The following text was written in 2013, shortly after I saw the show by Roiger Waters in the Olypmic Stadium in Berlin.
When I was 14, I wanted to watch The Wall in 1990 in Berlin on televison. On ZDF, a German public TV station. I remember that as if it was yesterday. But my mother did not let me. It would be too late! 10 PM! – What can you do about that? I argued, I lamented – did I rebel against it? The latter, rather not, althoughn there were plenty of reasons to do so. Instead, I bought the double cassette (!) edition of the show later. This was also the first music I ever purchased. This made me an outsider compared to my classmates.
Tears in my eyes
Meanwhile, I have moved to Berlin and last Wednesday, I went to see the show of Roger Waters. Therefore, one aspect in my life came to a closure since I managed to see that concert I have been denied to do so, although without Brian Adams, Sinead O’Connor, or Klaus Meine. Back then “The Wall” was some sort of orientation for me, although I did not understand what ir was all about with these worms and these bricks. Later, I researched about “The Wall” and was suprised about the divide of the critiques found on the one hand about the good music and the over-the-top pathos on the other. Yet, for me, the greatness of the album was obvious.
Before the concert, I read some articles in a similar tone while critizising pathos, Waters’ narcissism as well as his (alleged) self-obsession was most prominent. As if they wanted to get rid of they shame they are feeling for Waters.
After the first song, I had tears in my eyes already.
Yet, I could not helpo but notice the pathos, narcissism, and self-obession of Roger. But, I believed to know the answer to the “why”: Waters has lost his father early on.
If I may phrase this in more general terms, there is not much news: Roger Waters is doing quite a huge deal of self-therapy through The Wall.
Privileged Self-Therapy
He can do this in a way not many of us can, because they do not have such an enormous stage. One may distinguish though bewteen, on the one hand, the therapeutical act itself and, on the other, the over-the-dop presentation. Because, therapy does not need a stage, though, (self)presentation does. While doing this, Waters is, in my humble opinion, a prisoner of himself. He just can not help it. It’s the greatness of the hurt child according to Alice Miller.
More precisely: It’s the drive or the wish for greatness of the hurt child, which is looking for one thing while being great and that is to avoid the very own emotions, or they would just be too overwhelming otherwise. By being great, in other words: by performing in the true sense of the term, the child can find joy in the acknowledgement from others and therfore does not have to face its own pain.
The Drama of the Gifted Child
This will backfire at one point, according to Miller, because supression is merely compensation and not actual processing. These feelings are painful, hence, they have to be avoided.
Yet, why does avoidance need to be channeled into pathos or in a general accusation of the entire world?
I do not know. All I can say is that there are parallels to my life: When my father took his life when I was eleven years old and when my mother became then mentally ill, I have lost both my parents as a matter of fact. And I did have a similar, if not the same, tendecny to “greatness”, just like Roger did.
For example, I thought I can only be loved when I do “perform”, so it would be better to perform “greatly”. Also, dividing the world into good and bad, black and white, right and wrong, and additionally demanding radical change not to say: accusing and sentencing the alleged guilty, are traits I am familiar with (cf. the piece: The Trial).
Pathos and Narcissism
I would have loved, as the good king, to rid the world from its maladies, not knowing this would equal absolutism which actually had to be fought (and still is). Also, a somewhat distorted relation to the other sex is not exactly totally new to me. Mother and Young Lust describe, on the one hand, the suffocating and therfore exaggerated love of your own mother, who is longing for her son since her husband is lost (Waters staged this congenially as the mother-like surveillance state) and, on the other hand, the equally exaggerated lust for the female sex, which appears obsessive with an inclination towards catharsis, yet without any trace of love but instead driven by performance.
The Wall therefore is narcissistic and Wates knows it: He notes it himself when a video displays him in former times during the show. At the same time, as an audience member, I did not buy into this insight fully after having seen him just minutes ago entering the stage with fists in the air and the expression of arrogant self-certitude on his face. All of this has the connotation of self-staging. Understandably though when you’re aware that you are observing a hurt child. A child which has lost his father early—way too early.
As stated previously, Waters was lucky to process his loss in a way only a few are able to do. Probably only some might pity a (I assume) millionaire while processing his grief. Even lesser so in primnarily economically driven times.
Protracted Processing of Trauma
At the same time, Waters’ case depicts the tediousness of a grief process. Losing a parent when being a child demands a portracted process of grief and trauma not many can imagine. Had Waters already overcome his loss, according to a theses, he probably would not stage The Wall at all or at least not with the same attitude and similar general accusations. (I came across the antitheses that even without this pain you can be creative, thanx to Midnight Gospel.)
So, you could turn away from all this staging, being disgusted by its pathos and narcissism. You could also, in turn, accept that this is a proiment example of childhood pain taking its toll and that the impact of this pain has not been acknowledged by many, because they would not come forth with their critique in the same way otherwise.
Or, on a longer shot, these very critics have experienced something similar and their critique is nothing more than a defence mechanism in order to fight off the pain of which they are remembered by Waters.
In both cases, I think, The Wall needs to be listened to more than ever from this perspective – and maybe even performed. Waters’ example refers to the question how we handle processing grief. No matter if we have been confronted with this when being a child or not.
Griefing as a Child
The irony according to the critique on Waters’ rock opera and its alleged pathos is that it is more up to date than ever, especially when looking at its creator and that being up to date has almost nothing to do with the original intention of the very creator of this rock opera: Apparently, when it comes to grief, especially the grief of children, we still do not deal with it properly, so even a 75-year old feels the urge, painful for others to watch, to put his grief on display.
Addendum: A couple of years later, I, accidentally, listened to an interview with Waters on BBC Radio. He told a story about meeting an older man who visited him backstage. Waters describes how this man, who was about the age of his father then, says to him: „Your father would be proud!“
When Waters utters these words, his voice stumbles, subtly though, but you can feel how this line echoes in his heart. The yearning for his father, the grief, it all bubbles up at once and he suffocates it — short before tears are filling his eyes, it seems.
I don’t know if it was due to the reverence of the radio host or due to Waters’ sometimes rather harsh manners, of which the host could understandably shy away from, that the latter does not go into this any further.
