Winter fest at St. Stephen’s College, New Delhi, 1980: Legends, a jazz-rock band from Loyola College Madras, is on the stage. A couple of songs down the line, the boys launch into Pink Floyd’s ‘Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2)’. Going by the reaction of young rockheads , that is a winning choice.
July 1994: Outside a journalism school (now defunct) on East Mada Street, Mylapore, an ice-breaking session among fellows is under way. One of them, with a grunge hairdo reminiscent of Kurt Cobain, uses ‘Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2)’ to buttress an anti-Establishment rhetoric. His stock shoots up.
Pink Floyd
Post-Millennium era: When hairstyles are getting closer to the skull, the song continues to grow in popularity. At Floydian tribute concerts, it invariably has the audience hollering for an encore. And, it is still an ally for those looking for gentle and creative ammunition to fire holes in the system.
However, despite the song’s popularity, it is rarely appreciated to the fullest. That is due to the lack of knowledge about where it is coming from. This song and ‘Comfortably Numb,’ another much-heard piece of Flyodian music, take on a more beautiful meaning when experienced as parts of a whole.
In 1979, Pink Floyd released ‘The Wall,’ which is arguanly the second best, if not the best, rock opera the Western world has seen. It’s a toss-up between The Wall and ‘Tommy’ by The Who — more about that later.
These two songs are essentially “bricks” in that wall. When they are heard along with the other songs in the rock opera, the they make even better listening. You end up getting an extended experience of David Gilmour’s mastery over the guitar and the song-writing prowess of both Roger Waters and Gilmour, evident in these two songs. There is a mesmerising quality to the guitar work in ‘Is Anyone Out There’. In this song, Gilmour puts the wah-wah pedal to brilliant use.
“The music presents the harrowing theme effectively. ‘The Wall’ has some of the best lead guitar riffs,” says Lionel Satya, a bass guitarist and a member of the 1980s-band The Legends that presented a part of ‘The Wall’ at St. Stephen’s.
Universal theme
The greatness of ‘The Wall’ lies equally in the ballad it narrates. It’s about a rock musician retreating into a shell, suffering alienation. Various unfortunate events serve as bricks that go into his wall of isolation. He comes a full circle when he steps ‘Outside The Wall’. The theme is clearly universal. And it also works as a class rock opera, because rock music largely is a response to a deep-seated existential angst.
‘Tommy,’ released by the Pete Townshend-led The Who on May 23, 1969, has a more imaginative storyline and its music is slightly better rooted in classical rock traditions. The whiplash speed with which Townshend’s fingers move over the fretboard make for delectable listening.
Prior to ‘Tommy,’ a few rock operas did see the light, but none of them captured the imagination of rock music world as did ‘Tommy.’ In fact, at their launches, they were not classified as rock operas. Therefore, ‘Tommy’ is credited with kick-starting the genre. About a boy who “chooses” to go blind, dumb and deaf and is freed of his self-imposed handicaps, Tommy meets all the requirements of a rock opera, which are an engaging ballad, angst and an effort to free oneself of the oppressive burdens of existence.
‘Tommy’ has elements that would have made it easy to turn it into a musical, had The Who attempted it. This fact is evident in the film that has been made on it. However, ‘Tommy’ stayed closer to Wooodstock than Broadway, rejecting the possibility of on-stage dramatisation.
Live shows of the album, including the star-studded shows across the United States in 1989, have illustrated this.
Unlike ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ by Andrew Lyold Webber, which was born a rock opera but “grew” into a musical, ‘Tommy’ has been content being a rock opera.
This genre remains under-explored. If someone seeks to put the spotlight on it, they will do well by simply drawing attention to ‘Tommy’ and ‘The Wall.’
