It may come as a surprise to know that when I’m not writing reviews for music videos I’m teaching preschoolers how to write their ABC’s. Which may make my next video choice an even bigger surprise. I’m talking about the iconic “We don’t need no education” Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall.”
There’s a common misconception that all teachers must’ve loved school as children. While that may be true for some, it certainly wasn’t for me. I struggled through school as a child and so when I heard this song I couldn’t help but feel like it was a sort of anthem for others like me.
The original song “Another Brick in the Wall,” which appeared in the 1982 movie “The Wall,” had 3 parts to it. The version in the music video I will be discussing features part 2 of “Another Brick in the Wall” segued from “The Happiest Days of our Lives” which was also on “The Wall” album.
In the movie the wall represents a metaphorical wall that the main character, Pink (played by Boomtown Rats singer Bob Geldof), keeps up, isolating him from his friends and family. The bricks represent all the people and events that have hurt Pink in his life. By the end of the movie Pink has basically turned into a Nazi, suggesting that the more hurt we experience (or more bricks in our wall) the colder and more evil we become.
This music video focuses on the education system as being a part of that wall. The video opens on a train tunnel with a young Pink. Children on the train are all wearing masks. I love the stark shadows here, that seem to be present throughout the whole video to create a dark mood throughout it. A teacher is screaming “You! Yes, you! Stand still ladie!”
At this point the lyrics in the video are from “Happiest Days of our Lives”
When we grew up and went to school
There were certain teachers who would
Hurt the children any way they could
By pouring their derision
Upon anything we did
Exposing every weakness
However carefully hidden by the kids
The teacher then mocks Pink for writing poetry in class. Then the students go back to uniformly repeating what I can only guess are geometry definitions. Obviously, there’s no room for creativity and individuality in school. However, the teacher gets his as the video flashes to him at home with a tyrant of a wife. There are flashes of him at home combined with memories of him spanking children with a belt.
But in the town it was well known
When they got home at night, their fat and
Psychopathic wives would thrash them
Within inches of their lives
The song suggests that the teachers inflict corporal punishment on the children because of their own unhappy home lives.
At this point the video segues from “The Happiest Days of Our Lives” to “Another Brick in the Wall.” This is the moment we’ve anticipated, the famous chorus:
We don’t need no education
We don’t need no thought control
as school children march into an oven
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Hey! Teacher, leave them kids alone
They all come out wearing masks, sitting at desks. The perfect example of conformity. The dutiful student. I must point out here that I believe the poor grammar in the chorus is intentional. It’s done as an act of rebellion. It says, “Screw you, I’ll use all the double negative I want!”
All in all it’s just another brick in the wall
The education system is just one more thing adding to the wall of isolation. It turns us into masked monsters. Marching on mindlessly to our future cubicles.
This is my favorite part. The children are shown in boxes lined up like cattle while they chant the chorus in unison.
The kids are then shown falling into a meat grinder.
This is how the schools see children, as livestock to be ground up and sold at market.
At last the children throw off their masks and begin destroying the school while a kickass guitar solo plays through.
In doing so they are also dismantling the wall, both literally and metaphorically.
But after all this, we end up where we started. Pink is back in the classroom with the geometry lesson still in progress. The whole thing was nothing but a daydream.
The education system was very strict during the time this song was written. Corporal punishment was the norm and the arts were generally deemed unimportant. This song is a reflection of that attitude and the video does an excellent job at emphasizing that. I think even teachers like myself can appreciate the message here.
VideoKills 