The Wall (1 Viewer)

So I went to the Roger Waters show in Toronto.
Say what you want about the Waters or Floyd but after seeing the show it's obvious he is one of the few musicians standing up in a very clear aggressive and pointed way saying the machine that is war is wrong. The entire concert is designed to be 1 a protest against the machine of war and 2 an understanding that the cost in lives is unacceptable.
His integration of photo's provided by fans of those lost in war projected onto the wall and his use of live footage as recent as this year was impressive as the sound.

The 30 foot teacher puppet was pretty cool too. Imagine Henson on shrooms
 
Point taken, ROC, but since Floyd is a British band, perhaps Hank Solo should answer.

But I will anyway. To me the message is based on how war affects a child; presumably one in which the father is either killed or went through the experiences recounted in the album; be them images that the Father brought back, or the conception of images as filtered through the mind of the child when the Father never came back. In that sense, it's the soldiers that are being mourned, along with the relations of the soldiers for their loss (be it of actual death or death of the sane mind). But I suspect a certain satire from Floyd, and I think that the potentially "purposeful non-mention" of the most innocent victims of war; those whose country is devastated and the fall-out from that for all in that country or religious region or whatever you want to call it are included in their commentary. Floyd were never one to celebrate the good old British Empire, were they?

And take no offense, those in the UK; I'm not casting dispersion. Plenty of shit dealt out from here too.

Animals is my favorite Floyd album anyway.
 
Wasn't London was flattened in WWII? Plenty of innocent victims there. Maybe I missed your point.

Who's lives I wonder. Those brave, freckle faced young heroes of the the US of A? Or the anonymous and irrelevant dung eating natives?
What's the difference? The soldiers you mock don't start the wars they kill and die in, and they don't choose the enemy.

Every casualty of modern war is a victim. But they aren't victims of each other, they are victims of the systems that send them to kill each other. Whether that system is the US government or a religion. Suicide bombers and 18 year old Marines are both equally brainwashed and equally used.
 
Heard a radio documentary about a Canadian who got black market papers of a U.S. draftee which allowed him to join in 1969. Story, if you're interested, is here.

Don't know much about The Wall. It was one of those things I pointedly avoided at the time, and ever since. All I've got is a few images and choruses and, of course, Luther.

I was more impressed with a cassette I bought in the early 70s out of a bargain bin. War, War, War by Country Joe McDonald. Words by Robert W. Service. Yeah, that Service. Dan McGrew, Sam McGee. Rhymes of a Red Cross Man from 1916.


Most interesting song from the cycle was March of the Dead, which lists battles from the Boer War and comes from a 1908 collection of Service poems that includes his "big hits". Pre-dates Wilfred Owen, etc. by years.
 

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