Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 2

Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 2

Pink Floyd

“Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 2” is Pink Floyd’s only number one hit in both the US and the UK, and was a chart-topper in at least six other countries overseas in the spring of 1980.

“Part 1” had come two tracks earlier, and even the immediately preceding song, “The Happiest Days of Our Lives” was thematically similar, to the point where one radio edit combines both songs.

David Gilmour credits producer Bob Ezrin for the song’s disco sound:

He said to me, “Go to a couple of clubs and listen to what’s happening with disco music,” so I forced myself out and listened to loud, four-to-the-bar bass drums and stuff and thought, Gawd, awful! Then we went back and tried to turn one of the “Another Brick in the Wall” parts into one of those so it would be catchy. We did the same exercise on “Run Like Hell.”

But Roger Waters is more reluctant to embrace the disco classification:

The song ran slow, almost like a chant or mantra, at 100 beats per minute. To give it a bit of punch, Bob Ezrin added a kick drum on every beat, which made the song a different animal than something strummed on an acoustic guitar. It’s not a disco beat, as many people have said, but more of a heart beat. It’s very cool.