To this day my advice to anybody who has just been through a break-up is to avoid Pink Floyd’s The Wall for a few months. It was weird, like the album and I were swirling downa drain together. It never left my turntable for weeks. I even recorded it onto a blank 8-Track. Remember my old stereo had an 8-track player. That way I could let it cycle over and over without having to even get up out of the chair that I was sinking into.
I seemed to connect to it on so many levels. Absent father, over protective mother, didn’t really ever have a life threatening illness or a dead rat but I now had the woman leave me for another man. What did it all mean? I was numb but not very comfortable.
I knew every note and every rest. I listened to The Wall so many times that I was able to translate the backwards dialog embedded in Empty Spaces. The album opens with “we came in” on the very first track. The last thing on the last track of side 4 if you are still listening to vinyl is “Isn’t This Where”. When you listen to that on continous 8-Track it says “Isn’t this where we came in?” It was like Roger Waters knew that I’d be listening to The Wall just like this.
I don’t remember how long I sat there like Bob Geldof in the movie. In the chair, staring ahead. Unable or unwilling to do anything else but build a wall.
The Wall