Bob Ezrin – harmonium, Hammond organ, piano.Roger Waters – vocals (verse), acoustic guitar.David Gilmour – vocals (chorus), bass guitar, 12-string acoustic guitar, electric guitar.This change ties in with a brief subplot in the film where Pink contracts a fever after caring for a sick rat that died from it. One line of the lyrics, "Is it just a waste of time", became "Mother, am I really dying", as the original LP lyrics read. She insists that Pink stay by her side even after he grows up, and cannot stand it when Pink eventually grows older and falls in love.įor the film, the song was re-recorded completely with the exception of David Gilmour's guitar solo. The listener learns of the overprotectiveness of Pink's mother, who is helping Pink build his wall to try to protect him from the outside world, evidenced by the line "Of course Momma's gonna help build the wall," spoken by Pink's mother. The song narrates a conversation by Pink (voiced by Waters) and his mother (voiced by Gilmour). As told through the song "Mother", part of Pink's sense of alienation comes from being raised by an overprotective single mother, who lost her husband, Pink's father, in World War II. The Wall tells the story of Pink, an embittered and alienated rock star. The single mother of boys, particularly, can make sex harder than it needs to be." Plot Waters explained to Mojo magazine that the song is about "the idea that we can be controlled by our parents' views on things like sex. The song ends on the subdominant, C major, which may create an "unfinished" or "dissatisfying" feeling. Finally, the song concludes with an arrangement stripped back down to one acoustic guitar and Waters's voice, and a ritardando in which Waters sings, "Mother, did it need to be so high?", a reference to the metaphorical wall constructed by the character Pink. Waters sings another verse, which is once more followed by Gilmour's chorus (with different lyrics). Then a guitar solo follows over a chord progression in 4/4 time. The chorus, sung by David Gilmour, starts out on two measures of 4/4 before going into 6/8 (or "compound duple meter") for most of the chorus, in a narrative response to the first set of lyrics. The song has a short introduction, consisting only of a sharp inhalation and rapid exhalation before the first verses are sung by Roger Waters. The song begins quietly with solo voice and a single acoustic guitar, and gradually expands its instrumentation to include, by song's end, reed organ, piano, drums, electric bass, and electric guitar. Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason found these time-signature changes difficult to learn, and, with the band recording on a very tight schedule, ceded the drumming duties to session drummer Jeff Porcaro. The song is notable for its varied use of time signatures, such as 5/8 and 9/8. The majority of the song is in G major, though the chorus is predominantly a plagal cadence in C major.