As with most Pink Floyd albums, being the finest purveyors of the concept album, this song should be taken in context of the themes running throughout. It's a physical/spiritual/political journey from:
Silence, Depression, Despair, Loss, Separation (both inner between mind and soul, The Berlin Wall and a specific relationship)
to
Finding a Voice, Joy, Hope, Rediscovery, Re-unification (of inner self and East/West)
The hopeful tone in this song comes from the point where he takes a purposeful step out of Plato's cave 'into the shining sun' in a quest for real meaning, in the hope that it is there to be found.
I think the Berlin Wall/Iron Curtain reference is justified later on in the album in the song High Hopes which seems to be a nostalgic reminiscence of life before the wall fell: 'The grass was greener, the lights were brighter'. Speak to any former East German or watch the film 'Goodbye Lenin' and you will see what I mean...
As with most Pink Floyd albums, being the finest purveyors of the concept album, this song should be taken in context of the themes running throughout. It's a physical/spiritual/political journey from:
Silence, Depression, Despair, Loss, Separation (both inner between mind and soul, The Berlin Wall and a specific relationship) to Finding a Voice, Joy, Hope, Rediscovery, Re-unification (of inner self and East/West)
The hopeful tone in this song comes from the point where he takes a purposeful step out of Plato's cave 'into the shining sun' in a quest for real meaning, in the hope that it is there to be found.
I think the Berlin Wall/Iron Curtain reference is justified later on in the album in the song High Hopes which seems to be a nostalgic reminiscence of life before the wall fell: 'The grass was greener, the lights were brighter'. Speak to any former East German or watch the film 'Goodbye Lenin' and you will see what I mean...