Bring the Boys Back Home

Exerpt from a 1979 Roger Waters interview:

Waters: "...and that snaps him back to then and it precedes, what is for me anyway, is the central song on the whole album 'Bring the Boys Back Home' "

Interviewer (T. Vance): "Why?"

Waters: "Well, because it's partly about not letting people go off and be killed in wars, but it's also partly about not allowing rock and roll, or making cars or selling soap or getting involved in biological research or anything that anybody might do, not letting that become such an important and "jolly boys game" that it becomes more important than friends, wives, children, other people."

This is not my interpretation of the song, but Waters'.

Bring the boys back home from war. Don't make their children fatherless. Follow the story..

This is another that can't stand out on it's own..

Bring the men back to their familys. Their death waste perfectly good ordinary lives. Listen to "When the Tigers Broke Free" for a better understanding

"Wrong! Do it again!" "Time to go!" (Knock knock knock knock) "Are you feeling okay?" "There's a man answering but he keeps hanging up!" "Is there anybody out there?"

It all has to do with the wall album story, with pink losing his father.

the scene with this song is one of my favorites from the movie.

What's so odd about it kornchild? Pink Floyd did a lot of stuff that was a little out of the ordinary- that's what makes them so great..and the fact the song that is just a chorus and still sounds really, really inspiring is a credit to them.

According to Roger this song is about not letting anything (including war) become so important that you forget about what's really important to you. I would have thought it was about bringing people back from the war, but Roger said in an interview that that's what it's about. I guess it's open to interpratation anyway, though. ^_^

It's more than literal, werumm. girfanman is right, this song is about the importance of family, society, relationships. He hates the war because it destroys these things needlessly, resulting in people creating walls around themselves. Not just wars, but also meaningless jobs, etc.

why the hell can't we edit our posts? Anyways, I don't think a literal interpretation of this song is wrong, it's just that the authors intended for this song to say more than what is at the surface.