Vera Lynn and 'We'll Meet Again': How The Wall Used a Wartime Ghost

The most curious thing about “Vera” is that it only runs 1:35 on The Wall — just long enough to stab you in the chest and leave. Roger Waters’ father was killed in World War II, and the whole album is built around that absence. Vera Lynn was the “Forces’ Sweetheart,” the singer whose BBC broadcasts were the voice of home for soldiers overseas. Her biggest hit, “We’ll Meet Again,” was practically a promise soldiers made to their families. Waters heard that promise as a lie.

The band didn’t just reference her — they used a direct sample from Vera Lynn’s 1939 recording of “We’ll Meet Again.” You can hear her voice float in over the fade of “The Thin Ice” before the line “Where have you been? It’s been a long time.” It’s supposed to sound like a scratchy old radio, nostalgic and broken, because that’s exactly how Waters felt about the post-war propaganda. For Pink Floyd, Vera Lynn wasn’t just a singer — she was the soundtrack to a generation that never came home.