Get our Newsletter so you don't miss Pink Floyd News!

Pink Floyd History 1979

Home / Pink Floyd Timeline / Pink Floyd History 1979

In 1979, Pink Floyd released their iconic album “The Wall” on November 30th. This rock opera, primarily written by Roger Waters, explores themes of isolation and abandonment. The album was a commercial success, reaching number one in the US and number three in the UK. It featured hit singles like “Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2”, which became Pink Floyd’s only UK and US number-one single. The Wall was also notable for its elaborate live performances, which included theatrical effects and a massive wall constructed on stage in 1981. This album solidified Pink Floyd’s status as one of the most influential rock bands of all time.

Tensions Building in the Band

Lot 318 Gerald Scarfe Pink Floyd – The Wall The Teacher and the Mincing Machine, oil on canvas
Pink Floyd – The Wall The Teacher and the Mincing Machine, oil on canvas

The previous year, David Gilmour and Richard Wright had released solo albums and hadn’t contributed to the follow up to Animals. Roger penned most of The Wall and The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking (released as his first solo album). The fact that Roger turned up with a relatively polished concept for The Wall album, there was little room for the others to contribute even if they wanted to or could.

Nick Mason wrote, “The level of contributions by other members of the band would become a bone of contention. Perhaps the very completeness of Roger’s demo made it difficult for David or Rick to contribute much. But certainly David later felt his musical contributions, especially to Run Like Hell and Comfortably Numb was not being fairly recognised. This potential volcano of future discord was, however, still dormant when we started making rough versions of some of the tracks for The Wall at Britannia Row during the autumn of 1978″.

January – March 1979

1979 January Britannia Row Recording Sheet for The Wall
1979 January Britannia Row Recording Sheet for The Wall

Pink Floyd recording The Wall sessions continue

Pink Floyd opened the year by continuing recording sessions at their own Britannia Row Studios in London.

The recording process involved multiple sessions spread over several months, allowing the band to refine and develop the complex arrangements and themes that would define the album. In fact, the album was recording in seven different studios across four countries in 1979.

During the early stages of recording, the team spent much time working on a cohesive storyline through the Wall album. The character Pink did not exist at this stage but, as the piece developed, the fictional character Pink was born.

As for the storyline, all four producers made suggestions as to how to rearrange the songs to make them fit within the story better. Bob Ezrin even wrote The Wall story out in a 40 page storyboard, showing how he thought the songs might fit together.

Ezrin explained, “In my flat one night, I was up all night and wrote the script of The Wall. I brought it into the studio where we were rehearsing. It was like a film script. It had sound effects, dialogue, scene descriptions. The dialog was the lyrics to the extend that we had any.”

23 March 1979

The Wall Production Demo Created March 1979

A Rough Mix of The Wall was created following the recording sessions the band had done at Britannia Row Studios. This second production demo was the result of a lot of recordings and it was assembled to see how the story sat together. James Guthrie said, “We ended up re-recording most of the songs, but there were numerous elements from these early pieces that we hung onto”.

There was a track called “The Show” that opened the album, which later became In The Flesh. “Brick 1: Reminiscing” had an extended ending and ends with “You! Yes you behind the bike sheds, stand still, laddie”. Another track was Backs to the Wall which was a reprise of Empty Spaces. It was followed by What Shall We Do Now. It is a shame this song was edited off the album because it is a favourite of mine!

Side three of the album featured The Doctor which went on to become Comfortably Numb. This was contributed by David who made a great demo of it.

On side four, a song called “Its Never Too Late” went on to become The Show Must Go On. Also of interest was the piano track Trial By Puppet which went on to become The Trial.

Discover – You can hear the various mixes of The Wall in the Immersion Box Set released in 2012.

April 1979

1979 Pink Floyd Super Bear Studios
1979 Pink Floyd Super Bear Studios. Picture shows Nick Mason’s Honda 400, Roger Waters BMW and James Guthrie’s De Tomaso Pantera GTS.

The Wall moves to Super Bear Studios in France

Recording sessions for The Wall album moved to Super Bear studios in France. Sessions continued at Super Bear until the end of July. There were financial concerns about recording the album in England due to tax reasons. The bands finances were in a bad way following financial mismanagement by investment company Norton Warburg. If the band stayed in the UK there was a tax liability of £5-12 million hence the band moved over to France then the USA to complete the album. They had to be out of the country for the full tax year April 6th 1979 to April 5th, 1980.

Super Bear was a preferred album given that David Gilmour and Richard Wright had both recently recorded solo albums there. They were familiar with it. Pink Floyd sent James Guthrie and Phil Taylor to check the studio out ahead of the band arriving.

Guthrie recalled, “Phil and I got on a plane one weekend, flew down to France to take a look. The band had said “check it out and see if it will work but be quick we have to leave the country”. So we arrived at Super Bear Studios and I thought Oh God its a tiny little room. We’re going to record a Pink Floyd album in here? The gear also left a lot to be desired, but we ended up taking so much of our own equipment that it didn’t really matter. The first thing we did was rip half the carpet out. The studio had previously been a restaurant and the recording room actually had a marble floor that the dining tables were originally bolted to. Exposing the marble floor helped liven things up a bit”.

Most of the drum tracks you hear on the final mix were recorded at Super Bear except In The Flesh and Waiting for the Worms which were recorded at Britannia Row Studios, in the games room and in the first floor studio. James Guthrie did most of the recording.

Richard Wright was heavily criticised years later for not contributing. Rick worked hard with James Guthrie often working through the night without the rest of the band seeing his contribution and effort given. Richard would soon leave the band.

June – July 1979

1978 Miraval Recording Studio where Pink Floyd recorded most of The Wall album due to being tax exiles
1978 Miraval Recording Studio where Pink Floyd recorded most of The Wall album due to being tax exiles

The Wall Recording at Miraval Recording Studio in France

Dick Asher of CBS/Sony Records was very keen for the band to release the album before the end of the year. He offered to increase the amount of money invested into recording The Wall to get it done. Therefore additional recording sessions were held at Jacques Loussier’s Miraval Recording Studio in Provence, Le Val, France.

The studio is located in the south of France on the grounds of a 17th century Provencal chateau. As it was close to Roger’s own villa where he was staying with Nick Mason, he could pop over to the new studio whilst Super Bear was in use given the band were using multi-track recording.

Summer 1979

1979 Michael Kamen recording The Wall in USA
1979 Michael Kamen recording The Wall in USA

The Wall Orchestral Parts in New York City

Recording sessions were held at Columbia Studio in New York City by producer Bob Ezrin and Michael Kamen to record the orchestral sections and choir parts for the album. Supplemental recording sessions also took place at Soundstage Studios in Toronto, Canada.

Dig Deeper – Watch a brief clip of Michael Kamen recording

6 July 1979

1979 Pink Floyd The First XI Boxset
1979 Pink Floyd The First XI Boxset

Pink Floyd XI Limited Edition Boxset Released

Pink Floyd XI, a limited edition vinyl box set containing all of their albums to date, was released in the UK. This is a very collectible item with just 1,000 copies printed.

Read more about Pink Floyd First XI Boxset

11-12th August 1979

1979 James Guthrie with girlfriend Rachel Fury
1979 James Guthrie with girlfriend Rachel Fury

The Wall Second Rough Mix Created

A second rough mix of The Wall album was created in London by James Guthrie, from the recording done in France. The band took August off for a break from their hard work in the studio.

When assembling the recordings, James could not find the recording of the scream Roger did in Another Brick in the Wall Part 2. Given the band were in tax exile and couldn’t pop over to London to re-record, James set up a mic to record the telephone and called Roger to do the scream from France!

“I called him when I was putting the rough mixes together and said, ‘I don’t know why but the scream seems to have gone. Can you do it for me now on the phone?'”. James continued, “So I mic’d up a telephone, called the speaking clock to get a level, and spoke to Roger and said, ‘Do you mind doing this a few times?’.

It was just really funny because I’m in London, he’s in the south of France screaming backwards into the phone, and that’s the scream that ended up being on the album. I just wanted to have it in there, thinking we would probably replace it at some point. So, there was Roger standing in the foyer of a big house in France saying, ‘I can’t do this too many more times, you know. My family are looking at me very suspiciously”.

August 1979

2011 Behind The Wall Documentary
2011 Behind The Wall Documentary

Richard Wright Leaves Pink Floyd

Richard Wright was in a bad place and not contributing much to The Wall album which he was not very enthusiastic about. The band were away on holiday and Rick refused to come back to work to complete The Wall as soon as possible. Roger gave him an ultimatum and Rick. Rick did however complete the recording of The Wall and played as a session musician on the tour having legally left the band. The band would make heavy losses from the tour.

In the documentary, Behind The Wall, Pink Floyd discussed this period in the band’s history in their soundbites.

Rick – The wall I mean it’s a great album but I think it’s also right at the time when the band did actually break up

Roger – I was under a certain amount of pressure to finish this the project off and I tried to get rick to cooperate with me to achieving that end and he declined, and so our ways parted.

David – Rick just didn’t seem liked he wanted to take much part in it, and it was kind of a like a frustrating thing for all of us

Nick – Rick was probably split between a feeling of my God I don’t need any more of this and the sheer unpleasantness of Roger trying to boot him out

Rick – When a band has been together for so long, the decent and reasonable thing to do is to go to the guy whose not pulling his weight or contributing and say look,  there’s a problem here, what’s the problem, we can work this out, but no because of the way Roger was behaving at the time and who he was you couldn’t do that.

Roger – I read all this stuff about oh Roger did this or threw Rick out and roger was this and that and the other, I think I’ve passed the point in my path down my road and through all my psychotherapy or whatever that I no longer feel a strong urge to defend myself or take part in that conversation.

Rick – for myself it would have been hard of me to say I’m off I wanted to actually finish the album and do the shows, and I’m glad I did.

Links – Watch Behind The Wall documentary, Discuss Richard Wright leaves Pink Floyd

6-8 September 1979

1979 Pink Floyd Cherokee Studios Los Angeles
1979 Pink Floyd Cherokee Studios Los Angeles

Cherokee Studios Los Angeles

Three days of recording sessions took place at Cherokee Studios Los Angeles, California.

12 September 1979

Final Production of The Wall

Final productions, together with additional recording sessions, began at Producers Workshop in Los Angeles, California.

October 1979

Overdubs and finishing touches for The Wall

Overdubs and finishing touches for The Wall at Producers Workshop in Los Angeles, California.

Late October? 1979

1979 Pink Floyd Islington Green School Kids
1979 Pink Floyd Islington Green School Kids

Islington Green School Kids record Another Brick in the Wall Part Two 2nd Verse

The story behind the recording of “Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2” is quite interesting! The song was written by Roger Waters as a protest against rigid schooling and corporal punishment. The idea to include a children’s choir came from the producer, Bob Ezrin, who suggested adding a disco beat to the song.

To find the children’s voices, engineer Nick Griffiths contacted Islington Green School in London. He enlisted 23 students from the school, led by anti-establishment-minded music teacher Alun Renshaw, to sing on the track. The children were recorded singing the iconic lines, “We don’t need no education, we don’t need no thought control,” which became a rallying cry against oppressive schooling.

The recording session was a lot of fun for the kids, and it only took about an hour to complete. The children’s voices were then layered multiple times to create the powerful chorus that we hear on the track.

The inclusion of the children’s choir added a unique and memorable element to the song, making it one of Pink Floyd’s most famous and enduring hits.

Due to the shock and horror caused , the original children in the recording were banned from being involved in an promotional material. Other children were enlisted to record the music video.

Links Watch Another Brick in the Wall Part Two music video

6 November 1979

The Wall is sent for Mastering and Completing

Pink Floyd took their Wall recording from The Producers’ Workshop in Los Angeles to Mastering Lab, Inc which was next door. This process involves setting the final mix of the album.

16 November 1979

1979 Another Brick in the Wall Part 2 Single
1979 Another Brick in the Wall Part 2 Single

Pink Floyd release first single from The Wall, Another Brick In The Wall, Part 2

Pink Floyd’s single Another Brick In The Wall, Part 2 (B-side: One Of My Turns) was released in the UK. It was the group’s first UK single since Point Me At The Sky in 1968, and spent four weeks at No. 1 in the charts.

30 November 1979

1979 Pink Floyd original The Wall Vinyl
1979 Pink Floyd original The Wall Vinyl

Pink Floyd release The Wall album in the UK

Pink Floyd’s new album, The Wall, was released in the UK.

Tracklisting: In The Flesh?; The Thin Ice; Another Brick In The Wall, Part 1; The Happiest Days Of Our Lives; Another Brick In The Wall, Part 2; Mother; Goodbye Blue Sky; Empty Spaces; Young Lust; One Of My Turns; Don’t Leave Me Now; Another Brick In The Wall, Part 3; Goodbye Cruel World; Hey You; Is There Anybody Out There; Nobody Home; Vera; Bring The Boys Back Home; Comfortably Numb; The Show Must Go On; In The Flesh; Run Like Hell; Waiting For The Worms; Stop; The Trial; Outside The Wall. It reached No. 3 in the charts.

8 December 1979

Pink Floyd band outside the wall
Pink Floyd band outside the wall

Pink Floyd release The Wall album in USA

The Wall was released in the US and reached No. 1 in the charts.

Here are some of the biggest selling albums of 1979:

  • “The Wall” by Pink Floyd: This rock opera was a massive success, selling over 33 million copies.
  • “Spirits Having Flown” by Bee Gees: This album sold around 20 million copies and was another major hit of the year.
  • “Off the Wall” by Michael Jackson: Michael Jackson’s breakthrough solo album also sold about 20 million copies.
  • “Breakfast in America” by Supertramp: This album sold approximately 19 million copies.
  • “Highway to Hell” by AC/DC: This album sold around 9.4 million copies.
  • “The Long Run” by Eagles: This album sold about 7.8 million copies.
  • “Communique” by Dire Straits: This album sold around 7 million copies.
  • “In Through the Out Door” by Led Zeppelin: This album sold approximately 6.6 million copies.
  • “Christopher Cross” by Christopher Cross: This album sold about 6.2 million copies.
  • “Van Halen II” by Van Halen: This album sold around 5.4 million copies.

Sources –