The Wall album; interviewed by Tommy Vance

Transcribed by Gary Hembling for Brain Damage.

TV (Tommy Vance): Where did the idea come from?

Roger Waters: Well, the idea for "The Wall' came from ten years of touring, rock shows, I think, particularly the last few years in '75 and in '77 we were playing to very large audiences, some of whom were our old audience who'd come to hear what we wanted to play, but most of whom were only there for the beer, in big stadiums, and, er, consequently it became rather an alienating experience doing the shows. I became very conscious of a wall between us and our audience and so this record started out as being an expression of those feelings.

TV: But it goes I think a little deeper than that, because the record actually seems to start at the beginning of the character's life.

Roger Waters: The story has been developed considerably since then, this was two years ago [1977], I started to write it, and now it's partly about a show situation, a live show situation - in fact the album starts off in a live show, and then it flashes back and traces a story of a character, if you like of Pink himself, whoever he may be. But initially it just stemmed from the shows being horrible.

TV: When you say "horrible" do you mean that really you didn't want to be there?

Roger Waters: Yeah, partially because the people who you're most aware of at a rock show when you're on the stage are the front 20 or 30 rows of bodies, and in large situations where you're using what's euphemistically called "festival seating" they tend to be packed together, swaying madly, and it's very difficult to perform under those situations with people whistling and shouting and screaming and throwing things and hitting each other and crashing about and letting off fireworks, you know?

TV: Mmmm.

Roger Waters: I mean having a wonderful time, but it's a drag to try and play when all that's going on. But, er, I felt at the same time that it's a situation that we'd created ourselves through our own greed, you know? If you play very large venues, the only real reason for playing large venues is to make money.

TV: But surely in your case it wouldn't be economic, or feasible, to play a small venue?

Roger Waters: Well, it wouldn't... it's not going to be on when we do this show, because this show is going to lose money, but on those tours that I'm talking about; the '75 tour of Europe and England and the '77 tour of England, Europe and America as well, we were making money, we made a lot of money on those tours, because we were playing big venues.

TV: What would you like the audience to do? How would you like the audience to react to your music?

Roger Waters: I'm actually happy that they do whatever they find... feel is necessary, because they're only expressing their response to what it's like. In a way I'm saying they're right, you know, that those shows are bad news.

TV: Mmmm.

Roger Waters: There is an idea, or there has been an idea for many years abroad that it's a very uplifting and wonderful experience and that there's a great contact between the audience and the performers on the stage, and I think that that is not true. I think that in very many cases, it's actually a rather alienating experience.

TV: For the audience?

Roger Waters: For everybody.

TV: It's two and a half years since you had an album out. I think people would be interested in knowing how long it's taken you to develop this double album.

Roger Waters: Right, well we toured - we did a tour which ended I think in July or August '77 and when we finished that tour, in the Autumn of that year, that's when I started writing it. It took me a year, no, until the next July, working on my own and then I had a demo, sort of 90 minutes of stuff, which I played to the rest of the guys and then we all started working on it together, in the October or November of that... October '78, we started working on it together.

TV: And you actually ceased recording, I think, in November of this year? [1979]

Roger Waters: Yeah. We didn't start recording in November, we didn't start recording until the new year, well, 'til April this year. But we were rehearsing and fiddling about with it and obviously re-writing a lot. So it's taken a long time but we always tend to work very slowly anyway, because it's difficult.

TV: The first track is "In the Flesh?"

Roger Waters: Yep.

TV: This actually sets up what the character has become at the end?

Roger Waters: Couldn't have put it better myself! It's a reference back to our '77 tour which was called "Pink Floyd - In The Flesh."

TV: And then you have a track called "The Thin Ice."

Roger Waters: Yeah.

TV: Now this is I think, at the very very beginning of the character, call the character "Pink"...

Roger Waters: Right.

TV: ...the very beginning of Pink's life?

Roger Waters: Yeah, absolutely. In fact at the end of "In the Flesh", you hear somebody shouting "roll the sound effects", and you hear the sound of bombers, so it gives you some indication of what's happening. In the show it'll be much more obvious what's going on. So it's a flashback, and we start telling a story which in terms of this it's about my generation.

TV: The war?

Roger Waters: Yeah. War-babies. But it could be about anybody who gets left by anybody, if you like.

TV: Did that happen to you?

Roger Waters: Yeah, my father was killed in the war.

IN THE FLESH, THE THIN ICE

TV: And then comes "Another Brick in the Wall, Part 1" Which is actually about the father who's gone?

Roger Waters: Yeah.

TV: Though the father in the album "has flown across the ocean..."

Roger Waters: Yeah.

TV: The assumption listening to that would be that he has gone away to somewhere else.

Roger Waters: Yeah, well, it could be. You see it works on various levels - it doesn't have to be about the war - I mean I think it could, you know it should work for any generation really. The father is also... I'm the father as well, you know, people who leave their families to go and work, not that I'd leave my family to go and work, but lots of people do and have done. So it's not meant just to be a simple story about, you know, somebody getting killed in the war or growing up and going to school, but about being left, more generally.

TV: "The Happiest Days of our Lives" is a complete condemnation, as I see it, as I've heard it in the album, of somebody's scholastic career.

Roger Waters: Mmmm. Well, my school life was very like that. Oh, it was awful, it was really terrible. When I hear people whining on now about bringing back grammar schools it really makes me quite ill to listen to it, because I went to a boys grammar school and although... I want to make it plain that some of the men who taught in it, (it was a boys school) some of the men who taught there were very nice guys, you know I'm not... it's not meant to be a blanket condemnation of all teachers everywhere, but the bad ones can really do people in - and there were some at my school who were just incredibly bad and treated the children just so badly; just putting them down, putting them down, you know? All the time. Never encouraging them to do things, not really trying to interest them in anything, just trying to keep them quiet and still, and crush them into the right shape, so that they would go to university and "DO WELL".

ANOTHER BRICK: ONE, THE HAPPIEST DAYS OF OUR LIVES, ANOTHER BRICK: TWO

TV: What about the track "Mother"? What sort of a mother is this mother?

Roger Waters: Over-protective; which most mothers are. If you can level one accusation at mothers it is that they tend to protect their children too much, too much and for too long. That's all. This isn't a portrait of my mother, although some of the, you know, one or two of the things in there apply to her as well as to I'm sure lots of other people's mothers. Funnily enough, lots of people recognize that and in fact, a woman that I know the other day who'd heard the album, called me up and said she'd liked it. And she said that listening to that track made her feel very guilty and she's got herself three kids, and I wouldn't have said she was particularly over-protective towards her children, but it's... I was interested, you know, she's a woman, of well, my age, and I was interested that it had got through to her. I was glad that it had, you know, if you can... if it means... that much to people, then it's good.

MOTHER

TV: And then comes the track "Goodbye Blue Sky." What is actually happening at this stage in Pink's life?

Roger Waters: Since we compiled the album I haven't really clearly tried to think my way through it, but I know that this area is very confusing. I think the best way to describe this is as a recap if you like of side one. (This is the start of side two.) And you could look upon "Goodbye Blue Sky" as a recap of side one. So, yes, it's remembering one's childhood and then getting ready to set off into the rest of one's life.

GOODBYE BLUE SKY

TV: And then comes the track "What Shall We Do Now?" The assumption is that this would be when the emergent adult...

Roger Waters: That's right. Now that's the track that's not on the album. It was quite nice! [laughs] In fact I think we'll do it in the show. But if you note, it's quite long, and this side was too long, and there was too much of it. It's basically the same as "Empty Spaces" and we've put "Empty Spaces" where "What Shall We Do Now?" is.

TV: Because without those words, listening to the album...

Roger Waters: Yeah, it makes less sense.

TV: Well it's not so much that it makes less sense, it just means that there's a period in Pink's life that isn't indicated. I mean he jumps from the recap of side one immediately into "Young Lust."

Roger Waters: Right. No, he doesn't, he goes into "Empty Spaces" and the lyrics there are very similar to the first four lines of "What Shall We Do Now?" But what's different really is this list - "shall we buy a new guitar, drive a more powerful car, work right through the night," you know, and all that stuff.

TV: "Give up meat, rarely sleep, keep people as pets..."

Roger Waters: Right. It's just about the ways that one protects oneself from one's isolation by becoming obsessed with other people's ideas. Whether the idea is that it's good to drive... have a powerful car, you know, or whether you're obsessed with the idea of being a vegetarian... Adopting somebody else's criteria for yourself, without considering them from a position of really being yourself. On this level the story is extremely simplistic, I hope that on other levels there are, you know, less tangible, more effective things that come through. I think it's OK in a show, where you only hear the words - well, you probably won't hear the words at all, the way rock and roll shows get produced.

TV: But they're there on the sleeve obviously if you need them?

Roger Waters: Yeah. That's why we didn't go into a great panic about trying to change all the inner bags and things. I think it's important that they're there so that people can read them. Equally I think it's important that people know why they're there, otherwise I agree it's terribly confusing.

TV: And then you come to this track which is called "Young Lust." As far as Pink the rock and roll star, and Roger Waters the writer, was there ever a young lust section of your life?

Roger Waters: Well, yes, I suppose, actually, yes that did happen to me, that was like me a few years ago. But I would never have said it, you see, I'd never have come out with anything like that, I was much too frightened. When I wrote this song "Young Lust" the words were all quite different, it was about leaving school and wandering around town and hanging around outside porno movies and dirty bookshops and being very interested in sex, but never actually being able to get involved because of being too frightened really. Now it's completely different, that was a function of us all working together on the record, particularly with Dave Gilmour and Bob Ezrin who, we co-produced the album together, the three of us co-produced it. "Young Lust" is a pastiche number. It reminds me very much of a song we recorded years and years ago called "The Nile Song," it's very similar, Dave sings it in a very similar way. I think he sings "Young Lust" terrific, I love the vocal on it. But it's meant to be a pastiche of any young rock and roll band out on the road.

EMPTY SPACES, YOUNG LUST

Roger Waters: I think it's great; I love that operator, I think she's wonderful. She didn't know what was happening at all, the way she picks up on... I mean it's been edited a bit, but the way she picks up all that stuff about "is there supposed to be someone else there beside your wife" you know I think is amazing, she really clicked into it straight away. She's terrific.

TV: And then comes "One of My Turns."

Roger Waters: Yes, so then the idea is that we've leapt somehow a lot of years, from "Goodbye Blue Sky" through "What Shall We Do Now" which doesn't exist on the record anymore, and "Empty Spaces" into "Young Lust" that's like a show; we've leapt into a rock and roll show, somewhere on into our hero's career. And then "One of My Turns" is supposed to be his response to a lot of aggro in his life and not really having ever got anything together, although he's married, well, no he has got things together, but he's been married, and he's just had a... he's just splitting up with his wife, and in response he takes another girl up to his hotel room.

TV: And he really is, he's got everything but nothing.

Roger Waters: Yeah. He's had it now, he's definitely a bit "yippee" now, and "One of My Turns" is just, you know, him coming in and he can't relate to this girl either, that's why he just turns on the TV, when they come into the room and she starts going on about all the things he's got and all that he does is just turn on the TV and sit there, and he won't talk to her.

ONE OF MY TURNS

TV: Then comes a period in "Don't Leave Me Now" when he realizes the state that he's in, he still feels, if you like, aggressive, and completely depressed, thoroughly paranoid, and very lonely... but very lonely, to the point of suicide?

Roger Waters: Yeah, well, not quite... but yes it is a very depressing song. I love it! [laughs] I really like it, you know?

TV: There's this line in the song "to beat you to a pulp on a Saturday night."

Roger Waters: Yeah.

TV: Now I mean that's just... I don't quite know how to phrase that, but it really is the depths, if you like, of deprived depravity.

Roger Waters: Well, it's just a lot of men and women do get involved with each other for lots of wrong reasons, and they do get very aggressive towards each other, and do each other a lot of damage. I, of course as far as I can recall, have never struck a woman, Tommy, and I hope I never do, but a lot of people have, and a lot of women have struck men as well, there is a lot of violence in relationships often that aren't working. I mean this is obviously an extremely cynical song. I don't feel like that about marriage now.

TV: But you did?

Roger Waters: Er, this is one of those difficult things where some of, where a small percentage of this is autobiographical, and all of it is rooted in my own experience, but it isn't my autobiography. Although it's rooted within my own experience, like any writing, some of it's me and an awful lot of it is what I've observed.

TV: But there's also a lot of fundamental truth in it.

Roger Waters: Well I hope so, if you look and see things and if they ring true, then those are the kind of things, if you're interested in writing songs or books or poems or writing anything then those are the things that you try and write down, because those are the things that are interesting, and those are the things that will touch other people, which is what writing is all about, you know? Some people have a need to write down their own feelings in the hope that other people will recognize them, and derive some worth from them. Whether it's a feeling of, you know, kinship or whether it makes them happy or sad or whatever, they will derive something from it.

DON'T LEAVE ME NOW, ANOTHER BRICK: 3

TV: "Another Brick Part 3" - "I don't need no arms around me." He seems to be in a position whereby he's no longer confused, in other words he's more confident. Then comes the track "Goodbye Cruel World." What is happening here?

Roger Waters: OK. Well, what's happening is; from the beginning of "One of MY Turns" where the door opens, there, through to the end of side three, the scenario is an American hotel room, the groupie leaves at the end of "One of My Turns" and then "Don't Leave Me Now" he sings - which is to anybody, it's not to her 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, it's a kind of very guilty song as well. Anyway at the end of that, there he is in his room with his TV and there's that kind of symbolic TV smashing, and then he resurges a bit, out of that kind of violence, and then he sings this sort of loud song saying "all in all you were all just bricks in the wall, I don't need anybody", so he's convincing himself really that his isolation is a desirable thing - that's all.

TV: But how is he at that moment of time, when he says "goodbye cruel world"?

Roger Waters: That's him going catatonic if you like, that's final and he's going back and he's just curling up and he's not going to move. That's it, he's had enough, that's the end.

GOODBYE CRUEL WORLD

Roger Waters: In the show, we've worked out a very clever mechanical system so that we can complete the middle section of the wall, building downwards, so that we get left with a sort of triangular shaped hole that we can fill in bit by bit, rather than filling it in at the top. So we have this enormous wall across the auditorium, and we're filling in this little hole at the bottom, and the last brick goes into the wall as he sings "goodbye" at the end of the song. That is the completion of the wall. It's been being built in my case since the end of the Second World War, but in anybody else's case, whenver they care to think about it, if they feel isolated or alienated from other people at all, you know, it's from whenever you want.

TV: So would it be accurate to say that at that moment in time he's discovered exactly where he's at, and the wall is complete, in other words his character, via all the experiences he's had, has finally - in his eyes anyway, been completed.

Roger Waters: Yeah. He's nowhere. [laughs]

TV: And then comes the beginning of side three, which actually starts with a different song than on the sleeve.

Roger Waters: Yeah. Bob Ezrin called me up and he said "I've just listened to side three and it doesn't work". In fact I think I'd been feeling uncomfortable about it anyway. I thought about it and in a couple of minutes I realised that "Hey You" could conceptually go anywhere, and it would make a much better side if we put it at the front of the side, and sandwiched the little theatrical scene with the guy in the hotel room, between an attempt to re-establish contact with the outside world - which is what "Hey You" is, and the end of the side which is, well, what we'll come to. So that's why those lyrics are printed in the wrong place, it's because that decision was made very late; I should explain at this point, the reason that all these decisions were made so late was because we'd promised lots of people a long time ago that we would finish this record by the beginning of November, and we wanted to keep that promise.

TV: But the guy is now behind the wall...

Roger Waters: Yeah, he's behind the wall (a) symbolically, and (b) he's locked in a hotel room, with a broken window that looks onto a freeway, motorway.

TV: And now what's he going to do with his life?

Roger Waters: Well, within his mind, because "Hey You" is a cry to the rest of the world, you know saying "hey, this isn't how it should be really", but it's also, it takes a narrative look at it, when it goes... Dave sings the first two verses of it and then there's an instrumental passage and then there's a bit that goes "but it was only fantasy" which I sing, which is a narration of the thing... "the wall was too high as you can see, no matter how he tried he could not break free, and the worms ate into his brain." The worms, that's the first reference to worms... the worms have a lot less to do with the peice than they did a year ago; a year ago they were very much a part of it, they were my, if you like, they were my symbolic representation of decay. Because the basic idea behind the whole thing really is that if you isolate yourself you decay.

HEY YOU

Roger Waters: So at the end of "Hey You" he makes this cry for help, but it's too late.

TV: Because he's behind the wall?

Roger Waters: Yeah, and anyway he's only singing it to himself, you know, it's no good crying for help if you're sitting in the room all on your own, and only saying it to yourself. All of us I'm sure from time to time have formed sentences in our minds that we would like to say to someone else but we don't say it, you know? Well, that's no use, that doesn't help anybody, that's just a game that you play with yourself.

TV: And that's what comes up on the track "Nobody Home," the first line being "I've got a little black book with my poems in."

Roger Waters: Yes, exactly, precisely, yeah, after "Is There Anybody Out There" which is really just a mood piece.

TV: So he's sitting in his room with a sort of realisation that he needs help, but he doesn't know how to get it really.

Roger Waters: No. Well he doesn't really want it.

TV: Doesn't want it at all?

Roger Waters: Yeah, well, I mean he does, part of him does, but part of him that's you know, making all his arms and his legs, that's making everything work doesn't want anything except just to sit there and watch the TV.

TV: But he goes through this whole thing in this track "Nobody Home" of all the things that he's got: "he's got the obligatory Hendrix perm, he's got the strong urge to fly, the wild staring eyes and the silver spoon on a chain, the nicotine stains on the fingers.." all the things that we know are pretty real in the world of rock and roll.

Roger Waters: There are some lines in here that harp back to the halcyon days of Syd Barrett. It's partly about all kinds of people I've known, but Syd was the only person I ever knew who used elastic bands to keep his boots together, which is where that line comes from. In fact the "obligatory Hendrix perm" you have to go back ten years before you understand what all that's about.

TV: And then he says "I've got fading roots" at the very end...

Roger Waters: Well, he's getting ready to establish his contact, if you like, with where he started, and to start making some sense of what it was all about. If you like he's getting ready here to start getting back to side one.

TV: Which he then does by the next track which is called "Vera," which is very much the world war II sort of... being born and created if you like in that era again.

Roger Waters: This is supposed to be brought on by the fact that a war movie comes on the TV.

TV: Which you can actually hear?

Roger Waters: Which you can actually hear, yeah, mentioning no titles or names! [laughs] And that snaps him back to then and it precedes, what is for me anyway... yeah, the central song on the whole album is "Bring The Boys Back Home."

TV: Why?

Roger Waters: Well, because it's partly about not letting people go off and be killed in wars, but it's also partly about not allowing rock and roll, or making cars, or selling soap, or getting involved in biological research, or anything that anybody might do, not letting that become such an important and "jolly boys game" that it becomes more important than friends, wives, children, other people, you know?

IS THERE ANYBODY OUT THERE?, NOBODY HOME, VERA, BRING THE BOYS BACK HOME

TV: So psychologically at what stage of the game is the character Pink for the track "Comfortably Numb"?

Roger Waters: After "Bring the Boys Back Home" there is a short piece where there are tape loops used, as the teacher's voice is heard again and you can hear the groupie saying "are you feeling OK?" and there's the operator saying, er, I can't remember... "there's a man answering" and all those things. There's a new voice introduced at that point and there's somebody knocking on the door saying "come on, it's time to go..." right? So the idea is that they are coming to take him to the show because he's got to go and perform that night, and they come into the room and they realise something is wrong, and they actually physically bring the doctor in, and "Comfortably Numb" is about his confrontation with the doctor.

TV: So the doctor puts him in such a physiological condition that he can actually hit the stage?

Roger Waters: Yes, he gives him an injection, in fact it's very specific that song.

TV: "Just a little pinprick"?

Roger Waters: Yeah.

TV: "There'll be no more aaaaaaaaah!"

Roger Waters: Right.

COMFORTABLY NUMB

Roger Waters: Because they're not interested in any of these problems, all they're interested in is how many thousand people there are and the tickets have been sold and the show must go on, at any cost, to anybody. I mean I, personally, have done gigs under circumstances, I mean I've done gigs when I've been very depressed, but I've also done gigs when I've been extremely ill, where you wouldn't do any ordinary kind of work.

TV: Because then the venue is there and because the act's there, and the people...

Roger Waters: And they've paid the money and if you cancel a show at short notice, it's expensive.

TV: So the fellow is back on the stage, but he's very... I mean he's vicious, he's fascist.

Roger Waters: Yes. Well, here you are, here is the story: I've just remembered. Montreal 1977, Olympic Stadium, 80,000 people, the last gig of the 1977 tour. I, personally, became so upset during the show that I spat at some guy in the front row; he was shouting and screaming and having a wonderful time and they were pushing against the barrier and what he wanted was a good riot, and what I wanted was to do a good rock and roll show and I got so upset in the end that I spat at him, which is a very nasty thing to do to anybody. Anyway, the idea is that these kinds of fascist feelings develop from isolation.

TV: And he evidences this from the focal point of the center of the stage?

Roger Waters: Yeah. This is really him you know, having a go at the audience, or the minorities in the audience. So the obnoxiousness of "In the Flesh" and it is meant to be obnoxious, you know? This is the end result of that much isolation and decay.

THE SHOW MUST GO ON, IN THE FLESH

TV: And then seemingly in the track "Run Like Hell" this is him telling the audience...?

Roger Waters: No...

TV: Is this him telling himself?

Roger Waters: No. "Run Like Hell" is meant to be him just doing another tune in the show, so that's like.. just a song, part of the performance, yeah... still in his drug-crazed state!

RUN LIKE HELL

Roger Waters: After "Run Like Hell" you can hear an audience shouting "Pink Floyd" on the left-hand side of the stereo, if you're listening in cans [headphones], and on the right-hand side or in the middle, you can hear voices going "hammer" they're saying "ham-mer, ham-mer..." This is the Pink Floyd audience, if you like, turning into a rally.

TV: And then comes the track "Waiting For The Worms," the worms in your mind are decay, that decay is imminent?

Roger Waters: "Waiting for the Worms" in theatrical terms is an expression of what happens in the show, when the drugs start wearing off and what real feelings he's got left start taking over again. He is forced by where he is, because he's been dragged out of the hotel room if you like and put in that position, he's forced by the situation he finds himself in to confront his real feelings. Until you see either the show or the film of this thing you won't know why people are shouting "hammer," but the hammer, we've used the hammer as a symbol of the forces of oppression if you like, in the thing, and the worms are the thinking part. Where it goes into the "waiting" sections...

TV: "Waiting for the worms to come, waiting to cut out the deadwood..."

Roger Waters: Yeah, before it goes "waiting to cut out the deadwood" you hear a voice through a loud hailer. It starts off, it goes "testing, one two," or something, and then it says "we will convene at one o'clock outside Brixton Town Hall," and it's describing the situation of marching towards some kind of National Front rally in Hyde Park. Or anybody, I mean the National Front are what we have in England but it could be anywhere in the world. So all that shouting and screaming on it... because you can't hear it you see, if you listen very carefully you might hear, er, "Lambeth Road", and you might hear "Vauxhall Bridge" and you might hear the words "Jew boys", er, "we might encounter some Jew boys" I think it says, it's just me ranting on.

WAITING FOR THE WORMS

TV: Who puts him on trial?

Roger Waters: He does.

TV: He puts himself on trial?

Roger Waters: Yes. The idea is that the drugs wear off and in "Waiting for the Worms" he keeps flipping backwards and forwards from his real, or his original persona if you like, which is a reasonably kind of humane person, into this waiting for the worms to come, persona, which is flipped, and is ready to crush anybody or anything that gets in the way... which is a response to having been badly treated, and feeling very isolated. But at the end of "Waiting for the Worms" it gets too much for him, the oppression and he says "stop." I don't think you can actually hear the word "stop" on the record, or maybe you can, anyway it goes "STOP," yeah, it's very quick, and then he says "I wanna go home, take off this uniform and leave the show," but he says "I'm waiting in this prison cell because I have to know, have I been guilty all this time?" and then he tries himself if you like. So the judge is part of him just as much as all the other characters and things he remembers...they're all in his mind, they're all memories. Anyway, at the end of it all, his judgement on himself is to de-isolate himself, which in fact is a very good thing.

TV: So now it really has turned full circle?

Roger Waters: Almost, yeah. That kind of circular idea is expressed in that thing of just snipping the tape at a certain point and just sticking a bit on the front, that tune, you know this "Outside The Wall" tune, at the end.

TV: So the character in "outside the Wall" says "All alone, or in twos, the ones who really love you... [recites verse] ...banging your heart against some mad buggers wall," and that really is the statement of the album.

Roger Waters: Yeah. And which I have no intention of even beginning to explain.

THE TRIAL, OUTSIDE THE WALL

TV: Roger, what will it actually be like when we see "The Wall" in concert?

Roger Waters: Just like it normally is for a lot of people, who're all packed behind PA systems, and things. You know, like, every seat in the house is sold so there's always thousands of people over at the sides who can't see anything, and very often in rock shows the sound is dreadful, because it costs too much to make it really good in those kind of halls, you know? The sound will be very good, mind you, in these shows, but it will be... the impediments to seeing what's going on and hearing what's going on will be symbolic, rather than real. Except for the wall, which will stop people seeing what's going on.

TV: Is the wall going to remain there?

Roger Waters: No, not forever.

TV: Who's going to knock it down?

Roger Waters: Well, I think we should wait and see about that, for the live show. I think it would be silly really for me to explain to you everything that's going to happen in the live show that we put on. Mind you, anybody with any sense listening to the album will be able to spot whereabouts in the show it is that it comes down!

TV: That's the physical wall though. What about the psychological wall?

Roger Waters: Ah, well, that's another matter... that's another matter. Whether we make any in-roads into that or not, is anybody's guess. I hope so.