A Case for Vera, by Pink Floyd

Vera is track number 4 on part 2 of Pink Floyd’s The Wall.

To me, Vera is the central axis around which The Wall revolves. It is a sudden moment of clarity amidst the madness of Pink’s life, a life that has reached a moment of crisis. You can compare Vera to its mirror image, the 4th track from the end of Part 1, One of my Turns, which shows us a frenzied and (maybe final) encounter with whatever lover is in Pink’s life currently.

After One of My Turns, Pink regrets his actions in Don’t Leave Now, finishes the trilogy of his wall-building with Another Brick in the Wall (Part III) and contemplates suicide in Goodbye Cruel World. Obviously, he doesn’t go through with it, because he then asks, Hey You, Is There Anybody Out There? and find his answer in Nobody Home.

This final realization about his absolute isolation and impending mental collapse gives way to a simple human yearning for the one person that this broken figure was able to love, and we get the short lyric about Vera Lynn.

Does anybody here remember Vera Lynn?
Remember how she said that we would meet again
Some sunny day.

Vera, Vera, what has become of you?
Does anybody else in here feel the way I do?

It seems obvious that if Vera had come back, as she swore she would, Pink wouldn’t be in such a mess. If he still had love, then it would be impossible to be completely surrounded by a wall. Due to this loss, and the realization of its finality, the wall is complete, and we move into the climax of the album, where Pink bounces between despair (Comforably Numb) and psychosis (In the Flesh) or both at the same time (Waiting for the Worms).