When I first watched The Wall as a teenager it blew my mind, of course, but I found the notion of this rock star turning into a full blown Nazi kind of silly. That part just felt out of place to me.
Today I find it horrifyingly accurate, and all too prescient.
Don't the lyrics in "In the Flesh" indicate that the nazis are actually a different band that had to be called in as substitutes because the lead singer of the band that was supposed to play is currently going through a mental breakdown in his hotel room (i.e. stuck behind the wall)? The main figure of the album might've just imagined the whole thing, though.
The "surrogate band" line is just Pink playing off his surreal transformation. It's the same actor playing very much the same character. Absolutely none of the story actually makes sense otherwise. Whether the performance happens in reality or in his head is an exercise for the reader though.
Some hand in hand
And some gathered together in bands
The bleeding hearts and the artists make their stand
And when they've given you their all
Some stagger and fall, after all it's not easy
Banging your heart against some mad bugger's wall
On the day the Wall came down
They threw the locks onto the ground
And with glasses high, we raised a cry
For freedom had arrived
...
Now life devalues day by day
As friends and neighbors turn away
And there’s a change that even with regret cannot be undone
Now frontiers shift like desert sands
While nations wash their bloodied hands
Of loyalty, of history in shades of grey
-- Still Old Pink
They've continued to acknowledge the worms are still there.
