"Young Lust" is a song by the English rock band Pink Floyd, released in November 1979. It is the ninth track on the band's eleventh studio album The Wall (1979).

Composition

"Young Lust" is a blues-inflected hard rock number in E minor, approximately 3 minutes, 25 seconds in length. The song was composed by David Gilmour, who also provided lead vocals with backing vocals from Roger Waters during the chorus, who wrote the lyrics. The lyrics are about a "rock-and-roll refugee" seeking casual sex to relieve the tedium of touring. It is one of a number of Pink Floyd songs in which Gilmour plays bass guitar and one of three songs Gilmour co-wrote for The Wall. On the album, the preceding song, "Empty Spaces", ends with an abrupt transition into "Young Lust".

An extended 7" single version was released in Italy, South Africa and Rhodesia. It was 3:58 in length and included a 12-bar instrumental intro with a simple 16-beat drum rhythm that leads into an 8-bar guitar intro. The final 32-bar outro is unobscured by the phone call that is on the album version.

Plot

The Wall tells the story of Pink, an embittered and alienated rock star.

Film version

In the film, the scene with the attempted phone call, in which Pink learns his wife is cheating on him, occurs at the very beginning of the song "What Shall We Do Now?" (a song cut from the album shortly before release which "Empty Spaces" was originally intended to be a reprise of), before the "Young Lust" song rather than at the end of the "Young Lust" song. The implications of the song are therefore slightly different. On the album, he is already unfaithful to his wife while on tour, making him a hypocrite when he is appalled at her own unfaithfulness. In the film, he is only seen with a groupie after he learns of his wife's affair, which shows the character in a more sympathetic light.

In the film, several groupies (including a young Joanne Whalley, in her film debut

Original phone call made by FM-USA (circa 1970s)

Cover versions

  • During Roger Waters' The Wall concert in Berlin on 21 July 1990, the song was performed by the Canadian singer-songwriter Bryan Adams. This version reached No. 7 on the US Mainstream Rock Tracks chart. It has been added to YouTube from Adams' official channel.
  • Producer John Law covered the song with banjo and electronics.
  • Canadian alternative country and bluegrass band Luther Wright and the Wrongs covered the song as a reimagined loud, raucous rocker on Rebuild the Wall (2001).
  • The song was parodied on Bob Rivers' Twisted Tunes collection as "I Want to Be a Woman", dealing with the theme of gender transition.

Certifications

References

Further reading

  • Fitch, Vernon. The Pink Floyd Encyclopedia (3rd edition), 2005. .