| "Waiting for the Worms" | ||||
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| Song by Pink Floyd from the album The Wall | ||||
| Released | 30 November 1979 (UK), 8 December 1979 (US) | |||
| Recorded | April–November, 1979 | |||
| Genre | Art rock, progressive rock, hard rock, rock opera | |||
| Length | 4:04 | |||
| Label | Harvest Records (UK) Columbia Records (US)/Capitol Records (US) |
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| Writer | Waters | |||
| Producer | Bob Ezrin, David Gilmour, James Guthrie and Roger Waters | |||
| The Wall track listing | ||||
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"Waiting for the Worms" (working title "Follow the Worms") is a song from the 1979 Pink Floyd album The Wall.[1][2] It is preceded by "Run Like Hell" and followed by "Stop".
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At this point in the album, story protagonist, Pink, has lost all hope and has let bad ideas, the "worms", control his thoughts. In his hallucination, he is a fascist dictator who spreads hatred, with the promise that his followers would see "Britannia rule again" and "send our coloured cousins home again," and announces he is "waiting to turn on the showers and fire the ovens." The count-in is Eins, zwei, drei, Alle — German for "one, two, three, everybody". In the beginning and end the crowd chants "Hammer", a word that is a recurring theme on The Wall, particularly in the film.
The song is quite strident but starts out quietly, then at 1:21 a voice yelling from a megaphone starts providing a commentary-like speech, and continues at 1:26, where the song proceeds into a very heavy section. For the rest of the song it switches back and forth from heavy to calm, the different voices coming in at different times, until the very end where the voice from the megaphone begins very desperate calls and the music and the crowd's chanting grows louder, making the voice incomprehensible. In the film version, it goes to an animated sequence with marching hammers. Also, at some points a riff from "Another Brick in the Wall" can be heard.
The imagery features a cartoon segment with some teenagers (the same ones from "In the Flesh?") running over a rag doll replica of Pink. He then shouts through a megaphone while his followers march through the street. Following the images of the fascist crowd, the screaming head and a fascist breaking a man's skull from "What Shall We Do Now?", a dog biting meat off a hook then consumed by a larger one (from the Animals tour), and the famous goose-stepping hammer sequence, we see Pink yell "Stop".
As with "Run Like Hell," the movie version of the song was considerably altered from the album version. Following the opening harmonies, it goes right into Pink's shouted instructions, but it omits the following:
--the line about "turning on the showers and firing the ovens" --the line about "the coons and the Reds and the Jews"
Additionally, all of David Gilmour's vocals except for his line "Would you like to see Brittania rule again" have been edited out, while Pink's shouted instructions at the end of the song are extended over the "Marching Hammers" montage.
In the concerts of The Wall, a member of Pink Floyd, often Waters, would wear a dictator uniform. Gilmour would provide the high pitched "Ooooh, you cannot reach me now, ooooooh!" The song would build up until the lights extinguish in preparation to introduce the "Pink puppet" that sings "Stop". The marching hammers animation would be displayed on a circular screen above the stage during concerts.[3]
Later concerts, performed by Waters after his departure from the band, featured a similar scene. Backing singers provided Gilmour's lines, and most memorably in the 2010-2012 tour of The Wall, the song ended with the marching hammers filling the entire wall.
The full, uncut animation shown at the concert begins with a cartoon image of a hill. On top of the hill are indistinct objects, moving. Suddenly, as the guitar leitmotif plays briefly, the sky goes dark grey, a symbol of evil. The scene scrolls down to reveal London being enveloped in darkness as "Would you like to see..." and the rest of the verse is sung. Then, an abandoned tricycle is shown, as "Would you like to send..." and the rest of that verse is sung. An abandoned playground is shown as the final verse is sung. Then a viaduct appears, where something is goose-stepping. At long last it is revealed to us that the objects on the hill, what possibly scared the children and what was under the viaduct, are marching hammers. As the fascist dictator shows increasing desperation, louder and angrier, there is a whip pan in to the hammers, and as the camera pans there is a sudden, loud, abrupt instrumental sound, which is quickly replaced by a piano. The animation stops, as the audience is taken into "Stop".
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