#[insert the 20 page essay I wrote for my narratology class]

[asurrogateblog]

David's Role in The Wall

as always my favorite hobby is Reading Into Things about the concert tour of the wall, and this week's topic is: "since roger is clearly supposed to be playing pink, then 'who' - if anyone - is david?" obviously david sings a good portion of the songs, and in the audio-only album its easy to say "they're both pink who cares" but in the live show, the audience isn't just listening, they're also essentially watching a play, so it matters if two different people have 'lines' for the same character***

...and one interesting thing I noticed is that david never sings lines in which pink is speaking directly to another character. whenever it's his turn, he's either speaking to no one in particular (young lust), as a voice pink has internalized (mother), is physically obstructed by the wall (hey you), or is singing at the same time as roger (run like hell). when its time for pink to actually speak out loud, roger takes over. "well what about comfortably numb?" nobody asks. well, if you watch the concert videos, when david begins his verses in comfortably numb, roger (playing the doctor) freezes still – indicating that pink is thinking that, not saying it.

my conclusion from all of this is that yes, they are both pink, but its not arbitrary. roger is the "real" pink***, and david is a storytelling device that represents pink's internal dialogue, as well as different facets of his psychology that were not outwardly expressed during the album's events.

(***remember that "in the flesh?" takes place at the opening of one of pink's concerts, so during the shows for the actual tour of the wall, the concert itself is -part of- the storyworld. the live show is not roger telling the audience pink's life story, it's pink (played by roger) telling the audience his own life story. the narrative implications of this have done irreparable damage to my psyche)