Pink Rhetoric
Pink Floyd is a psychedelic/progressive English rock band which started out in the late 60’s and kept
rising in the 70’s/80’s becoming one of the best rock and roll bands alongside Led Zeppelin, The Who,
Deep purple…etc. The most significant aspect of Pink Floyd’s music is their philosophical lyrics, many
argue that they were way ahead of their time due to their profound and somewhat revolutionary lyrics, as
well as their industry-changing extermination with their instruments, giving their music even more depth.
In their albums “The dark side of the moon”, “The Wall” and “Animals” Pink Floyd criticize modern
politics and society, education systems and the government, and the class system in capitalist countries.
“The dark side of the moon” in this album Pink Floyd refers to wars like the Vietnam war in their
song, “Us and Them”, Roger Waters (the lead singer) speaks from the perspective of a frontline soldier
who is supposed to kill another soldier, because the “general” ordered him to do so, while he sits
comfortably away from the front line, “Forward he cried from the rear”. Furthermore, the soldier states
“Us and them, after all we’re all ordinary men… It's not what we would choose to do” meaning that on
both sides of the war the men fighting are ordinary men who would never choose to kill another man
for politics or land. Furthermore, Pink Floyd talks about a different subject, the things that drive people
crazy in our modern society, for example the song, “Money”, this song shows how materialistic people
have become, constantly chasing money and greedy for more. Roger Waters states “Get a good job with
good pay and you’re okay”, showing how people’s goals are money driven, people try to get a job just to
get paid, talent and diversity amongst people is dying. Another song is, “Time”, it identifies how people’s
life became so dull and meaningless “Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day”, due to
modern industrialization in our time. Lastly, there’s some rhetoric in the song titles of the album, the
song titles represent the things that drive people mad and molds their lives like “Money” show how
people’s lives became so money driven, “Great gig in the sky” representing death, “On the run” and
“Time” suggests how people of our modern time are always stressed out and in a rush.
Pink Floyd creates an image to the audience through song names, the album “The Wall” represents
an imaginary wall which consists of bricks, each brick is a traumatic incident which might occur to many
people, and this wall isolates the modern individual from people around him. “Another brick in the wall
1”, this song shows one of the horrors war leaves behind, in this song Roger Waters sings from the
perspective of a child who lost his father in a war, “Daddy's flown across the ocean, leaving behind just a
memory”. This incident is a brick in the wall which isolates the from the society, losing a loved one to a
pointless war, started by the corrupt and fought by the innocent. Another brick in this wall is the
education system in the UK, in a rebellious song “Another brick in the wall 2” Pink Floyd demonstrates
how schools tend to influence kids with certain ideologies or morals, in other words brainwashing the
kids. Roger Waters sings “We don’t need no education” mocking the education system in a sarcastic
way, by using a grammatically incorrect sentence, he also states “No dark sarcasm in the classroom,
teacher leave them kids alone”, showing how teachers are somewhat abusive to children by mocking
their ambitious dreams or their talents and keeping them down. He also says “All in all you’re just
another brick in the wall” stating that the education system is just another stressing problem for people,
it hurts their confidence and strips them from their personalities, creating a population of dull and
obedient citizens. Lastly, “Good bye Blue sky”, it’s a song about the immense pollution from modern
industry and the destructive nuclear war, which will eventually change the blue sky and the whole earth
as we know it, Roger Waters says “Did you see the falling bombs?” and “Why did we have to run for
shelter when the promise was a brave new world?”, speaking as a survivor of a nuclear war or a natural
disaster caused by mankind.
Many people of the middle and lower class in capitalist societies object to the idea that few people
can rule society through media and other methods, many other follow blindly never questioning what
they’re being told. In the album “Animals” Pink Floyd talks about a typical capitalist class system, where
the upper classes lead and the rest of the people follow, Pink Floyd represents the upper/ruling class as
pigs, and the lower classes as sheep. In the song “Pigs” which refers to the upper classes, the lyrics show
how the ruling class and the government is oppressive to the lower classes, almost similar to slavery,
“keep digging/pig mine”. In the song Waters sings “You're trying to keep our feelings off the street, all
tight lips and cold feet” also show how the government oppresses the citizens by keeping them quite,
never expressing opinion or emotions. On the other hand, the song “Sheep”, is about the typical middle
class citizens of the society. Waters sings “Meek and obedient you follow the leader”, the lyrics describe
a typical citizen of modern society, obedient to the government and never asking question. Furthermore
Waters states “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want”, he talks about using religion as a way to
control the people, in other words political-religion, which can be seen in many countries whom
governments use religion and manipulate it to control the people.
In conclusion, Pink Floyd revolutionary ideas are manifested in their philosophical lyrics. In the
album “The dark side of the moon” Pink Floyd criticize what society have become and they show the
horrors of war. In the album “The Wall” Pink Floyd shows some of the errors in modern day society and
education system, as well as an image of a post-apocalyptic world after a nuclear war. In the album
“Animals”, Pink Floyd criticizes the class system in capitalist societies, where the minority rules the
majority through religion and media.