Waiting for the Worms

                  Waiting For the Worms   by Pink Floyd               Neal Tougas

Ooooh, you cannot reach me now
Ooooh, 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

(Megaphone: Will the audience convene at one fifteen
outside Brixton Town Hall where we will be...)
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 queens and the coons and the Reds and the Jews).
Waiting (to follow the worms).
Would you like to see
(backgr: Would you like to see us rule again, my friend?)
Britannia rule again, my friend?
All you have to do is follow the worms.
Would you like to send
(backgr: Would you like to send them home again, my friend?)
Our colored cousins home again, my friend?
All you need to do is follow the worms.

        “The Wall” album was never about the poetry, rather than the message and the story.  However, there is poetry involved in every song, even if it is not intended.  “Waiting for the Worms,” by Pink Floyd, has many forms of poetry.  "The Worms" mentioned in the title, symbolizing the government, or his state of mind, and following it will create madness.  Figurative language is used in the first line where it says “You cannot reach me now.”  “Behind my wall” is a clear example of a metaphor.  It is a metaphoric wall built by his own depression to isolate himself from society.  The mood in this song, like most of the wall, is very dark.  This song is open, and angry.  The first person point of view is narrated by the fictional characters perspective, "Pink."  When he mentions "Britannia," he is using an allusion to the ancient term that refers to Great Britain.  "Waiting" is used at the beginning of almost every line to create parallel structure.  "Turn on the showers and fire the ovens," is a rascist allusion that is refering to the murdering of the Jewish people during the Holocaust.  You may not recognize many poetry terms when you listen to music, but it appears more than you think.