Pink Floyd Lyrics, Themes & Meanings: In The Flesh (Wall album)

In The Flesh 4:15
     (written by Roger Waters)

Lyrics:
Oo! Oo! Bugger!
So ya thought ya
Might like to go to the show
To feel the warm thrill of confusion
That space cadet glow
I got some bad news for you, sunshine
Pink isn't well, he stayed back at the hotel
And they sent us along as a surrogate band
We're gonna find out where you fans really stand
Are there any queers in the theatre tonight?
Get 'em up against the wall   'Gainst the wall

Now there's one in the spotlight
He don't look right to me
Get him up against the wall    'Gainst the...

And that one looks Jewish, and that one's a coon!
Who let all this riff-raff into the room?
There's one smoking a joint, and another with spots!
If I had my way, I'd have all of you shot!

Pink reaches the stage, and begins performing a twisted version of his show. This song, of course, is the point of the 'flash-forward' from the beginning of the album. Through the lyric 'Pink isn't well, he stayed back at the hotel,' Pink indicates that he has left behind his normal persona in favor of his darker side, bitter and angry. The decay that ensued once the wall was complete has reached an extreme point, and Pink creates a caricature of his own self-loathing, imagining himself as a fascist leader at his own Rock Nüremburg. Roger first developed the idea that walls between people lead to the blossoming of feelings of hatred and intolerance at the final fateful show of the In the Flesh tour at Montreal Stadium. It was at this show that he realized that the wall between himself and his audience was creating these feelings inside of him.

Roger: "Here is the story, I've just remembered: Montreal 1977, Olympic Stadium, 80,000 people, the last gig of the 1977 tour; I, personally, became so upset during the show that I spat at some guy in the front row, he was shouting and screaming and having a wonderful time and they were pushing against the barrier and what he wanted was a good riot, and what I wanted was to do a good rock and roll show and I got so upset in the end that I spat at him, which is a very nasty thing to do to anybody. Anyway, the idea is that these kinds of fascist feelings develop from isolation."

Roger further explained the song in the context of the narrative of Pink's character: "This is him having a go at the audience, all the minorities in the audience. So the obnoxiousness of In the Flesh—and it is meant to be obnoxious—this is the end result of that much isolation and decay. [The fascist sequence was] an attack on parts of myself I disapprove of."

TRACK LISTING
Disc One