What Shall We Do Now? - Composition

Composition

The beginning of the song is the same backing track as "Empty Spaces", but in the original key of D minor. It's a slow, dark progression with a repetitive, electronic drum beat and solo guitar, but where "Empty Spaces" ends and segues into "Young Lust", "What Shall We Do Now?" moves into a second, louder section punctuated with guitar power chords. The transition of D - E - F - E is a recurring theme throughout the album, heard on the two versions of "In The Flesh?" and the three "Another Brick in the Wall" songs. The long verse is played with D minor and A minor chords. It lists the diversions and possessions of a rock star ("Shall we ... Do tours of the East / Contract diseases / Bury bones / Break up homes") implying a detrimental effect on Pink.

The two tracks are easily confused. The tape speed for "Empty Spaces" was sped up, to raise its key to E minor, with re-recorded vocals and guitar. The members of Pink Floyd have contributed to the confusion regarding the identity of this track, misidentifying "What Shall We Do Now?" as "Empty Spaces" on multiple occasions, such as in the track listing for the film version of The Wall, and on Waters' The Wall Live in Berlin. On other occasions (such as the officially released live version), the first and second parts of the track are divided and identified as "Empty Spaces" and "What Shall We Do Now?" respectively, even though they are in fact two distinct parts of the same song, the first of which was later intended to be reprised as "Empty Spaces". (This is based on the original lyrics and running order as printed on initial vinyl copies of the album.)

The studio version has not been officially released on any CD to date, but has been widely bootlegged from the film (with the audio taken from VHS, Laserdisc and DVD sources over the decades).