Talk:The Trial (song)/Archive 1

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BetacommandBot 04:58, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

"Many ignorant fans debate . . . ."
I think the whole paragraph beginning with "Many fans debate the significance of The Trial" can be deleted. There's no need for debate. Read a book. Roger Waters has stated in several interviews that "Pink" is putting himself on trial. (Personally, I wish he'd kept his usual silence, because I preferred my own interpretation, which was that reality was intruding upon Pink, that he was being forced on trial.) You can check Nicholas Schaffner's A Saucerful of Secrets (Schaffner did not interview Waters directly, but he quotes other interviews, with detailed end notes), or the Janet Huck interview in Pink Floyd Through the Eyes of the Band, its Fans, Friends, and Foes. Or check Phil Rose's Which One's Pink? Or any number of other sources. The paragraph should more correctly begin "Many ignorant fans debate . . . ." As it is, I removed the citeneeded from the concluding statement of the paragraph. Waters HAS damn well stated that Pink puts himself on trial. Repeatedly. Come to think of it, y'know what, I'm gonna go ahead and delete the paragraph. If anyone objects, they can restore it. I'm not gonna get into an edit war. --63.25.21.154 (talk) 11:34, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I went ahead and removed it. Because I feel bad about deleting someone else's work, I just turned the whole paragraph into a hidden comment, making it that much easier to restore. But it really doesn't need to be there, and I also just noticed, it doesn't belong in the "Composition" section, anyway. --63.25.21.154 (talk) 11:42, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Composition: Reference added
I'm the one who wrote the bulk of the "Composition", and I'm grateful it survived that long without a reference! Well, I've added the info for the crappy piano-and-voice songbook as my "reference", although without years of ear training, it's relatively worthless -- but it is where I started. --63.25.118.69 (talk) 21:35, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Ezrin's role
It would be notable if we could nail down exactly how much Bob Ezrin had to do with writing this song. Nicholas Schaffner's book indicates a few interesting things: Roger Waters allegedly told Ezrin, at the start of the project, "Write anything you want, just don't expect any credit". (Gilmour says Ezrin wrote "Is There Anybody Out There?") So, if Waters was withholding credit, why would he give Ezrin credit for "The Trial"? Was Ezrin's contribution that major? Did he, perhaps, write the whole song himself? Maybe even (gasp!) the lyrics?!? (I know! It feels sacrilegious to suggest anybody other than Waters wrote a Wall lyric!)  Ezrin has said he "rewrote" the record ("I used all of Roger's elements, but I rearranged their order and put them in a different form.  I wrote The Wall out in forty pages, like a book.") and acted as Waters's editor. Schaffner writes, "Bob would also in the end be yielded one credit, on 'The Trial' -- the Gilbert and Sullivan-esque, Roger-plus-orchestra finale that Ezrin himself had largely conceived with the aim of bringing together all the major characters in the Wall story." Then again, "The Trial" isn't (orchestration aside) all that different from Roger's other compositions on the album. Phil Rose points out (in Which One's Pink?, a musicological analysis of the major Floyd albums) that the main chord sequence of Em, F, Em, C, and B is the same as the verses to "Run Like Hell" (which, of course, David Gilmour co-wrote -- but one assumes Waters wrote the verse chords as he was writing the lyrics, with Gilmour's contribution being the big instrumental riff, not to mention the basic form of rhythmic echoes). Then, there's the recurring theme from "Another Brick"/"Hey You" near the end.

Then again, again, I would have said "Is There Anybody Out There?" was very typical of Roger Waters's compositional style. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.25.21.154 (talk) 14:37, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I think (just based on listening to/reading about The Wall for years) that it probably breaks down like this: Concept/piano composition = Ezrin // Lyrics = Waters. I have read, as someone mentioned above (or somewhere else) that Bob told Roger that something was really needed to tie this whole storyline together. Definitely not factual info, just input from a well-informed PF/Roger Waters fan. 72.226.78.94 (talk) 14:30, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Subjectivity?
Much of the Plot section is highly subjective, especially the section beginning with "hearing what mother, school master, and wife...". His building of the wall is not based on absurd reasons; on the contrary, his motherr even states that "of course mother's gonna help build the wall". And after all this Pink is the guilty party? Pink's building of the wall and his psychological traumas are the logical result of the loss of his father at an early age, a domineering mother, sadistic schoolmasters, and the temptations of fame. The Wall is about Pink's suffering, not how he caused others to suffer. If analyses so inconsistent with the rest of the album are to be made, they should have specific evidence supporting their claims.--Kshymanik (talk) 04:30, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * A good deal of this is opinion, based on someone's personal interpretation of a very complex piece, written by a very complex man. It's one thing to include sourced statements about the meaning of the song made by Waters himself. The rest should go.Mk5384 (talk) 15:56, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree that the plot discussion is way too subjective. For example, it is not at all certain that the judge's judgments show Pink to be actually guilty. I understood from the judge's incorrectness (Pink's wife and mother are anything but "exquisite") that the judge was being unfair. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.37.143.187 (talk) 23:50, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Rock Opera
I made an edit that seems obvious, regarding this song's musical genre... This is clearly a rock opera song. And my edit was almost immediately reversed with no comment. I am hereby requesting comments. 76.97.76.83 (talk) 05:44, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Rock opera isn't a genre.  Calidum Sistere   05:49, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Says who? I'd like to see more opinions about this here.  Thanks for replying though. 76.97.76.83 (talk) 15:59, 25 June 2013 (UTC)