Hitting the Wall
or
I Should've Been a Stoner

This weekend while unpacking still another box I came across one of my all time favorite cassettes. I know that it is a mark of still being in the stone age that I still have some cassettes, but I have a tough time replacing anything I can still use. On top of that this is one of the few albums that I can listen to start to finish any time without feeling the need to fast forward through any songs. The cassette in question was Pink Floyd's "The Wall". I remember really hearing this album in its' entirety for the first time as a teenager. It's of course been a classic with stoners for many years and to be honest most of my best friends at the time were dropping out of school and getting pretty heavily involved with drugs. I personally have never used drugs. Not even a little. Seeing my friends make bad decision after bad decision during this time probably went a long way in convincing me that I didn't really want to give it a go. I'm also very frightened about not being in control of myself and would find it hard to give up that control. Still the album is very good musically and lyrically and I love the way that it tells a story. I think they do a compelling job of documenting a man's descent into madness. From the loss of his father to an oppressive youth to a dependence on drugs to help him cope with wanting more out of the world than the harsh and often mundane reality. I think most of us have at the least felt this way at some time in our lives.
This will always be an all time favorite of mine which is probably even more curious since I've never gone to any great length to listen to other albums of theirs. Don't get me wrong I've heard them, but they lack the story and therefore the emotional impact that "The Wall" holds for me.