Pink Floyd Lyrics, Themes & Meanings: Another Brick in the Wall part 2 (Wall album)

Another Brick in the Wall part 2 3:59
(written by Roger Waters)

Lyrics:
We don't need no education
We don't need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teacher leave them kids alone
Hey! Teacher!
Leave them kids alone!
All in all it's just another brick in the wall
All in all you're just another brick in the wall
We don't need no education
We don't need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave them kids alone
Hey! Teacher!
Leave us kids alone!
All in all you're just another brick in the wall
All in all you're just another brick in the wall

Schoolmaster:
Wrong! Do it again!
If you don't eat your meat, you can't have any pudding.
How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?
You! Yes, you behind the bikesheds! Stand still laddy!

Happiest Days of Our Lives and Another Brick in the Wall part 2 relate to the second brick in Pink's wall: the oppressive school system to which he was subjected as a young boy. Subjected to ridicule and sarcasm, his protective but isolating wall grows higher. This is another event which closely parallels Roger's life.

Roger: "My school life was very like that. Oh, it was awful, it was really terrible. When I hear people
whining on now about bringing back Grammar schools it really makes me quite ill to listen to it. Because I went to a boy's Grammar school and although... I want to make it plain that some of the men who taught (it was a boy's school) some of the men who taught there were very nice guys, you know I'm not... it's not meant to be a blanket condemnation of teachers everywhere, but the bad ones can really do people in — and there were some at my school who were just incredibly bad and treated the children so badly, just putting them down, putting them down, you know, all the time. Never encouraging them to do things, not really trying to interest them in anything, just trying to keep them quiet and still, and crush them into the right shape, so that they would go to university and 'do well.'"

At the end of the song can be heard the voice of the Scottish schoolmaster shouting at the hapless Pink. For readers not familiar with this aspect of British culture, the 'bikesheds' to which he refers are a common place for young students to mooch around, especially when taking part in some illicit activity, such as smoking a cigarette.

This song has come under heavy fire from some elements of society, both when it was released and on an ongoing basis, because of its 'anti-establishment' lyrical content. A little history can help to clarify what the exact meaning behind the words was. After completing secondary school (high school for Americans), Roger choose to continue his education by studying architecture in London. Here he caused a furore among the lecturers by questioning their rote teaching methods. From this information we can deduce that the author of the lyrics in question does not condemn all education as 'thought control,' but rather those forms of teaching which discourage independent thought and imagination. Therefore again the much wider theme than the simple narrative.

TRACK LISTING
Disc One