Hey, Ayatollah, leave those kids alone!
August 6, 2010 7:14 PM   Subscribe

The Pink Floyd rock music classic "Another Brick in the Wall (pt. 2)" has been transformed by a Canadian band to reflect dissent young Iranians have for their government. Pink Floyd founder Roger Waters gave Blurred Vision permission to use the song. Proceeds will go to Amnesty International.
posted by gman (31 comments total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
We don't need no occupation...
posted by hal9k at 7:19 PM on August 6, 2010 [1 favorite]


That's pretty excellent. Waters himself has said that when he tours The Wall this year, he will be updating it for modern audiences and times. (The stage production, not the album itself.) Giving permission for Blurred Vision to do this remake fits nicely in with that, in kind of a fractal sense.
posted by hippybear at 7:25 PM on August 6, 2010 [1 favorite]


Pink Floyd founder Roger Waters

*grumble grumble founding member maybe grumble*

/syd forever
posted by shakespeherian at 7:29 PM on August 6, 2010 [18 favorites]


Hey Tehran, leave those kids alone.
posted by punkfloyd at 7:48 PM on August 6, 2010


"Hey, Ayatollah, leave those kids alone"? That's pretty damn cheesy.
posted by Dr. Send at 7:58 PM on August 6, 2010


What's next?

Careful with that Axe, Mohammed?
Halal a Cigar?
Shine on You Crazy Falafel?
Persians on the Wing?
Allah Heart Mother?
Wish You Were Shi'ite?
posted by swift at 8:04 PM on August 6, 2010 [4 favorites]


What's next?

The great Jihad in the sky?

Good on Waters to give permission, though. And definitely good for the proceeds (I'm a little confused as to whose proceeds we're talking about, here) to go to Amnesty.
posted by Lemurrhea at 8:16 PM on August 6, 2010


And definitely good for the proceeds (I'm a little confused as to whose proceeds we're talking about, here) to go to Amnesty.

Half of all sales will go to Amnesty International.
posted by gman at 8:22 PM on August 6, 2010 [1 favorite]


Pink Floyd founder Roger Waters

Down with this sort of thing. Careful now.

Damn, thought I'd got over my Pink Floyd pedantry when Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking came out
posted by shinybaum at 8:35 PM on August 6, 2010


I'VE GOT A BIKE YOU CAN RIDE IT IF YOU LIKE
IT'S GOT A BASKET A BELL THAT RINGS AND THINGS TO MAKE IT LOOK GOOD
I'D GIVE IT TO YOU IF I COULD BUT I BORROWED IT
posted by shakespeherian at 9:04 PM on August 6, 2010 [7 favorites]


Changing two words is rewriting? This is a cover, plain and simple.
posted by dobbs at 9:08 PM on August 6, 2010 [1 favorite]


Pink Floyd flounder Roger Waters

That's just downright fishy.
posted by hippybear at 9:44 PM on August 6, 2010


With; without.
And who'll deny it's what the fighting's all about?
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 9:51 PM on August 6, 2010 [3 favorites]


I DON'T KNOW WHY I CALL HIM GERALD
posted by shakespeherian at 10:07 PM on August 6, 2010


If this had come from inside Iran, I would be much more excited about it. Coming from an outside western democracy; It's nice, but not earthshaking.
posted by Quonab at 11:19 PM on August 6, 2010


*grumble grumble founding member maybe grumble*

Heyyyyyy he's only responsible for most of the songwriting from the band's greatest era and was there from the very start but let's shit on him, 'kay?
posted by Pope Guilty at 12:11 AM on August 7, 2010 [1 favorite]


If this had come from inside Iran, I would be much more excited about it. Coming from an outside western democracy; It's nice, but not earthshaking.

Iranians via Canada.

The cover has a nice Middle-Eastern-isque riff/ beat (bongos?) in the background that makes all the difference, musically speaking for me. Rachid Taha did a similar rae treatment for Rock The Casbah, although obviously it's a lot more understated here, given the English lyrics and the political message that the song is trying to convey. Love the build-up as well; being used to Persian/ Indian dhun's, I feel more at home with this musical framework than with, say, Korn's cover (although I loved that too).
posted by the cydonian at 12:15 AM on August 7, 2010 [1 favorite]


Heyyyyyy he's only responsible for most of the songwriting from the band's greatest era and was there from the very start but let's shit on him, 'kay?

He's also responsible for The Final Cut (AKA If You Missed It From The Wall, My Dad Died) and for thinking the rest of the band would agree with him that he is Pink Floyd and they're just some backup musicians. He's also the guy who was like 'Um, Rick Wright, maybe we'd rather you didn't contribute to this album because I hate you.' He also said 'I don't think Dave's name should be in the credits for this album because he isn't as important as I am.' Roger's an ass. I shall continue to shit on him.
posted by shakespeherian at 7:40 AM on August 7, 2010 [1 favorite]


He's also responsible for The Final Cut

Am I the only one that thinks The Final Cut is their best album? I love his solo work, hate everything they've done without him, so, yeah, I'm personally fine with calling him the founder, for all intents and purposes.

*wanders off humming Post War Dream*
posted by Aversion Therapy at 7:51 AM on August 7, 2010 [3 favorites]


I'm with you some of the way Aversion Therapy, it's definately in the top three. By we must remember Syd, the man was stark raving genius.

*wanders off to listen to Dub Side of the Moon*
posted by hardcode at 8:35 AM on August 7, 2010


Obscured by Burkas?

Am I the only one that thinks The Final Cut is their best album?

No, there's a large contingent of misguided people out there suffering from the same affliction. Final Cut was a Roger Waters solo album that just sounds better than the rest of his solo stuff because he managed to trick the guys into putting up with him for the recording thereof.

I kind of love Roger but mostly despite his own best efforts to prevent it. He was a key part of a (post-Syd) band that wasn't the same without him, but the band also managed to keep him in check and in tension with Gilmour in a way that produced better output than either did apart.
posted by cortex at 8:50 AM on August 7, 2010


I'm a huge Floyd fan, but I do think, at times, that after the excellent run of DSoTM, WYWH, and Animals, they kind of ran into a problem of defining themselves as a "album band" who always had to try to top themselves. Where do you go after that and still manage to 1) create a cohesive work and 2) be even bigger than before? Full-scale rock opera, it seems. (Don't get me wrong, I love The Wall, typical of a rocker my age.) And it seems the band found it easier to have a single focus through which to funnel their ideas -- creating a "whole" work as a collaborative process is much more difficult than having an outline presented by a single person to use as a framework for the group. And Waters, having created the themes for those three albums that were so successful, just seems to have jumped the shark a bit and gotten too full of his own vision.

Honestly, The Final Cut is my least listened-to Floyd album. I don't even own a copy, which may be a character flaw or something.
posted by hippybear at 9:07 AM on August 7, 2010


Piper > Saucerful > Atom Heart Mother > Dark Side > Meddle > Wish You Were Here
posted by purephase at 9:13 AM on August 7, 2010


The real question is where you rank Ummagumma.
posted by shakespeherian at 9:19 AM on August 7, 2010


Depends on my mental faculties...

I like the video.
posted by purephase at 9:31 AM on August 7, 2010


I was in a basement jazz club somewhere in the Netherlands about fifteen years ago and they were playing ummagumma to a sort of celluloid projected light show, it was so ridiculously posy I went off the album. The one that makes it most often to my playlist these days is WYWH, which I think means I'm older and grumpier than I used to be. Oh Syd, I wish I still loved you like I used to. I blame the Dutch.
posted by shinybaum at 9:37 AM on August 7, 2010


I tend to find the Syd-era stuff kind of annoying and prefer the Waters era.

Then again, Pink Floyd's probably the only band from before about 1976 or so that I find listenable, so that may have something to do with it.
posted by Pope Guilty at 10:22 AM on August 7, 2010


A more appropriate choice. (nsfw language)
posted by basicchannel at 10:34 AM on August 7, 2010


The Final Cut is perhaps the best Floyd album ever, perhaps even because Waters made it himself.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 5:03 PM on August 7, 2010 [1 favorite]


Watching this video, it occurs to me that U.S. forces are trying to win the hearts and minds of the wrong generation.
posted by Doohickie at 7:20 PM on August 7, 2010


(in Iraq and Afghanistan, I mean...)
posted by Doohickie at 7:21 PM on August 7, 2010


« Older I was two second’s away from shaking Claudia down...   |   And what happens if they get the munchies? Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments