Pink Floyd - Us and Them Lyrics Meaning

anonymous

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Mar 15th 2015 !⃝

All good music comes from within. You can't sit down and write a great song without inspiration. DSOTM is laced with Roger's angst. This song is related to him losing his father in WW2, when he was very young. It goes over a lot of specifics about war, being in the military, being a veteran myself I can relate to this as the viewpoint of many veterans.

"Us and them" refers to the opposing forces, nameless and faceless

"And after all we're only ordinary men" Heros, ordinary people who do an extraordinary thing

"Me and you" Now it gets to a personal individual level, Roger lets us into his head

"God only knows It's not what we would choose to do" Nobody in their right mind would choose to go to war except power trippers. But somebody has to and so ordinary people, like Roger's dad, go to defend their homes and family and way of life. So you do what has to be done. Unfortunately, some don't make it back. So we move on to the bottom line of who is to blame for that.

"Forward he cried from the rear
And the front rank died" Setting up the following line.

"And the general sat
And the lines on the map
Moved from side..." The short version is the general who had to order Roger's dad to his death, came home and Mr Waters didn't.

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