| Released | November 30, 1979(UK) December 8, 1979(US) June 23, 1980(single) |
| Recorded | January - November, 1979 |
| Genres | Progressive rock • hard rock |
| Studio | Britannia Row • Super Bear • Miraval • 30th Street • Producers Workshop • Cherokee |
| Length | 4:15(The Wall) 4:23(Is There Anybody Out There?) 5:10(Live in Berlin) 4:41(In the Flesh) 4:42(Roger Waters: The Wall) |
| Label | Harvest(UK) Columbia/CBS(US) |
| Vocalists | Roger Waters • David Gilmour |
| Songwriters | Roger Waters • David Gilmour |
| Producers | Roger Waters • David Gilmour • Bob Ezrin • James Guthrie |
"In the Flesh" is a song by the English rock band Pink Floyd which features as the twenty-first track on their 1979 rock opera The Wall. It is a reprise of the opening track from the album, "In the Flesh?" and follows the main character of the album, Pink, through a hallucination where he believes himself to be a fascist dictator during a concert. The song shares its title with Pink Floyd's 1977 tour of their album Animals, and songwriter Roger Waters' four-year touring campaign from 1999 to 2000. The tracks title was inspired by Waters' negative feelings about the Animals tour, where he fantasized about building a wall between himself and the audience to minimize interaction.
Music[]
It is musically very similar to "In the Flesh?" and similarly begins with the same distorted guitar riff and keyboard progression. Unlike its counterpart, "In the Flesh" features a choir sequence before the lyrical section of the song begins, and the song contains an altered first verse with an additional second verse. The ending of the song is also changed; instead of Waters shouting stage directions followed by the sound of a German Stuka dive-bomber flying over the audience, the explosive ending of the song is not masked by sound effects and ends with Pink's audience shouting "Pink! Floyd!"
"In the Flesh" takes heavy inspiration from an incident on July 6th, 1977, the final night of the Animals tour, where Roger Waters had spat on a disruptive fan mid-performance. Waters had this to say about the incident in the liner notes of Is There Anybody Out There? The Wall Live 1980-81, a live album of The Wall.
"I realised that what had once beeen a worthwhile and manageable exchange between us (the band) and them (the audience) had been utterly perverted by scale, corporate avarice and ego…I had a very vivid image of an audience being bombed – of bombs being lobbed from the stage – and a sense that those people getting blown to bits would go absolutely wild with glee at being at the centre of the action."
Plot[]
Shot up on drugs in order to be able to perform at his concert, Pink hallucinates himself as a fascist dictator and the concert as a rally. He spends a good portion of the song ordering his fans to commit violence against various minorities, to which many of them oblige.
Alternative versions and live performances[]
Film version[]
The film version of "In the Flesh" is an orchestral rendition played by the orchestra at what Pink believes is the fascist rally he is trying to conduct.