Issue No. 39 of Johnny Be Good features one of 45 songs from the book, Anatomy of a Song: The Oral History of 45 Iconic Hits That Changed Rock, R&B and Pop, by Marc Myers. Read John Pearson's review here. Order from Amazon here. Listen to the book on Libro (9 hours, 34 minutes). Each blog will spotlight a song from the book and a guest blogger’s color commentary. Click here to subscribe. Each issue of Your Weekly Staff Meeting will highlight the latest blog.
A Metaphor for the Misinformed!
Today’s blogger: John Pearson
Song: #39 of 45
Title: “Another Brick in the Wall”
Musicians: Pink Floyd
Released: November 1979
I APPRECIATED THIS:
Wow. I wish I had known the heart and soul and context of this song when I first heard it. If all you can remember is “We don’t need no education/We don’t need no thought control,” then you’ve missed the big idea.
Example: Did you know that “Another Brick in the Wall” was one of 26 songs in The Wall—an anti-tyranny rock opera? The opera “explored parental abandonment and teacher harassment, as well as the emotional isolation and breakdowns they produced.” The song is actually “Brick 2” of four versions created. The four-minute “Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2” hit the top of Billboard’s pop chart in March 1980.
Read more about the song in Marc Myers’ WSJ article, Sept. 21, 2015, “Roger Waters on ‘Another Brick in the Wall.’ Roger Waters discusses the making of ‘Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2.’” The album, The Wall, was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2008.
View the video of “Another Brick in the Wall,” by Pink Floyd. The video was remastered in 2019 from the Pink Floyd concert video taken from the October 20, 1994, concert at Earls Court, London, England, in “The Division Bell Tour.” (More than 100 million views!) P.S. Note the “Trump Dance!”
MY FAVORITE NOTES & QUOTES:
Roger Waters (now 81) was the cofounder of Pink Floyd and the lead singer, songwriter, and bassist. Marc Myers notes that the song “has long been viewed as an anti-education mantra, a mischaracterization that still rattles Roger Waters.”
Waters: “How easy it is for people to misinterpret stuff when they don’t bother to actually think about what they’re hearing and seeing.” Oh, my. Imagine if Waters could have “educated” the misinformed via social media and cable TV back then!
WHERE WERE YOU WHEN YOU FIRST HEARD THIS SONG?
In November 1979, I was just beginning my first of 11 years as executive director of Christian Camping/USA (now CCCA) in Illinois. At the time, we had a main office and large property in Sandwich, Ill., and an auxiliary office in Wheaton, Ill., so I had lots of commuting time to listen to the radio. While I had two brothers-in-law in the record business, I tended to listen to talk radio on Chicago’s WGN Radio 720, but occasionally I’d venture over to WLS-FM to stay in touch with the culture.
I certainly remember the song’s chant, “We don’t need no education.” But I clearly didn’t understand this song—or appreciate it—until I read Chapter 39 in this fascinating book by Marc Myers.
JOHNNY BE...GOOD, BETTER, OR BEST?
• GOOD: Referencing the earlier multimedia rock performances (Andy Warhol in 1966, plus David Bowie, Alice Cooper, KISS, and others), Marc Myers writes that “…all would pale in comparison with the art-rock extravaganzas staged by Pink Floyd, which pioneered special effects at live rock shows."
• BETTER: “Such staging would reach a high point with Pink Floyd’s concert tour for The Wall in 1980 and ’81. The staging included a 160-foot-long 35-foot-high wall made from 340 giant lightweight ‘bricks’ erected between the audience and the band during the first half of the show.” (This chapter is amazing—but I should have asked “Production Guy” to write this blog post!)
• BEST: The idea for the brick wall—and the entire rock opera—came to Roger Waters in 1977 during a Pink Floyd tour. A rowdy and rude audience disrupted the concert. When an “over-enthusiastic punter tried to scale the barriers at the front of the stage,” Waters spat in his face!
Thus the big idea: “a huge theatrical brick wall would be erected between the band and the audience to express the alienation between those in the seats and what we were trying to do. As I thought about the idea, the wall became a metaphor for some of the mechanisms people and institutions use to keep the rest of us under their control and dictate how our lives should be led—without seeming conspiracy-theory about everything.”
THIS ISSUE'S COMMENTARY BY John Pearson
LOL! Here is AI's first try at a teenaged trumpet trio, circa 1964! (Note the brick wall, as in "Another Brick in the Wall.")
JOHN PEARSON has always appreciated good music—and numerous musical genres. His father had trained in Sweden to be a concert pianist, but settled for part-time church organist. Growing up with his four musical brothers (clarinet, saxophone, and trumpet), John pounded away on the baby grand piano in their home in Seattle. He learned to play the piano by ear (albeit badly)—and also joined his three older bass-singing brothers in the backrow of the church choir.
In his college years, John was the Sunday morning and Sunday evening “song leader” at his church and also directed the church choir for a year or two. He was also the least accomplished player in his church youth group’s trumpet trio. (And it did not sound like this!)
These days, he begins his morning by listening to a hymn on YouTube—based on the hymn-of-the-day from a favorite book, The One Year® Book of Hymns: 365 Devotions Based on Popular Hymns. (Read John’s review.) Listen to today’s hymn, “Comfort, Comfort Ye My People.”
NEXT UP: Song #40 of 45, “London Calling,” by The Clash
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It all started in 2023, when John Pearson read and reviewed a "fun" book, Anatomy of a Song: The Oral History of 45 Iconic Hits That Changed Rock, R&B and Pop, by Marc Myers. Read John's review here. Order from Amazon here. Listen to the book on Libro (9 hours, 34 minutes).
John is grateful to our guest bloggers: John Ashmen, Dick Nelson, Suzy West, Dave Barton, Patsy Barton, Paul Palmer, Bill Butterworth, Jim West, Melinda Schmidt, Jason Pearson, Gary Rea, Callista Dawson, John Walling, Ed Barrett, Larry Beatty, Skye Matlock, Scott Anderson and others we have forgotten to mention here! Click here to subscribe to this blog and enjoy the toe-tapping musicians in each weekly blog post—reminding you of these iconic songs of yesteryear.