(idea) by SansPoint Thu Jan 08 2004 at 4:46:27

Compressing Pink Floyd's "The Wall" to One Disc of Music

Some are going to see this as sacrilege to Roger Waters' artistic and creative vision. "How dare you chop up this masterpiece of rock and roll?" they may ask. Well, face it, for all of The Wall's strong points, it has quite a bit of weaknesses as well. It's overblown, and its pretentious, yet, unlike The Final Cut, it manages to sound good for most of it. In fact, the hack job needed to bring it down to one compact disc is far from difficult. More judicious cutting may be necessary to bring it down to one LP.

First off, you need to identify the filler tracks. Sections of the album that add nothing to the narrative, and nothing to the sound. Most of this is on Disc 2. Right off the bat, we can cut out "Is There Anybody Out There?", "Nobody Home", "Vera" and "Bring The Boys Back Home". "Hey You" more than adequately expresses the isolation of Pink at this point. The rest is wasteful. "Bring The Boys Back Home" hardly fits on the album, as well. "The Show Must Go On" is also expendable. It was cut from both the film, and Roger Waters' performance of The Wall in Berlin. "Stop", and "Outside The Wall" can be cut as well. The climax of "The Trial" is a perfectly fine ending to the album.

Cutting down the first disc is not as easy. Most of the songs are well done, and there is little filler. One could concievably cut out "Another Brick In The Wall (Part 1)", or "The Thin Ice". Yet these songs contain key elements of the album's plot. They have to stay. You can cut, however, "Don't Leave Me Now" ("One Of My Turns" stands well on its own), and "Goodbye Blue Sky". "Goodbye Blue Sky" in particular is a bit of an anathema, thematically, as the album lacks any other cuts that concern themselves with war, except "Bring The Boys Back Home", which has already been cut. "Empty Spaces", too can also be cut.

So, the current track list is something like this:

  1. In The Flesh?
  2. The Thin Ice
  3. Another Brick In The Wall (Part 1)
  4. The Happiest Days Of Our Lives
  5. Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2)
  6. Mother
  7. Young Lust
  8. One Of My Turns
  9. Another Brick In The Wall (Part 3)
  10. Goodbye Cruel World
  11. Hey You
  12. Comfortably Numb
  13. In The Flesh
  14. Run Like Hell
  15. Waiting For The Worms
  16. The Trial
This is still one hour of music. With some minor editing, one can put this on to one single LP, but it will possibly suffer in sound quality. To make things easier, you will need to cut more.

This is where the editing becomes judicious. We can take out "Run Like Hell", as it adds little to the story. "Another Brick In The Wall (Part 3)", and "Goodbye Cruel World" can also be removed. This cuts the album down to close to fifty-three minutes, and allows it to be pressed on to an LP with out too much difficulty.

The final tracklist, of the single LP version of The Wall:

  1. In The Flesh?
  2. The Thin Ice
  3. Another Brick In The Wall (Part 1)
  4. The Happiest Days Of Our Lives
  5. Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2)
  6. Mother
  7. Young Lust
  8. One Of My Turns
  9. Hey You
  10. Comfortably Numb
  11. In The Flesh
  12. Run Like Hell
  13. Waiting For The Worms
  14. The Trial

Try doing this with The Beatles White Album. It can be a lot of fun.

I like it!