical ramblings concerning Pink's hotel room, Pink lapses into a trance-like state of personal reflection sparked by the recognition of his wife's infidelity as well as his inability to connect with the young girl he's brought to his hotel. While the song's later lyrics are seemingly addressed to the terrified fan, it is usually believed that Pink is mentally addressing his wife in the song's calm first half. In his 1979 interview with Roger Waters, interviewer T. Vance described Pink at this stage of the album as a man who has "got everything but nothing;" he's got the celebrity status that most people can only dream of, adoring fans, expensive possessions, every worldly object that he could desire. However he takes for granted what should be the most important thing in his life, a personal connection with his wife, the importance of which he only realizes once that love has been taken away. Yet even then he is blind to his own accountability in driving his wife to infidelity, instead turning his ire on what he sees as the fickleness of love and life. Just as he sees everything in his life, Pink views the very connection that could have been his salvation as another personal betrayal, a relationship that decays and ultimately causes mental distress which in turn contributes another brick to the wall. For Pink, this decay is unavoidable: comparing the degeneration of love to the decomposition of a "dying man" and other natural processes (growing "older" and "colder") dispels any personal blame that Pink might have felt. In his mind, everything in this world will decay and at length cause more harm than good. These ideas of degeneration are further implanted with the abundance of imagery concerning death and violence; the grayness of love like a dying man's skin; aging and becoming more inert, more unfeeling; comparing his feelings to a "razor blade," a "tourniquet," and a "funeral drum." These last three similes possibly act as allusions as well; the "razor blade" could very well insinuate Pink's later turns to violence not only in the song but also during his Hitler-esque phase (and quite possibly alludes to his near-suicide in the song "the Final Cut"); the "tourniquet" suggests Pink's current drug use as well as later injections ("Comfortably Numb") that cause him to undergo another metamorphosis; finally, the mentioning of the "funeral drum" foreshadows his metaphorical death as he retreats completely behind his wall. Perfectly mirroring the transitory moment before Pink's eruption, the tourniquet and funeral drum also carry with them the notions of being stretched almost to the breaking point. A tourniquet is drawn tight around a limb in order to hinder briefly the flow of blood through an artery (possibly symbolizing the cessation of Pink's feelings and emotions) while the head of a drum must be drawn tight in order for sound to resonate throughout the hollow body (symbolizing Pink's shallow persona). In both instances, the imagery of being stretched so tightly prepares the audience for what must surely come soon: the breaking point.

Because of his own shallowness (which Pink does not recognize) and the shallowness of the groupie (which he denunciates hypocritically), Pink's emotional breakdown bursts into musical life after a stretching crescendo. In an instant, he turns on the terrified groupie because she represents the very superficial life that he had invested so much in but that he simultaneously denies. Upon entering his hotel room, the groupie is overcome by the room's size, the amount of guitars he has lying around, concerning herself with his possessions rather than with connecting with Pink on a personal level. Yet it is Pink who brought the girl back to his room most likely with the intention of having sex with her; it is Pink who bought all the guitars and expensive possessions; it is Pink who invested his faith in the superficiality of the world, in the list of things from "What Shall We Do Now?" However it is also Pink who cannot resolve or possibly comprehend the duality of his own character, his desire for love and a personal connection yet also his desire for life's material and sensual pleasures. But rather than take the blame and attempt to explicate his own persona, Pink blames his wife in the first half of the song for his inability to connect through love. Likewise, he blames the groupie in the song's second half for his inability to completely satiate himself with the excesses of celebrity. In both cases, he's really attacking himself and his own inadequacies and his own beliefs without truly knowing it.
Once the dam has been broken the roiling undercurrent of emotion gushes out. Yet the lyrics suggest that this isn't the first time Pink's emotions have erupted, nor is it the last for it is "just a passing phase," insinuating that it's happened before (see the interpretation of the guitar solo in "Mother" for another of Pink's "turns"). From here, Pink cynically addresses the groupie in a sarcastic response of sorts to her earlier questions, this time asking her if she'd like to "watch TV, or get between the sheets, or contemplate the silent freeways," covering a range of possibilities that could be used to pass the time and feign a personal connection. The lyrics are fairly self-explanatory though must be taken with a grain of salt. Does Pink really have an ax in his suitcase? Does he really think he can fly? It must be remembered that these things are sung in a specific context and so are most likely reflections of Pink's instability and the emotions that come with that mental state. What better way to show Pink's violent outburst and mental deterioration than to have him calling for his "favorite ax," a statement that's both unsettling and darkly humorous in its very absurdity. During the song, Pink is almost completely out of his mind and so it becomes increasingly difficult to separate narrative fact from fantasy, to separate the telling of a chronological narrative from the poetic use of images and phrases to suggest emotional states of mind. It is also interesting to note that in rock terminology, an "ax" is a slang word for a guitar, creating more ambiguity in Pink's lyrical ravings. However you personally interpret the lyrics, whether literal or darkly humorous, there is little doubt that Pink's relationship with the groupie ends just as all of his relationships seemingly end, at least in his mind: Pink is left alone, alienated once more from the world, a situation that lends itself to two different renderings of the song's last line. By one theory, Pink is being heartfelt when he shouts "why are you running away," hinting at both his obliviousness as well as the inherent need to realize why every relationship in his life ends with one outcome. Another view purports that the line is utterly sarcastic with Pink deriding the departing groupie, cognizant of his perpetual alienation and not surprised that yet another attempt at personal connection has failed.
There is little that needs to be said in terms of movie analysis considering that the film basically follows the narrative of the song's lyrics with the camera jostling through the scene as Pink destroys his hotel room while the unprepared groupie hides in whatever nook or cranny she can find. Steve Jasper wrote in and revealed that the television is playing an old WWII movie called "The Dambusters." Jasper writes, "The Dambusters' is essentially a biopic of Barnes Wallis, the bloke who designed the bouncing bomb. This was dropped by bombers onto German reservoirs where it bounced along the surface of the water and then slowly sank to the bottom of the dam wall where it would explode, breaching the dam and flooding the valley, causing all the factories to flood as well and thus halt the German steel production necessary for the war effort. In the Wall film, 'Dambusters' is on one of the channels on the telly all the way through the sequence with the TV in it. It's a war film all about blowing up walls." Quite fitting for "The Wall" though its inclusion at this part in the movie is more ironic than reflective being that Pink is still concerned with building rather than destroying his own wall. Also note that Pink destroys the TV first before erupting into the other rooms, possibly hinting at his subconscious repression of anything that grows too painful, that reminds him of his bruised past such as, in this incident, the death of his father. "The Dambusters'" inclusion is made further ironic in that, if anything, Pink's latest "turn" probably coupled with or sparked by the remembrance of his father in WWII acts as a catalyst for his inner wall's culmination. If anything, his "turn" causes him to regress behind his wall and continue building at an alarming rate. In what might be yet another act of symbolic repression, Pink ends the song in the film by throwing the television out of the window and screaming, "take that, fuckers," the very intonation of which hints at his fractured world view in which he envisions all of society against him. After all, every relationship he tries to produce eventually ends with him being ostracized, or so it seems through the clouded, unseeing eyes of our unbalanced protagonist.

http://www.thewallanalysis.com/turns.html