"The Last Few Bricks" is an instrumental bridge/ medley used by

Pink Floyd Pink Floyd are an English rock band formed in London in 1965. Gaining an early following as one of the first British psychedelic music, psychedelic groups, they were distinguished by their extended compositions, sonic experimentation, philo ...

and

Roger Waters George Roger Waters (born 6 September 1943) is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. In 1965, he co-founded the progressive rock band Pink Floyd. Waters initially served as the bassist, but following the departure of singer-so ...

at ''

The Wall ''The Wall'' is the eleventh studio album by the English progressive rock band Pink Floyd, released on 30 November 1979 by Harvest/EMI and Columbia/CBS Records. It is a rock opera that explores Pink, a jaded rock star whose eventual self-imp ...

'' live shows, between " Another Brick in the Wall (Part III)" and " Goodbye Cruel World".

Composition

It was composed specifically for the purpose of allowing the bricklayer roadies more time to finish constructing the wall, to seal off the stage almost completely, before Waters appeared in the last one-brick-wide space in the wall to sing " Goodbye Cruel World", and end the first part of the show. The piece doesn't have a strict composition, varying from venue to venue, but it usually contained themes from "

The Happiest Days of Our Lives "The Happiest Days of Our Lives" is a song by Pink Floyd. It appeared on ''The Wall'' album in 1979. Composition The song is approximately one minute, 46 seconds in length, beginning with 24 seconds of a helicopter sound effect, followed by the sc ...

", " Don't Leave Me Now", " Young Lust", "

Empty Spaces "Empty Spaces" is a song by the English progressive rock band Pink Floyd, featured as the eighth track on their 1979 rock opera ''The Wall''. It contains a backmasked message. Composition The song is in the key of E minor, and is two minutes, ...

", and occasionally, when the bricklayers were running especially late, a jam (in the jazzier style of the earlier, improv-oriented Floyd) similar to "

Any Colour You Like "Any Colour You Like" is the eighth track on the English band Pink Floyd's 1973 album, ''The Dark Side of the Moon''. It is an instrumental written by David Gilmour, Richard Wright and Nick Mason. Composition The piece itself has no lyrics and ...

" (D minor to G major), was played. The themes from "Don't Leave Me Now" and "Young Lust" were

transposed In linear algebra, the transpose of a matrix is an operator which flips a matrix over its diagonal; that is, it switches the row and column indices of the matrix by producing another matrix, often denoted by (among other notations). The tr ...

down a

whole step In Western culture, Western music theory, a major second (sometimes also called whole tone or a whole step) is a second spanning two semitones (). A second is a interval (music), musical interval encompassing two adjacent staff positions ( ...

, so, like much of the album, "The Last Few Bricks" is in

D minor D minor is a minor scale based on D, consisting of the pitches D, E, F, G, A, B, and C. Its key signature has one flat. Its relative major is F major and its parallel major is D major. The D natural minor scale is: Changes needed for t ...

—which leads to a " brightening" effect, when "Goodbye Cruel World" begins in the

parallel key In music theory, a major scale and a minor scale that have the same tonic note are called parallel keys and are said to be in a parallel relationship. Forte, Allen (1979). ''Tonal Harmony'', p.9. 3rd edition. Holt, Rinehart, and Wilson. . "When ...

of D major.

Title

The instrumental bridge debuted with

The Wall Tour (1980–81) ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...

, but was given no official name at the time. Fans called the track ''Almost Gone'' on some bootleg albums of the shows. The album of the 1990 Berlin performance was the first official release of the bridge. However, it was not marked as a separate track, and instead was simply included as an extended part of the ''Another Brick in the Wall (Part III)'' track. Roger Waters had long resisted requests to release the recordings of the 1980-81 Wall performances, but changed his mind to allow a twentieth-anniversary live album release in 2000. During the mixing and editing of this album, producer James Guthrie suggested the title "The Last Few Bricks" for the bridge. Waters liked the title, and it was used for the ''Is There Anybody Out There?'' live album and all subsequent releases (e.g. the album of Waters' own live performances, Roger Waters: The Wall).

Performance

The longest performance of this medley was on 7 February 1980 at

Los Angeles Sports Arena The Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena was a multi-purpose arena at Exposition Park, in the University Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. It was located next to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and just south of the campus of the University of ...

when " Another Brick in the Wall (Part III)" was stretched to over 13 minutes.The Concert Database
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References

Pink Floyd songs Rock instrumentals British hard rock songs 1980 songs Songs written by David Gilmour Songs written by Roger Waters The Wall (rock opera) Song recordings produced by David Gilmour Song recordings produced by Roger Waters {{2000s-rock-song-stub