My Experience with The Wall (and the way Quadrophenia helped me tear down my own.).
I grew up listening to rock and roll, never really getting into it untill 2008, that year also brought something to the table, my grandmothers death. I personally was not that effected by her death because i was so young, but my father was crushed. This started a chapter in my family’s life that i would say was a very hard and dark time.
My father had always drank, mostly at party’s or holidays like most people do, on the other hand he never really knew a limit. After my grandmothers death in 08 he started to drink everyday, i can not blame him, he has Bipolar disorder and depression, but was never diagnosed in till 2010.
The drinking over time got worse and worse, i didn’t really notice it at all in till he lost his job in 2010. During that year, I dug up the albums Dark side of the moon, Who’s Next, Hendrix in The West, Tommy, Exit… Stage Left. These introduced me into rock, and after listening to Dark Side Of the Moon, i decided to grab the rest of the Pink Floyd albums we had, Including their classic, The Wall. i listened to the wall thinking it was suppose to be amazing as people had told me and was extremely disappointed after hearing what i thought at the time to be something that was barely rock.
After listening to it many times more though, i started to realize the story. A man without a father and an overprotective mother who by his own actions wanted to get away from the pain of his life and protect him self by building a mental wall to stop those emotions from getting in. At this time the situation was similar to me, my father had lost his job, my mother forced back into working because of his inability to get up, if even out the door because of his depression. I inadvertently started to build my own wall, but the down side of my wall just like Pink’s, once the emotions where in they where in to stay.
I was mad, insane, crazy, what ever you like to call it, i was completely self absorbed and somewhat racist, i hated what had happened to my family and what he did though i never fully blamed him. I wanted to die throughout 2011, i was self hating and untrusting. i liked two girls, both of which i asked out during this state of insanity, both of which turned me down. This led me farther and farther behind my wall, just like pink, i wanted to cut all communication, fuck them why stay behind? but i was wrong, as was pink, i need them, and as much as i thought differently, they need me.
i was on the verge of completing my wall, i was done with love, it had brought me nothing. I waited and waited for the situation to get better but it never did, the longer it went the more paranoid i became and the more isolated. then something changed, very suddenly, my father took actions in his own hands and got the help he needed and it left me at odds, my life was getting better, he was clean, looking for jobs, my family was out of the trench’s and back where it needed to be.
I started to hope, for a change, for something to bring me back, as in the wall, i was asking if there was anyone out there. someone replied. A girl that i had just met was stuck in a situation very similar to mine, she had no father to look to, the guy that she loved didnt think one thing of her, she had an overprotective mother (NOTE: my mother was not overprotective, she just could not be around due to work).
We were able to talk to one another, talk about how much things sucked and told each other our story’s, she was something that really helped the start of the fall of my wall. I was in my basement one day going through some of the albums my father owned and saw one by the name of Quadrophenia, so i gave it a listen seeing that i loved Tommy and other works by the who. It took me on a ride through the eyes of Jimmy, and who’s story brought me away from my own life for a while and let me see that even though life is shit, it gets better.
Quadrophenia did nothing for me at first, listening to it over and over again it became my new obsession, it succeeded at one of the main jobs it needed to do, it stopped my constant listening of the wall. Though Schizophrenic, Jimmy and i had some in common, we both loved a girl who would never love us back, and even though Jimmy had to suffer the same as i, he took a different path then me, he went the path of love and openness, while i was isolated and hating.
After hearing “Love, Reign O’er Me” my wall started to fall, it was spring, the sun was out, my life was returning to normal, my father had a job, and my days of self pity was over. Though i believe some of my wall is still there, waiting to be added onto. But as Roger Waters said, “It comes down brick by brick. That’s what growing up is. I would suggest [growing up is] a dismantling of our wall, brick by brick, and discovering that when we let our defenses down, we become more lovable. I’m not saying I’ve discarded my wall or walls entirely,” he concludes. “But over the years, I’ve allowed more of it to crumble - and opened myself to the possibility of love.”
If anyone reads this, i thank you for taking your time and listening to my story.
