‘The Wall’ ending explained: What does Pink Floyd’s concept album actually mean?

Every rock and roll musician has always found the idea of the concept album tempting. Anyone can slap together a few half-decent ideas and call it an album, but the realm of rock operas is where people go from being one of the most popular bands of their generation to a true artist that is capable of telling stories far greater than the typical ‘I love you’ songs. And while Roger Waters was already on that path before The Wall, he took Pink Floyd to greater heights when he found the correct premise for a rock star caught between two sides of his life.

After growing tired of the road and people not paying attention to the music, Waters thought of putting a record based on someone who closes themselves off from society. The parallels to every travelling musician’s life were already there, but Waters knew that if he wanted to get it done right, it would have had to be with the right kind of people behind him as well, and that didn’t always mean his bandmates.

Throughout the record, Waters was known to be ruthless regarding the sounds he wanted, and he wasn’t above throwing his bandmates under the bus. David Gilmour was always an equal collaborator on the record, but Waters ended up asking Richard Wright to leave when he wasn’t getting the results he wanted and even made Nick Mason sit out the recording of ‘Mother’ because he couldn’t get the feeling he was looking for.

Despite the headaches, The Wall is one of the most ambitious things that the band has ever made. From the massive orchestras in certain sections to the best guitar solos that Gilmour laid down, no one was going to rest until it was perfect, and looking at the best songs on the record, they always knew how to translate the story effectively, even when things got a bit uncomfortable on tracks like ‘Run Like Hell’.

Even a handful of songs could have been singles on their own before being left on the cutting room floor. ‘When the Tigers Broke Free’ and ‘What Shall We Do Now’ worked perfectly when they were featured in the movie and live performances, respectively, but it was never done as a means to pad out the runtime. It was about giving more depth to the story, and for something that was as heavy-handed as what Waters wanted, he knew that it needed to be told properly.

But what is The Wall actually about?

Like the other rock operas that had come before it, like Tommy, Waters’s protagonist, Pink, is also dealing with the pressures of everyday life, only this time through the lens of becoming a rock star. While we get a lot of exposition for his troubled childhood and domineering mother that makes up different bricks in his wall, the final straw comes when he finds out that his wife is cheating on him, after which he secludes himself and becomes emotionally catatonic as the final bricks are cutting himself off from the world.

By the time his manager gets through to him hours before a show, he is given drugs which would help offset some of his problems, only for him to get even more power-hungry and turn into a full-blown fascist onstage before he starts to realise the error of his ways and tears down the wall he built around himself.

So, really, the entire journey of The Wall is that of self-reflection and trying not to seclude oneself from those who care about them. The world can be more than a bit ugly through the eyes of Pink at times, but it’s better for him to feel something than have to close himself off from society. However, the final moments of the record tell a bit of a different story.

So, how does The Wall end?

Even though ‘The Trial’ serves as a perfect way to put a bow on the album with everyone chanting ‘TEAR DOWN THE WALL’, ‘Outside the Wall’ is a great mellow tune to close everything out on a more peaceful note. For the listener, this could symbolise Pink finally coming back to civilisation for the first time and learning to embrace his surroundings, but the final thing heard on the record is also more than a little bit troubling.

Because throughout this entire album, themes like the ‘Brick’ riff appeared in various tunes, but ending the album with a faint voice saying ‘isn’t this’ is more than a little bit concerning for the audiophiles listening. Since the album started with the same voice saying ‘where we came in’, hearing Pink say the beginning of that sentence at the end of the album is a sign that things will stay the same.

So now, when the listener starts the album over again, it’s almost as if the album doesn’t have a proper ending, with Pink being doomed to repeat his mistakes until the end of time. While Waters talked about not having a proper ending when he first conceived the idea, it’s nice to look at it in two ways. Either Pink is finally free from all of his problems, or he has closed himself in a never-ending cycle from which he will never escape.