The Happiest Days of Our Lives (1:39)

The Happiest Days of Our Lives is a song by the British progressive rock band Pink Floyd. It was released on The Wall album in 1979.

The song is approximately 1 minute, 52 seconds in length, beginning with 24 seconds of a helicopter approaching followed by shouting from the schoolmaster. When Kate Bush tried to add a similar helicopter to the fadeout of her single “Experiment IV”, her recording engineers were unable to duplicate the overwhelming sound, so she asked Roger Waters for the original tape, and he obliged as long as it was mentioned in the credits. After that the sound effects abruptly cut out for the lyrical portion. Throughout the most of the song, the lead instrument is the bass guitar with an added delay effect and during the bridge to “Another Brick in the Wall, Part II”, there are intense drums and backing vocals. Due to the smooth transition from this song to Another Brick In The Wall Pt. II, many people think this song is part of Another Brick.

On the album, “The Happiest Days of Our Lives” segues into “Another Brick in the Wall, Part II” with a loud, high-pitched scream by Roger Waters (this sound is later reprised on Run Like Hell). Because of this segue, many radio stations play one right after the other.

In the film based on the album, the sound at the beginning of the song is depicted as coming from a train entering a large tunnel, rather than a helicopter heard on the album. According to Gerald Scarfe, there was supposed to be a puppet of the teacher at the end of the tunnel in the film. Alan Parker made shots of it, but it didn’t work out, so they used Alex McAvoy, who played the teacher, to do the scene instead.