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Forty-six years ago today, on Friday, May 2, 1980, The South African government banned the Pink Floyd song Another Brick in the Wall (PartII). Written by Roger Waters, Part 2 is a protest song against corporal punishment in schools, rigid and abusive schooling, and features a children's choir.
Part 2 was the second UK single for Pink Floyd, sold more than four million copies worldwide, topped
singles charts in 14 countries, including the UK and the US, and was the
UK Christmas No. 1 of 1979. It was nominated for a Grammy Award and ranked number 384 on the Rolling Stone list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time".
In Part 2, traumas involving abusive schoolteachers become bricks in the wall. In the sequence, children enter a school and march in unison
through a meat grinder, becoming "putty-faced" clones, before rioting
and burning down the school. The lyrics attracted controversy. The Inner London Education Authority described the song as "scandalous", and according to Renshaw, then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher "hated it". It was banned in South Africa in 1980 after it was adopted by supporters of a
nationwide school boycott protesting instituted racial inequities in
education under apartheid.
At the suggestion of the producer Bob Ezrin, Pink Floyd added elements of disco, which was popular at the time. When Ezrin heard the song with a disco beat, he was convinced it could become a hit but felt it needed to be longer and added two verses and two choruses. Engineer Nick Griffiths recorded children singing the second verse at Islington Green School, close to the Pink Floyd studio. Alun Renshaw, the head of music at the school, was enthusiastic, and
said later: "I wanted to make music relevant to the kids – not just
sitting around listening to Tchaikovsky.
I thought the lyrics were great – 'We don't need no education, we don't
need no thought control' ... I just thought it would be a wonderful
experience for the kids." The children's choir in the recording featured 23 students, who practiced for about a week to prepare. Renshaw hid the lyrics from the headteacher, Margaret Maden, fearing she might stop the recording. Maden said: "I was only told about it after the event, which didn't
please me. But on balance it was part of a very rich musical education." When Ezrin played the children's vocals to Waters, "There was a total
softening of his face, and you just knew that he knew it was going to be
an important record."
The children of Islington School received tickets to a Floyd concert, an album and a single. Though the school received a payment of £1,000, there was no arrangement for royalties for the children. Following a change to the copyright law of the United Kingdom
in 1996, they became eligible for royalties from broadcasts. After the
royalties agent Peter Rowan traced the choir members through the social
network service Friends Reunited and other means, they successfully lodged a claim for royalties with the Performing Artists' Media Rights Association in 2004. For later shows, Waters employed local school choirs to perform the song with him.
Gilmour recorded his guitar solo using a 1955 Gibson Les Paul Gold Top guitar with P-90 pickups.
Part 2 performers
- Roger Waters – bass guitar, vocals (unison with Gilmour)
- David Gilmour – guitar, vocals (unison with Waters)
- Nick Mason – drums
- Richard Wright – Hammond organ, Prophet-5 synthesiser
- Islington Green School students (organised by Alun Renshaw) – vocals
Korn ~ Another Brick in the Wall (PartII) (live) (8 mins.)
Pink Floyd ~ Another Brick in the Wall (PartII) (live) (6 mins., 35 secs.)
