Young Lust (song)

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"Young Lust" is a song by the British progressive rock band Pink Floyd. It was released on The Wall album in 1979.

Composition

"Young Lust" is approximately 3 minutes, 30 seconds in length. The lead vocals in the song are sung entirely by David Gilmour, but Roger Waters sings background vocals during the choruses. The song has a distinctive, raw hard rock sound that stands out among Pink Floyd's body of work.

It follows "Empty Spaces" on the album, with the previous song flowing into "Young Lust." For this reason, they are generally played together on the radio. When the two songs are played on XM Satellite Radio together, they are billed on the radio's song ID as simply "Empty Spaces", with no mention of "Young Lust".^{[citation needed]}

The guitar line used at the end of the second verse was later used after the final guitar solo of "Learning to Fly" on the Live CDs Delicate Sound of Thunder and P*U*L*S*E.

Plot

As with the other songs on The Wall, "Young Lust" tells a portion of the story of "Pink", the album's protagonist. Pink has become a rock star, and is always away from home as a result of his demanding lifestyle. As a result, he begins inviting groupies into his room between concerts, having not seen his wife in months.

The end of the song is part of a dialogue between Pink and a telephone operator; it is at this point he realizes that his wife has been having an affair for some time, and his mental breakdown accelerates. The dialogue with the operator was the result of an arrangement co-producer James Guthrie made with his neighbor in London during the recording of the album in Los Angeles. He felt that the operator actually had to believe he'd caught his wife having an affair, and so didn't inform the operator she was being recorded. The first two operators Guthrie used to place the call apparently missed the significance of what had apparently transpired; the third is the one heard on the album.

Film version

Groupies seduce the guards to get in Pink's compound. One groupie asks Pink to sign her autograph, but he goes in, while the groupie follows. One of the non-speaking groupies (the one who does not remove her top) is played by Joanne Whalley. ^[1]

In the film, the phone call where Pink finds out that his wife is cheating on him occurs before Young Lust rather than after it. The implications of the song are therefore slightly different: on the album he is not faithful to his wife while on his tour, making him a hypocrite when he becomes appalled to discover that she isn't faithful to him either, but in the film he only invites a groupie in when he has realized his wife does not love him anymore, which shows the character in a much more sympathetic light.

Personnel

• David Gilmour - guitars^[2], bass guitar^[3], lead vocals^[4]
• Nick Mason - drums^[5]
• Roger Waters - backing vocals on chorus^[6]
• Richard Wright - organs^[7], electric piano^[8]

• Chris Fitzmorris - male telephone voice^[9]

Cover Version

• A cover version of Young Lust by John Law appears on the 2003 Pink Floyd tribute album A Fair Forgery of Pink Floyd

References

• Fitch, Vernon. The Pink Floyd Encyclopedia (3rd edition), 2005. ISBN 1-894959-24-8