In 1979, Pink Floyd sold over 4,000,000 copies of their best-selling song. David Gilmour will always regret one lyric

Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)” became a major hit in 1979, but its chorus was controversially interpreted as a call to end children’s education. The song was intended as a protest against controlling authority, and the reaction showed how its message could be misunderstood.

Roger Waters wrote the track, drawing on his experience of a strict boys’ grammar school, and children from Islington Green School sang on it. The school’s music head, Alun Renshaw, involved pupils without first seeking the headteacher’s permission; the head later acknowledged the recording as part of a rich musical education. David Gilmour later said he regretted releasing the song as a single because of its contentious lyric.