What Shall We Do Now?
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What Shall We Do Now?
Thursday, April 10, 2008
What shall we use to fill the empty spaces
Where waves of hunger roar?
Shall we set out across the sea of faces
In search of more and more applause?
Shall we buy a new guitar?
Shall we drive a more powerful car?
Shall we work straight through the night?
Shall we get into fights?
Leave the lights on? Drop bombs?
Do tours of the east? Contract diseases?
Bury bones? Break up homes?
Send flowers by phone?
Take to drink? Go to shrinks?
Give up meat? Rarely sleep?
Keep people as pets?
Train dogs? Race rats?
Fill the attic with cash?
Bury treasure? Store up leisure?
But never relax at all
With our backs to the wall.
-Roger Waters from The Wall by Pink Floyd
Picture: David Chamberlain
As Waters said in an interview, "this level of the story is extremely simplistic." Don't get me wrong, the fact that it might be simplistic does not make it simple by any means. If anything, "What Shall We Do Now?" contributes to the multiple themes of "the Wall" while adding a few of its own. But as a song in itself, the lyrics are fairly and caustically straightforward.
Put simply, it is a list of things that people use to fill "the waves of hunger," that void in their lives and the missing gaps in their walls. Arguably, people are trained by society to "search for more and more applause" in a "sea of faces," or in other words, they are trained to become someone else so as to be socially acceptable, thereby garnering more acceptance (social "applause").
It's the reason why corporate stores such as the Gap are successful; we are told that in order to fit in, we must adjust to the social norm even if that norm seems to deviate from the status quo. For an example of this, look at the success and profitability of punk music (a genre notoriously known for going against the grain of society) in the early 90's sparked by radio-friendly bands like Green Day. In our ever-growing materialistic society, you must become someone else before you are someone; you must wear a fashionable brand of clothes, drive a stylish car, keep trendy friends, eat at chic restaurants. Namely, you must adapt yourself to the latest social trends in order to become your social self. Accordingly, these things start to become social fetishes.
We become obsessed with the latest trends, defining ourselves by what we see in the media, what is marketed towards us, and what our peers are doing. In the most ironic social twist, individuality is supposedly achieved by conformity to commercialized social norms. We fill our lives and define ourselves with designer jeans and fancy cars; with how much money is in our bank accounts and how many sexual partners we've had; with what we eat and where we sleep. This is the very core of the attack in "What Shall We Do Now?" a polemic against the foundation of the world's increasing capitalistic society. It's an attack against conformity, the loss of individuality, and mostly against the idea that these material things will complete our lives and make us truly happy.
Yet all of the things listed in the song aren't necessarily evil. Many people feel that vegetarianism is the healthiest way to eat and sending flowers by phone is certainly a far cry from the evils of Hitler and his Nazi regime. Why are such things attacked, then?
As Roger Waters perfectly states in his 1979 interview, "it's about being obsessed with the idea of being a vegetarian ..adopting somebody else's criteria for yourself without considering them from a position of really being yourself." These things are not inherently evil; rather, it's the obsession with these things, with defining one's self by someone else's standards, that is the moral decay of modern society.
"More, more more!" becomes the global motto with every passing day and with the accumulation of it all, walls are being erected higher and more impenetrable. While the song veers away a bit from the actual story line of "the Wall," Pink's applicability to the materialistic obsession perfectly reflects the walls of many people across the globe.
As Pink's fame and fortune increase, he further buries himself behind a wall of possessions, becoming more detached from the rest of the world as a result of his personal accumulation. As one conforms to the current trends, true and personal communication becomes more and more difficult. After all, how can one communicate individually if one defines himself or herself as a collection of commercialized goods? But as the wall of possessions grows, so too does the obsession to obtain more until finally one is the beast of his fetish, living each day at the will of his delusion.
"Even after we are consumed, we live with our backs to the wall," insinuating that rather than looking for a way out from our self-imposed isolation (which would require us to face the wall), we ignore the growing ramparts and continually search for the next trend in the hopes of being accepted, of getting "more and more applause."
-TheWallAnalysis.com by Bret Urick All music and lyrics are copyrighted by Pink Floyd.
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