The opener of the second half of The Wall, “Hey You” begins with a sense of foreboding, setting the tone for the bitter feelings of alienation that comprise the remainder of the album. She’s still alive, 100 years old and going strong, retired after a final single, “I Love This Land,” commemorating the end of the Falklands War. “ Vera, Vera, what has become of you?” sings Waters. Millions of people died, and no one will ever meet them again in heaven or anywhere else. “Vera” is the elegy “We’ll Meet Again” pretended to be: a hopeless cry of rage, set to sweeping strings that sees into the flat truth of war. What does it mean to those who never met their loved ones again? “We’ll Meet Again” must have comforted thousands, but Waters sees through the bullshit.

Waters’ father went off to war and they never met again. What’s less tangible is what “We’ll Meet Again” really meant to those who grew up in the shadow of the war, and when Waters asks, “ Does anybody else in here feel the way I do?” he’s looking for affirmation that others who saw it as no more than a cheap joke.

It’s clichéd now, and it probably already was by 1979, when Waters included “Vera” on The Wall. Strangelove, inspiring its use in innumerable World War II films in the same way Apocalypse Now made Creedence Clearwater Revival’s music all but synonymous with helicopters flying over the Mekong River. Stanley Kubrick used it for the apocalyptic coda of Dr. Who doesn’t? Vera Lynn was the singer of “We’ll Meet Again,” the 1939 hit whose faint promise resonated with families and soldiers during World War II and has become inexorably a song of death in the ensuing decades. “ Does anybody here remember Vera Lynn?” cries Roger Waters. Here are what we consider Pink Floyd’s 20 best tracks. Though the band has been defunct for a long time, Pink Floyd is one of classic rock’s most beloved groups. It’s no surprise that all of the songs come from the period before Roger Waters left the band. In concert with our recent podcast about Pink Floyd, we at Spectrum Culture decided to rank the band’s 20 best songs.

Reddit ranking all pink floyd albums