When the Tigers Broke Free
| When the Tigers broke free | |
|---|---|
| Pink Floyd | |
| publication | 26 July 1982 |
| length | 4:20 |
| Genre (s) | Rock music , progressive rock |
| text | Roger Waters |
| album | The Wall |
When the Tigers Broke Free is a Pink Floyd song by Roger Waters that describes the death of his father Eric Fletcher Waters at the Battle of Anzio (code name Operation Shingle ) during the Italian campaign of World War II.
Emergence
The song was originally titled Anzio, 1944 . The working title was When The Tigers Break Through and was written at the same time as The Wall - hence the copyright date 1979 - and was originally intended to be part of this album, but was rejected by the other members of the band on the grounds that it was too personal. It was then recorded and included in the film version of The Wall , and released on July 26, 1982 (running time 3:00 min) as a separate track on a 7 "single before appearing in the film. The single was titled Taken From the album The Final Cut , but was only released on this album when the CD was reissued in 2004.
The single version is a unique mix and is different from the versions that appear in the film and all subsequent releases. It has a different intro that is shorter than most of the other versions. The first verse uses a vocal recording that has never appeared on any other release of the track. This recording also includes various percussion accents - short snare roll fills throughout the track.
text
The song sets the premise for the film The Wall, which recreates footage of Britain's contribution to Operation Shingle, the Anzio Campaign, in which American and British forces from the US VI Corps landed on the beaches at Anzio, Italy to free Rome from German control. These forces included the Z Company of the 8th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment), in which Waters' father Eric served. The battalion served alongside the 9th Royal Fusiliers and the 7th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, under the command of the 167th (London) Infantry Brigade, the 56th (London) Infantry Division. As Waters tells it, the commandant had asked to withdraw his troops from a German tiger tank attack, but the generals refused, "and the generals thanked / while the other ranks / held the enemy tanks back for a while / and the Anzio bridgehead was held Price / Hundreds of Ordinary Lives "when the Tigers finally broke through the British defenses, killing the entire Z Company, including Eric Waters.
In the second verse of the song (which later makes up the recapitulation in The Wall film), Waters describes how he found a letter of condolence from the British government, described as a note from King George VI. in the form of a gold leaf scroll, which "His Majesty signed with his personal stamp." Waters' resentments explode in the last line: "And so the high command took my father from me."
The underlying theme of the song is one of the primary catalysts for the character Pink's descent into isolation throughout The Wall's story, especially in the movie version.
On February 18, 2014, exactly 70 years after his father's death in Anzio, Waters unveiled a memorial for the Z Company near the site of the battle. Another memorial had already been erected at the approximate point where his father fell. After many years of not knowing what happened on that fateful day, Waters finally came to a conclusion after the 93-year-old Fusilier and Anzio veteran Harry Schindler gave precise details of the time and place of the death of Waters' father. Both were present at the unveiling of the memorial.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Mark Blake: Comfortably Numb: The Inside Story of Pink Floyd . Da Capo Press , Cambridge, Massachusetts 2008, ISBN 978-0-306-81752-6 , pp. 13-14, 291.
- ↑ Marty Yawnick: Spare Brick: When The Tigers Broke Free . The Wall Complete. March 17, 2016. Retrieved April 24, 2017.
- ^ Edward D. Paule: A History of the Royal Fusiliers Company . Archived from the original on March 21, 2017. Retrieved November 26, 2011.
- ↑ Nick Pisa: Touching moment: Pink Floyd star visits World War II cemetery in Italy to honor his soldier father who died in heroic final stand . October 10, 2016. Retrieved January 10, 2019.
- ^ The Wall Analysis . Retrieved January 10, 2019.
- ^ Commonwealth War Graves Commission: WATERS, ERIC FLETCHER . Retrieved January 4, 2015.
- ^ Roger Waters Unveils Memorial To Late Father in Italy . Retrieved January 4, 2015.