100 Greatest Songs of the 70’s #29 Pink Floyd – Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2)

Released: 1979

Pink Floyd’s first single since 1968 proved to be one of the decade’s most unlikely hits, largely due to it’s overpoweringly neat incision into Britain’s growing sense of discontent, as the industrial age foundered, unemployment soared (6% in 1979, over 10% by 1982) and the communities simmered with cross cultural tension.

The premise behind the accompanying album The Wall was that most seventies of ideas, the concept album. But whilst punk had largely shredded the construct of song cycles and the search for deeper meaning, the indulgence didn’t really matter here as the song’s themes – generational waste, social entropy, betrayal by the ruling classes – were universal.

The band were even persuaded by producer Bob Ezrin to fleck a few traces of disco into Another Brick In The Wall’s otherwise uber grim vista, but all things must give eventually and they then invoked a meancing children’s choir (Strangely in vogue at the time) before Dave Gilmour sent up a guitar solo which meant good times and boogie were definitely off the menu. As for the bricks, they loved it.