“What shall we use to fill the empty spaces…?”

Pink Floyd – The Wall Complete [Extended Version]

— A Fan Restoration —

Previous: Read about why I felt The Wall Complete was needed

Rebuilding The Wall

Throughout this site, I refer to a personal copy of an extended edit of the album. It’s a reconstruction of Pink Floyd The Wall using all available sources. In it, I’ve also added some of the “bits and bobs of ideas” which didn’t make it to the album but later appeared in the film and The Final Cut. All in all, my version restores over 20 minutes to the album. I created this version to fill in the gaps and to get a better, more complete picture of the scope of The Wall.

This is different than the excellent Immersion edition of Pink Floyd The Wall. It’s not a cleaned-up edit of the movie soundtrack. It’s not a collection of quality outtakes (although having access to any legendary Spare Bricks recordings would have been really awesome).

I’ve spent years reassembling and restoring Pink Floyd The Wall. This is as complete a version as I can create without access to all the studio goodies that Pink Floyd may still have in the vaults. Call it a fan edit. Or a fanboy edit. For me, it’s more of a reconstruction. I think that these restorations make the album sound like a more cohesive piece.

Tap here to skip to a detailed track-by-track list of edits below.

For the additions and edits, I simply tried to enhance and expand upon the musical and dramatic ideas in the original album. Most importantly, any changes had to sound like they belonged. They also needed to enhance the overall narrative of the work. It couldn’t just be different or longer for the sake of being different or longer—it also had to preserve the cohesion of the overall story.

I started from the excellent 1994 UK remaster. From there, I mixed and edited in various segments from the film, the live version, The Final Cut, singles, and other sources. I tried to start from the best available source, but the quality of the source material was varied. I’ve done my best to clean up and balance levels, noise, over-compression, distortion, and other noise.

Reassembling from all of these various sources, I was able to recreate missing sections of “In The Flesh?”, “The Thin Ice”, “Run Like Hell” and many of the other parts that were trimmed for running time. Nearly every track here has been reedited. The results are at the very least listenable and often pretty seamless.

Although the excellent Immersion edition is comprehensive in its content, it lacks an extended, restored version of The Wall. Also missing are the never-released The Wall: Spare Bricks or the promo versions that many fans had hoped would be included on some of its seven discs. This version is my contribution to help fill that gap.

This version is about as complete as I can get it with the available source materials. It’s not perfect, but it’s perfect enough. I consider this to be one of the definitive fan edits of The Wall.

This website should point you in the directions you need to build or hear your own restored version of this classic.

This has been a very personal project. Restoring The Wall has been an obsession for me since I worked that tiny FM station in California years ago. More than any other music, Pink Floyd The Wall has been the soundtrack to many markers in my life. Music is a powerful medium and The Wall has been one of the most significant pieces throughout my life.

Pink Floyd The Wall has resonated with me throughout my adult life. Big thanks to RCM for his input throughout this project and for being my amigo and brother in Floyd. And I am very grateful for the talent that originally created this work – Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Nick Mason, Richard Wright, Bob Ezrin, James Guthrie, et al.

For me, this version makes The Wall seem new again. What I’ve wanted all this time is a version of Pink Floyd The Wall which sounds whole and that sounds good.

Here’s my track list:

The Wall Complete

Programme 1:

1 In The Flesh? 3m 39s
2 The Thin Ice 3m 05s
3 Another Brick In The Wall Pt. 1 3m 24s
4 The Happiest Days Of Our Lives 1m 55s
5 Another Brick In The Wall Pt. 2  3m 58s
6 The Hero’s Return (Teacher, Teacher edit) 3m 27s
7 Mother 6m 08s
8 When The Tigers Broke Free 3m 39s
9 Goodbye Blue Sky 3m 05s
10 What Shall We Do Now? 3m 54s
11 Young Lust 3m 50s
12 One Of My Turns 3m 36s
13 Don’t Leave Me Now 4m 23s
14 Another Brick In The Wall Pt. 3  1m 09s
15 Goodbye Cruel World 1m 16s

Total Time: 50m 28s

Programme 2:

1 Hey You 4m 42s
2 Is There Anybody Out There? 2m 41s
3 Nobody Home 3m 28s
4 Your Possible Pasts 4m 27s
5 Vera 1m 37s
6 Bring The Boys Back Home 1m 40s
7 The Fletcher Memorial Home 4m 44s
8 Comfortably Numb 6m 22s
9 The Show Must Go On 2m 07s
10 In The Flesh 4m 34s
11 Run Like Hell 5m 27s
12 Waiting For The Worms 4m 03s
13 Stop 0m 31s
14 The Trial 6m 08s
15 Outside The Wall 1m 43s

Total Time: 54m 13s

Programme 1

In The Flesh?
On my personal mix of The Wall Complete, I restored the 8-bar guitar intro, but left out the 16-bar choral phrase. No other reason than I felt that not having the section here adds to the heightened impact of “In The Flesh” when it reprises later on.

The Thin Ice
I restored the 8-bar extended piano version from the film soundtrack. I really prefer the sound of the film version of Roger’s vocals for its clearer presence and added piano, which I used instead of the album mix. I also extended the first part of the instrumental interlude theme to match the live version on Is There Anybody Out There?. There’s no clean studio version of the extended instrumental interlude that would work seamlessly here, so I simply repeated the first 4 bars of the phrase. The resulting edit is one that combines the best elements of all three final versions of “The Thin Ice”.

Another Brick In The Wall Part 1
At the top of the track, I restored the ten seconds of a low D not on synth. I also added back the first few notes of the opening guitar phrase which were cut off due to the segue and fade in of the track. Restored, the transition is smoother and no longer sounds like we’ve missed the first part of the song.

The Hero’s Return (Parts 1 and 2)
“Teacher, Teacher” from the early Wall demos, rewritten and rerecorded for The Final Cut album. I inserted the track between “Another Brick In The Wall Part 2” and “Mother”.

Mother
I’ve always liked the film version of “Mother”. The album version sounds like it was sung in the voice of a teen who’s beginning to become aware of and question his world. The more orchestral film version opens with a heartbeat and a glockenspiel and captures the sound of an anxious childhood perfectly and better helps to illustrate the passage of time and Young Pink’s growth into Young Man Pink. To add contrast to this transition, I used the first two verses of the simpler, childlike film version. I edited into the album version at the top of the guitar solo and let the track play out from there. In order to use studio versions as much as possible, I chose not to insert the extended guitar solo from the live version.

When The Tigers Broke Free
I used the longer intro from the Echoes best-of compilation and combined it with the more somber single version at the top of the vocals. I took a cue from the film and inserted the complete track between “Mother” and “Goodbye Blue Sky”. Sequenced at the top of Side 2, it’s a good fit musically. I think fits best there within the narrative of the album.

What Shall We Do Now?
Free from the time constraints of the vinyl format, on my personal mix of The Wall Complete, I restored the film version of “What Shall We Do Now?” to its original place in the running order right after “Goodbye Blue Sky”. After the song ends cold, I waited a long four-count before the segue into the pick-up note from the beginning of “Young Lust”.

Young Lust
Using the Italian single version, I restored the extended intro. At the vocals, I cut to the CD version for sound quality. I replaced the last 32 bars with the clean, phone call-free mix from the instrumental outro of the Off The Wall promo EP.

One Of My Turns
In my mix of The Wall Complete, I used the film placement of the phone call which runs over the intro of “Empty Spaces/What Shall We Do Now?”. As the clean version of “Young Lust” ends cold with lingering reverb, I simply dropped the clean intro of the single version of “One Of My Turns” underneath. Before any vocals, I edited back into the CD version of the track to avoid any sound differences due to media and mastering.

Empty Spaces
Although I created a rough edit of what the song would sound like when sequenced at the end of Side 2, story-wise, I think “Empty Spaces” works better when it’s just an orphaned lyric in the liner notes and I didn’t move it in my mix of The Wall Complete. You can hear what the sequence might have sounded like here.

Another Brick In The Wall Part 3
I replaced the album version with the faster, louder, angrier movie version.

Programme 2

Nobody Home
A version of the missing 1 minute 21 second guitar solo has never been released by the band in any form. Although there are ROIOs with excellent quality soundboard recordings of several later versions by Roger Waters’ bands, I chose not to include it in my mix at this time.

Your Possible Pasts
This song has a tenuous connection to The Wall due to its brief inclusion in the film. I think it’s one of the better songs from The Final Cut. I inserted the song towards the beginning of the second half, between “Nobody Home” and “Vera” where not only does it flow well musically, but it also fits perfectly in the narrative there.

Vera
I used the CD version for most of the track with a quick edit to the slightly longer final note of the film version at the very end to get that extra second or three of the final sustain. This also helped the segue into “Bring The Boys Back Home”

Bring The Boys Back Home
I used the full 1 minute 28 second version that was re-recorded for the film and the single. It has a clean intro and outro. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you feel about the track), it’s missing Roger Waters’ emotional, slightly out of range vocals.

The Fletcher Memorial Home
On my personal mix of The Wall Complete, I added “Fletcher Memorial Home” after “Bring The Boys Back Home” as it fades out into “Comfortably Numb”. The main reason I added it is because it had previously appeared before “Comfortably Numb” on the Echoes best-of compilation and the transition there sounded good. As “Fletcher” fades out, I used the crossfade from Echoes into the crescendo of voices and chaos that precedes “Comfortably Numb”. Programmed here, it neatly extends and wraps up the wartime narrative of the side. Michael Kamen’s orchestral treatments help it to sound perfect when added to Side 3.

Because the spoken-word vocals over the bridge referenced then-current 1970s and 1980s leaders, I found a high-quality version of “The Fletcher Memorial Home” with an instrumental bridge — no spoken-word vocal — and replaced that section instead to help preserve the time period of Side 3.

Comfortably Numb
Although there are number of good quality live versions of the song that can be edited in to extend the second guitar solo, the audio and mastering of the two are too different and would have taken the listener out of the song. I chose not to do anything to the track.

For a while, I’d considered for The Wall Complete some sort of transition from the studio version to the final guitar solo of the Live 8 version just to extend the goodness. But, the audio and mastering of the two are too different and would have taken the listener out of the song. It would’ve been killer, though.

The Show Must Go On
Because no studio version of the first verse has ever surfaced, I restored it using the live version from Is There Anybody Out There?. I copied and pasted the “Oooh Ma Oooh Pa” refrain from the studio version to match the track. My restored track clocks in at 2:07.

In The Flesh
I restored the 4-bar guitar intro using the same section from “In The Flesh?” from the film. Because “In The Flesh” was completely rerecorded for the film using a brass band, this passage had to be recreated using the same section from the earlier “In The Flesh?”.

Run Like Hell
An extensive Frankenmix! I edited together the intro from the Under Construction ROIO to a combination of parts of the album version and the extended parts of the Off The Wall EP version. Using the best available sources, I rebuilt the full 4-bar rhythmic guitar phrase from the middle of the track. Although the extended-extended outro is performed live for Pink Floyd, Roger Waters, and David Gilmour shows, I chose to stick with the 16 bar extended outro of the EP.

Waiting for The Worms
I restored those missing eight beats which not only completed the guitar flourish at the end but it lengthened and added to the very powerful crescendo of the track. This restored the running time of the track to 4min 03sec.

The Trial
Using the live version, I restored the full intro of the track, editing back to the album version at the vocals. I extended the outro to mirror the live version by repeating one 32-bar section of the “Tear down the Wall!” chant. I then edited in the movie version for one more 32-bar section. The then cut back to the album version of the destruction of the wall. It’s sudden — there’s no foreshadowing with rumbles beforehand. It’s also missing Roger Waters’ scream as the wall comes down.

Outside The Wall
Although the movie wraps up with wraps up with an excellent 3min 40sec version where Roger Waters sings the lyrics over music played by the National Philharmonic Orchestra and the Pontarddulais Male Choir, it’s linear in its execution and has a definite ending. I like the simplicity of the original album version and how it stops midway through a phrase, only to pick up at the top of the album. I like how that implies that our walls are a repeating cycle. I stuck with the original album version for my mix.

Original works © 1979, 1982, 1983, 1994, 1999 by Pink Floyd Music, Ltd.

THIS RELEASE IS NOT AVAILABLE FOR SALE. THIS IS NOT AN OFFICIAL RELEASE.

Because of copyrights, there are no links to download this mix anywhere on this site. I don’t know where you can find it. You can’t get it here. Please don’t ask.