Song Lyric Sunday — Another Brick

Fandango

For this week’s Song Lyric Sunday prompt, Jim Adams gave us the themes “Floor,” “House,” “Roof,” and “Walls.” I was debating between Paul Simon’s “One Man’s Ceiling is Another Man’s Floor,” and Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2).” I decided to go with the latter because I’ve used Paul Simon (or Simon & Garfunkel) songs for a number of Song Lyric Sunday prompts, but I hadn’t ever used a Pink Floyd Song.

“Another Brick in the Wall” is a three-part composition on Pink Floyd’s 1979 rock opera album, The Wall, written by bassist Roger Waters. “Part 2” was released as a single in November 1979 and it became Pink Floyd’s only number-one single, selling over four million copies worldwide. It was nominated for a Grammy Award, and was number 375 on Rolling Stone‘s list of “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.”

According to Songfacts, Roger Waters wrote this song about his views on formal education, which were framed during his time at the Cambridgeshire School for Boys. He hated his grammar school teachers and felt they were more interested in keeping the kids quiet than teaching them. The wall refers to the emotional barrier Waters built around himself because he wasn’t in touch with reality. The bricks in the wall were the events in his life that propelled him to build this proverbial wall around him, and his school teacher was another brick in the wall.

Waters told Mojo in 2009 that the song is meant to be satirical. He explained: “You couldn’t find anybody in the world more pro-education than me. But the education I went through in boys’ grammar school in the ’50s was very controlling and demanded rebellion. The teachers were weak and therefore easy targets. The song is meant to be a rebellion against errant government, against people who have power over you, who are wrong. Then it absolutely demanded that you rebel against that.”

The children’s chorus that sang on this track came from a school in Islington, England, and was chosen because it was close to the studio. It was made up of 23 kids between the ages of 13 and 15. They were overdubbed 12 times, making it sound like there were many more kids.

Here are the lyrics to the song.

We don’t need no education
We don’t need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teacher, leave them kids alone

Hey, teacher, leave them kids alone

All in all it’s just another brick in the wall
All in all you’re just another brick in the wall

[Chorus by pupils from the Fourth Form Music Class Islington Green School, London]

We don’t need no education
We don’t need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers, leave them kids alone

Hey, teacher, leave us kids alone

All in all you’re just another brick in the wall
All in all you’re just another brick in the wall

[Spoken:]
Wrong! Do it again!
Wrong! Do it again!
If you don’t eat your meat, you can’t have any pudding!
How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat your meat?!
You! Yes, you, behind the bike sheds, stand still, laddy!

27 thoughts on “Song Lyric Sunday — Another Brick”

  6. Marleen September 15, 2019 / 7:33 am

    Interesting that both possible choices also had the word “another.”

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
  7. newepicauthor September 15, 2019 / 7:39 am

    Great song and I loved the way you explained it. I always loved that line, “Hey, teacher, leave them kids alone”, even when I was working as a substitute. You should do more Pink Floyd.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
    • Fandango September 15, 2019 / 10:43 am

      Thanks, Jim. When the theme fits, I shall try.

      Like

      Reply
      • Stroke Survivor UK September 16, 2019 / 2:06 am

        I must’ve only been twelve or thirteen. Schoolboy humour. I’m sure there was another in the wall!

        Liked by 1 person

        Reply
      • Stroke Survivor UK September 16, 2019 / 2:12 am

        Hmmmm. wp markup, still learning. I put something between open/close chevrons and it got removed. Another * in the wall?

        Liking Grammarly but for some reason, it applies to comments but not posts. Seems to do well at spelling but not so much grammar. Can’t detect when I type a good word, but the wrong word, but then nothing seems to help in that respect.

        Liked by 1 person

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  9. msjadeli September 15, 2019 / 8:40 am

    Nice write-up on this iconic song. What they do to kids at school is shameful these days. I guess some things never change.

    Liked by 1 person

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    • Fandango September 15, 2019 / 10:08 am

      Today they are teaching to pass standardized tests, rather that how to think.

      Liked by 1 person

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      • msjadeli September 15, 2019 / 10:10 am

        And the “facts” they teach are brainwashing much of the time. Very troubling! When I was a juvenile P.O. so many of my probationers rejected what was being taught in schools, alongside their criminal behavior.

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          • msjadeli September 15, 2019 / 11:31 am

            History is the first thing coming to mind. They make an assumption that the North American continent was just sitting here and waiting for the white Europeans to sail over and develop. Anything about anyone other than white males gets minimized or glossed over. Inventions by anyone other than white men get commandeered and twisted so it appears white men (aside from rarities like George Washington Carver) invented it. No mention of how white slaveholders routinely raped their slaves. Nothing about “the rule of thumb”. Nothing about how tens of thousands of rape kits sit untested in warehouses because the police departments don’t think rapists are at the top of the criminal food chain. Nothing about the dirty-dealing in politics that allows the world to be destroyed before our eyes. How about the “Indian Schools”? I have heard twice about “apprenticeship programs” that they involuntarily put freed slave children and Native American children into. The educational system, by and large, aside from teaching reading, writing, rithmetic, is designed to acculturate the masses to white male superiority IN THE US. How other countries do theirs is unknown.

            Liked by 2 people

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            • Marleen September 15, 2019 / 11:42 am

              Thank you.

              Liked by 1 person

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