Pink Floyd - The Wall - Mother

Mother is a song by the English rock band Pink Floyd from their 1979 album The Wall.
Mother is 5:32 in length. The majority of the song is in G major, though the chorus is predominantly a plagal cadence in C major. The song is notable for its varied use of time signatures, such as 5/8 and 9/8. Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason found these time-signature changes difficult to learn, and, with the band recording on a very tight schedule, ceded the drumming duties to session drummer Jeff Porcaro.
The song begins quietly with solo voice and a single acoustic guitar, and gradually expands its instrumentation to include, by song's end, reed organ, piano, drums, electric bass, and electric guitar. The song has a short introduction, consisting only of a sharp inhalation and rapid exhalation before the first verses are sung by Roger Waters. The verse timing progression is: 5/8 - 8/8 × 4 - 5/8 - 8/8 × 8 - 6/8 - 8/8 × 2 - 5/8 - 8/8 × 4 - 5/8 - 8/8 × 8 - 6/8 - 8/8 × 3.
The chorus, sung by David Gilmour, starts on another measure of 8/8 before going into 6/8 (or "compound duple meter") for most of the chorus, in a narrative response to the first set of lyrics. There is also one measure of 9/8. A guitar solo follows over a chord progression in 4/4 time. Waters sings another verse, which is once more followed by Gilmour's chorus (with different lyrics). Finally, the song concludes with an arrangement stripped back down to one acoustic guitar and Waters's voice, and a ritardando in which Waters sings, "Mother, did it need to be so high?", a reference to the metaphorical wall constructed by the character Pink. The song ends on the subdominant, C major, which may create an "unfinished" or "dissatisfying" feeling.
Waters explained to Mojo magazine that the song is about "the idea that we can be controlled by our parents' views on things like sex. The single mother of boys, particularly, can make sex harder than it needs to be." "Most of the songs I've written have always followed the lyrics," he noted. "I've often tailored the music to fit the words, especially something like 'Money' or 'Mother'.
The Wall tells the story of Pink, an embittered and alienated rock star. As told through the song "Mother", part of Pink's sense of alienation comes from being raised by an overprotective single mother, who lost her husband, Pink's father, in World War II. The song narrates a conversation by Pink (voiced by Waters) and his mother (voiced by Gilmour). The listener learns of the overprotectiveness of Pink's mother, who is helping Pink build his wall to try to protect him from the outside world, evidenced by the line "Of course Momma's gonna help build the wall", spoken by Pink's mother. She insists that Pink stay by her side even after he grows up, and cannot stand it when Pink eventually grows older and falls in love.
For the film, the song was re-recorded completely with the exception of David Gilmour's guitar solo. One line of the lyrics, "Is it just a waste of time", became "Mother, am I really dying", as the original LP lyrics read. This change ties in with a brief subplot in the film where Pink contracts a fever after caring for a sick rat that died from it.

Lyrics:
[Verse 1: Roger Waters]
Mother, do you think they'll drop the bomb?
Mother, do you think they'll like this song?
Mother, do you think they'll try to break my balls?
Ooh-ah, Mother, should I build the wall?

[Verse 2: Roger Waters]
Mother, should I run for president?
Mother, should I trust the government?
Mother, will they put me in the firing line?
Ooh-ah, is it just a waste of time?

[Chorus: David Gilmour]
Hush now, baby, baby, don't you cry
Mamma's gonna make all of your nightmares come true
Mamma's gonna put all of her fears into you
Mamma's gonna keep you right here, under her wing
She won't let you fly, but she might let you sing
Mamma's gonna keep baby cozy and warm

[Post-Chorus: David Gilmour]
Ooh, babe, ooh, babe, ooh, babe
Of course Mamma's gonna help build the wall

[Guitar Solo]

[Verse 3: Roger Waters]
Mother, do you think she's good enough for me?
Mother, do you think she's dangerous to me?
Mother, will she tear your little boy apart?
Ooh-ah, Mother, will she break my heart?

[Chorus: David Gilmour]
Hush now, baby, baby, don't you cry
Mamma's gonna check out all your girlfriends for you
Mamma won't let anyone dirty get through
Mamma's gonna wait up until you get in
Mamma will always find out where you've been
Mamma's gonna keep baby healthy and clean

[Post-Chorus: David Gilmour]
Ooh, babe, ooh, babe, ooh, babe
You'll always be “baby” to me

[Outro: Roger Waters]
Mother, did it need to be so high?

Roger Waters History
Roger Waters was born on 6 September 1943, the younger of two boys, to Mary (née Whyte; 1913–2009) and Eric Fletcher Waters (1914–1944), in Great Bookham, Surrey. His father, the son of a coal miner and Labour Party activist, was a schoolteacher, a devout Christian, and a Communist Party member. His older brother, John, predeceased him.
In the early years of the Second World War, Waters's father was a conscientious objector who drove an ambulance during the Blitz. He later changed his stance on pacifism, joined the Territorial Army and was commissioned into the 8th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers as a Second Lieutenant on 11 September 1943. He was killed five months later on 18 February 1944 at Aprilia, during the Battle of Anzio, when Roger was five months old. He is commemorated in Aprilia and at the Cassino War Cemetery. On 18 February 2014, Waters unveiled a monument to his father and other war casualties in Aprilia, Italy and was made an honorary citizen of Anzio. Following her husband's death, Mary Waters, also a teacher, moved with her two sons to Cambridge and raised them there. Waters's earliest memory is of the V-J Day celebrations.
Waters attended Morley Memorial Junior School in Cambridge and then the Cambridgeshire High School for Boys (now Hills Road Sixth Form College) with Syd Barrett. The future Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour lived nearby on Mill Road and attended the Perse School. At 15, Waters was chairman of the Cambridge Youth Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (YCND), having designed its publicity poster and participated in its organisation. He was a keen sportsman and a highly regarded member of the high school's cricket and rugby teams. He was unhappy at school, saying: "I hated every second of it, apart from games. The regime at school was a very oppressive one ... The same kids who are susceptible to bullying by other kids are also susceptible to bullying by the teachers."
Waters initially considered a career in mechanical engineering. In 1962, after a series of aptitude tests suggested he was suited to architecture, he enrolled at the Regent Street Polytechnic School of Architecture, London, where he met his future Pink Floyd bandmates Nick Mason and Richard Wright.