The Wall

Today we are time traveling back a few months to the summer before I started grade 8, as I have unlocked yet another memory. While viewing all the old photos in our family albums at my parents house over my summer holidays I saw a picture that brought back another musical memory that I felt was important to the story.

That summer of 86' my folks rented a cottage up north for a few weeks in a town called Gravenhurst. When we arrived at the cottage I immediately started exploring the place and established what room I'd be staying in. I began snooping around the room and found an old record player in the closet and a few vinyl records. Most of the albums were music I had no interest in such as Gordon Lightfoot & Kenny Rogers. There was one record that caught my interest and I figured to myself it was better than nothing. The album was called "The Wall" by a band named "Pink Floyd".

At the time I believe the only song of there's I actually knew was "Another Brick In The Wall" and I actually liked the song despite the music being significantly less heavier than what I was accustomed to. It was the wall or bust so I decided to give it a chance and surprisingly enough I loved the record and absolutely got lost in it for the majority of the holiday. Instead of going fishing and swimming in the lake I spent most of my time listening to the record, reading the lyrics over and over as well as getting lost in the albums artwork. I also started drawing images from within the album as I sat and listened to it. When reading the credits and liner notes I discovered this wasn't just a record but it was also a soundtrack to a movie. I now couldn't wait to get home and find this movie!

My first day back in Brampton I walked to Jumbo video....no luck. I then walked to armchair theatre which was an Indy video store in a strip mall at Dixie & Queen street....no dice. I then walked over to the Bramalea City Centre to check out video 99.....voila! They had it!



Movie poster/box cover for "the wall"

 I excitedly rushed home, headed down to the basement and popped the tape into the VCR. I found the movie very confusing, none of it seemed to make sense except the fact that there was little dialogue and the lyrics to the songs were essentially the films script. It made a bit more sense to me now yet it was still very hard to follow. Never the less I absolutely loved the record so in turn I fell in love with the movie despite the fact that I didn't quite get it.

Years later in highschool I often heard that the movie was intended to be viewed under the influence of LSD or what most people called "acid" in order for it to make sense. I had never done acid and I assumed this fact must be true as I had now seen the film dozens of times over the years yet it still never really made any sense to me. The big question now was wether I was ready or willing to expand my mind and hopefully be able to make sense of this film I loved so dearly but still didn't comprehend...

the photo responsible for this post. My grandparents and I at the cottage in Gravenhurst.
Screened enclosure on the left is where I sat & listened to the wall.