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Song Info
Genre
Charts
Peak #200
Peak in subgenre #25
Author
Pink Floyd
Rights
1979
Uploaded
April 26, 2018
Track Files
MP3
MP3 4.2 MB • 128 kbps • 4:36
Story behind the song
At this point in the album, protagonist Pink has lost hope ("You cannot reach me now") and his thinking has decayed, bringing to mind the "worms". In his hallucination, he is a fascist dictator, fomenting racist outrage and violence, as begun in the preceding song, "Run Like Hell". The count-in is Eins, zwei, drei, Hammer — the first three words being a count in German for "one, two, three". In the beginning and end the crowd chants "Hammer", a recurring representation of fascism and violence in The Wall.
The song is a slow, leaden march in G Major, begun with David Gilmour and Roger Waters alternating calm and strident voices, respectively. Waters takes over with an extended vamp on A minor, musically similar to the album's earlier "The Happiest Days of Our Lives". Through a megaphone, he barks strident, racist invective ("Waiting to put on a black shirt . . . for the queens and the coons and the reds and the Jews"). After an extended rant, Gilmour's calmer voice returns, chuckling warmly with the promise that his followers will "see Britannia rule again" and "send our coloured cousins home again," with Waters concluding "All you need to do is follow the worms!"
Finally, the song plunges into a minor-key musical theme -- root, major second, minor third, major second—that has recurred throughout the album, as the main theme to "Another Brick in the Wall", the instrumental section of "Hey You", and will be heard in the album's climax, "The Trial". The riff is repeated in E minor, with E minor and D Major chords played atop it on keyboards. From the megaphone, Waters's bigoted rant lapses into incomprehensibility, while the music and the crowd's chanting grows louder. Finally, the song abruptly halts with a shout of "Stop!"
Lyrics
Eins, zwei, drei, alle
You cannot reach me now
No matter how you try
Goodbye, cruel world, it's over
Walk on by
Sitting in a bunker here behind my wall
Waiting for the worms to come
In perfect isolation here behind my wall
Waiting for the worms to come
Waiting to cut out the deadwood
Waiting to clean up the city
Waiting to follow the worms
Waiting to put on a black shirt
Waiting to weed out the weaklings
Waiting to smash in their windows and kick in their doors
Waiting for the final solution to strengthen the strain
Waiting to follow the worms
Waiting to turn on the showers and fire the ovens
Waiting for the queers and the coons and the reds and the Jews
Waiting to follow the worms
Would you like to see Britannia rule again,
My friend?
All you have to do is follow the worms
Would you like to send our coloured cousins home again,
My friend?
All you need to do is follow the worms.
