China bans video of children singing Pink Floyd song
China’s internet censors appear to have deleted a video of school children performing a street dance to British rock band Pink Floyd’s 1979 hit Another Brick in the Wall.
The footage of the young students from a performing art school in southwestern Sichuan province, dressed in black T-shirts and caps while doing a choreographed routine to the lyrics “we don’t need no thought control” appeared on social media earlier this month.
A link from the Douyin app – the Chinese counterpart to TikTok - was first posted on X by US-based China observer Byron Wan, but he noted that the original content was then removed within hours.
A message on Douyin says that the content is missing and may have been deleted.
Radio Free Asia reported that the school’s channel on Bilibili, another Chinese video-sharing website, showed links to other songs performed in the same location but not “Another Brick in the Wall.”
In the video, the dance group, accompanied by a singer and musicians on electric guitars and a drum kit, appeared before a crowd of onlookers on a busy shopping street.
The clip features famous lines from “Part 2” from the song, which made number one in the UK charts and sold over four million copies worldwide in the late 1970s.
“No dark sarcasm in the classroom -- hey, teacher! Leave those kids alone,” the song says. “All in all, you’re just another brick in the wall.”
Pink Floyd’s own video showed schoolchildren protesting overreaching authority and conformity and thought control in the education system.
The context of the Chinese video is not immediately clear. However, RFA reported that the school, Let’s Music, said in a statement on May 7 that they intended to make a comment on “the current situation” without giving further details.
The Chinese state in recent months has stepped up its efforts to foster patriotism in classrooms and last October passed the Patriotic Education Law to counter challenges such as “historical nihilism” and safeguard “national unity.”
