The Wall: A Requiem For Generation X

It was unintentional or perhaps an unhappy coincidence, but as Pink Floyd’s The Wall is officially a member of Generation X at age 45, one cannot help but notice it’s the roadmap for the lives of General Issue Xers.

Follow the story as it progresses. It’s someone my age, late forties and staring down fifty, waking up to the life we’ve led. In The Flesh? sums up perfectly a look back on the first half of our time on this blue marble. Is this really what we came to see? Do you have bad news for us?

Consider no-fault divorce, the sexual revolution, and the mountains of cocaine that were shipped into the United States during the 1970’s. Well as with anything there were large swaths of unintended consequences. We lost our fathers. When written by Roger Waters, the unhinged genius behind Pink Floyd, he was talking about the fathers who were lost defending democracy, but the end result is still the same for boomers and X’ers in my humble opinion.

The next two tracks discuss going to school. Two-income households, single mothers, and fathers working two jobs to make ends meet turned things like school, television, etc into surrogate parents. These people didn’t sign up for this job. We all dealt with teachers who didn’t want to be parental figures, but just teachers. Who could blame them for being bitter at having to deal unruly children who never learned manners because they were wholly neglected as they were growing up all while being paid slave wages? Not me.

To whom did the children of the 80’s run to when they needed help? Naturally their mothers. These mothers were overworked, overwhelmed, and just plain tired. The news media had fully adopted if it bleeds it leads. They were overprotective. The AIDS epidemic had started. There was no way to win.

The rest of the album continues with a greatest hits of all of the calamities that could befall us or the dreams we hoped to achieve in order to find a better way of life culminating in the eventual wall. The Wall represents cutting oneself off from emotions and just finding a way to survive the world that’s become so dangerous. 

There are enemies around every corner. Dictators, Nazis, etc. are all trying to infiltrate our very way of life. We were dealing with the existential threat of nuclear war and mutually assured destruction. My entire childhood was clouded with the idea that we would all perish in fire and nuclear holocaust.

Finding the path to being numb whilst running for cover shelter when we had the promise of a brave new world unfurled underneath the clear blue sky was the only thing worth finding to many of us. The loneliness and isolation many of us latchkey kids felt was real. Seeing nuclear blast shelter signs at your school on the way to the cafeteria left a mark. What else could we desire other than being numb?

Generation X was abandoned by their parents. Fathers running away. Mothers having to escape abuse. Personally, I didn’t know my father until I was nearly a teenager. The years I spent living under his roof were a series of horror scenes that were assuaged by my constant listening to this album.

Decades later, this work of art, of genius, continues to bring me comfort in my darkest moments. It’s become a touchstone in more ways than one. When Waters performed The Wall again in its entirety, it was to celebrate the fall of The Berlin Wall, a seminal moment in the lives of all of Generation X. We watched the news reports on TV as our parents drank themselves stupid at a happy hour or put in a few hours of overtime to ensure they didn’t become the latest victims of the recession. But, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that Waters holds some anger at the fact that David Hasselhoff helped tear down the wall, and not him.

Forty-five years ago, Waters set out to write an album about his personal life, his feelings, and his isolation, but he didn’t expect to find it upheld by a generation who’d yet to come of age to him, who’d yet to be even noticed by him. For the rest of Gen X, I’ll say this: Thank you for giving us the road map to finding our way out of the darkness that was our lives.

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WORDS BY NIK CAMERON
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