Roger Waters says part of The Wall has Led Zeppelin to thank as he ‘doesn’t remember’ big moment

An unlikely band is to thank for a part of Pink Floyd‘s The Wall, according to songwriter Roger Waters.

Part of the film adaptation of the 1979 album is influenced by Led Zeppelin, with Waters confirming the Stairway to Heaven hitmakers were a massive influence on the production. The bassist behind The Wall confirmed he had “borrowed from other people’s lives” when making both the record and the movie. One such life is that of Led Zeppelin members, and though he didn’t specify which member, he did confirm one or more of the members played a big part in The Wall. The album would also take parts of Pink Floyd founder Syd Barrett’s life, and major themes related to Waters’ own upbringing and personal relationships.

Waters said: “It’s about a sort of self-imposed alienation. It’s about being too frightened to open up to other people. It’s about how fear alienates us from our fellow man. It’s largely autobiographical.

“On the record and in the movie, I have borrowed from other people’s lives. There’s a bit of Syd Barrett in there. I don’t remember throwing a TV out of a window (as in the film). That’s something out of Led Zeppelin.”

Waters would also confirm the album had some obvious references to his own life. He told Q Magazine in 1987: “But music is only mathematics anyway. It is another way of interpreting maths. Musical intervals are also mathematical intervals.

“But let me say that I never saw any music in maths. It was all complete drudgery to me. I was completely uninterested in it. I could never see the beauty of mathematical relationships.” What may have inspired The Wall is Waters’ architectural studies, which he carried out for two years before being kicked off the course for not attending a specific set of lectures.

He recalled: “I started studying Architecture but they slung me out after two years for refusing to attend History of Architecture lectures. I was very bloshie. I must have been horrible to teach. But the History lecture that I came up against was very reactionary, so it was a fair battle.”

Waters says he “couldn’t handle it” and compared it to school when the class were told to copy from the blackboard, which the teacher was “copying” out of a textbook. Waters went on to say he could get “great pleasure” from woodworking, which brought daily satisfaction, and praised the “erosion” which comes from the daily use of furniture.

He said: “There’s something very nice about the human body slowly eroding a piece of timber. I always like pieces of wood that are worn from having had horses tethered to them and that have become lovely and smooth, allowing you to see the grain.”

These comments led to Waters reflecting on whether his background in studying architecture, albeit for two years, had influenced the making of The Wall.

He said: “Well, maybe. Maybe the architectural training to look at things helped me to visualise my feelings of alienation from rock ‘n’ roll audiences. Which was the starting point for The Wall.