The lyrics are about a couple separated by a wall – metaphorical or literal – and desperate to be together. They are bound to Earth as much as they are bound to places that are far from each other. So many people, so many lovers, find themselves in this type of situation these days. One person may be in one country, trying to get a foothold, another may still be in the country of origin. One may be one side of a border, the other may have crossed already. One person may feel as though their mind is locked away, and that the other person cannot connect with them.
Literal WALLS
If you Google “borders”, and “walls”, you’ll find some famous, or infamous, walls. They are called “border barriers”, and every country that has a border has a version of this barrier. The best known historical ones are probably the Great Wall of China that ceased to be a barrier centuries ago; the Berlin Wall between East and West Berlin, dismantled in 1989; and the Soviet Union’s Iron Curtain, also disappeared.
The Berlin Wall (Image source: The New Yorker). Construction of the wall started in 1961.
Modern border barriers proliferate all around the globe, dividing cities, countries, even extending into oceans. One that is often mentioned for being ominous is the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) (Korean: 한반도 비무장 지대), the heavily militarized strip of land running across the Korean Peninsula near the 38th parallel North, dividing the Korean Peninsula roughly in half and separating North and South Korea.
The ultimate “border wall” is the stratosphere around planet Earth, which no-one can cross without being in a spaceship. This is why I included this song on the album, “Ticket to Mars”, which is about space travel.
Lightning extending above the troposphere into the stratosphere as blue jet and reaching into the mesosphere as red sprite. (Photo taken on 24 July 2017; https://noirlab.edu/public/images/iotw2108a/; Author: International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/A. Smith; retrieved from Wikipedia on May 2, 2024)
Metaphorical walls
The wall can also be the wall of a prison. Walls and places of containment are pretty much inseparable concepts. Terry Pratchett often wrote about prisoners, and the metaphor of prisoners and birds, in his Discworld novels, particularly in Reaper Man. He described in the story how everything that is living, needs death – or the “Reaper Man”, for the sake of mercy; the same mercy that prisoners experience when they see, through the windows of their cells, birds in flight. There is their need for mercy, but also their longing and hope, since they look at the birds and think that one day they, too, might be free.
Prisoners and wings
The image of prisoners and the flight of birds has been a metaphor for a wide variety of ideas since the earliest writings, across all world cultures, from the West to the East. The prisoner/bird metaphor is used to express a variety of meanings, for instance, the body as a prison, or life as a prison, with the soul as an imprisoned bird in a cage, and death as the release of the bird or the soul.
Release of the bird from the cage can also be interpreted as that the mind is set free and allowed to soar and develop to its full potential. A famous negative use of the bird image for prisoners, occurs in William Shakespeare’s play, King Lear, when “Lear” remarks to “Cordelia”, his mistress: “Come let’s away to prison; / We two alone will sing like birds I’ th’ cage…”, which is confirmation of Lear’s twisted view of the world, since he sees prison as a happy place.
Over time, the words “jail” and “prisoner” have become semantically linked. The word “jail” or “gaol” has its etymological roots in the Latin cavea,meaning “cage” and has many positive and negative meanings. From this we get the expression “jail-bird”, or just “bird”, for prisoners.
Making a song out of it
I took this idea and built it into the lyrics. The singer is calling to their lover, from the other side of the wall that separates them, and begs; “Won’t you fly to me?” In the last verse, I bring in the image of the wall as a prison wall, and the prisoner longing for the freedom of birds.
Sometimes, an image or an idea is simply too perfect to change. It just fits, from every angle, in every voice. It was like that with the lyrics of “The Great Wall”.
The Great Wall Visualizer Video
Lead vocals by Dawn Lief. Mixing and mastering by Luke Garfield, Banana Llama Studios.
VERSE A great wall is between us. Can you cross it? This divide is so long and wide that is no access from either side.
CHORUS From far away I am calling you. Longing every day. Won’t you fly to me? This song is my call. I’m so lonely without you. With my back against this wall, I am calling you. From far away I am calling you. Longing every day. Won’t you fly to me?
VERSE Were we a landscape you would be South and I would be North, and all the world with its hate, a wall between us both. Can you be freed, or I? We beg for time, for the balance of all things, for prisoners, and the gift of wings.
CHORUS From far away I am calling you. Longing every day. Won’t you fly to me? This song is my call. I’m so lonely without you. With my back against this wall, I am calling you. From far away I am calling you. Longing every day.
SEVEN CIRCUMSTANCES 
On my new album, “Ticket to Mars”, the fourth track is “The Great Wall”.
The lyrics are about a couple separated by a wall – metaphorical or literal – and desperate to be together. They are bound to Earth as much as they are bound to places that are far from each other. So many people, so many lovers, find themselves in this type of situation these days. One person may be in one country, trying to get a foothold, another may still be in the country of origin. One may be one side of a border, the other may have crossed already. One person may feel as though their mind is locked away, and that the other person cannot connect with them.
Literal WALLS
If you Google “borders”, and “walls”, you’ll find some famous, or infamous, walls. They are called “border barriers”, and every country that has a border has a version of this barrier. The best known historical ones are probably the Great Wall of China that ceased to be a barrier centuries ago; the Berlin Wall between East and West Berlin, dismantled in 1989; and the Soviet Union’s Iron Curtain, also disappeared.
Modern border barriers proliferate all around the globe, dividing cities, countries, even extending into oceans. One that is often mentioned for being ominous is the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) (Korean: 한반도 비무장 지대), the heavily militarized strip of land running across the Korean Peninsula near the 38th parallel North, dividing the Korean Peninsula roughly in half and separating North and South Korea.
The ultimate “border wall” is the stratosphere around planet Earth, which no-one can cross without being in a spaceship. This is why I included this song on the album, “Ticket to Mars”, which is about space travel.
Metaphorical walls
The wall can also be the wall of a prison. Walls and places of containment are pretty much inseparable concepts. Terry Pratchett often wrote about prisoners, and the metaphor of prisoners and birds, in his Discworld novels, particularly in Reaper Man. He described in the story how everything that is living, needs death – or the “Reaper Man”, for the sake of mercy; the same mercy that prisoners experience when they see, through the windows of their cells, birds in flight. There is their need for mercy, but also their longing and hope, since they look at the birds and think that one day they, too, might be free.
Prisoners and wings
The image of prisoners and the flight of birds has been a metaphor for a wide variety of ideas since the earliest writings, across all world cultures, from the West to the East. The prisoner/bird metaphor is used to express a variety of meanings, for instance, the body as a prison, or life as a prison, with the soul as an imprisoned bird in a cage, and death as the release of the bird or the soul.
Release of the bird from the cage can also be interpreted as that the mind is set free and allowed to soar and develop to its full potential. A famous negative use of the bird image for prisoners, occurs in William Shakespeare’s play, King Lear, when “Lear” remarks to “Cordelia”, his mistress: “Come let’s away to prison; / We two alone will sing like birds I’ th’ cage…”, which is confirmation of Lear’s twisted view of the world, since he sees prison as a happy place.
Over time, the words “jail” and “prisoner” have become semantically linked. The word “jail” or “gaol” has its etymological roots in the Latin cavea,meaning “cage” and has many positive and negative meanings. From this we get the expression “jail-bird”, or just “bird”, for prisoners.
Making a song out of it
I took this idea and built it into the lyrics. The singer is calling to their lover, from the other side of the wall that separates them, and begs; “Won’t you fly to me?” In the last verse, I bring in the image of the wall as a prison wall, and the prisoner longing for the freedom of birds.
Sometimes, an image or an idea is simply too perfect to change. It just fits, from every angle, in every voice. It was like that with the lyrics of “The Great Wall”.
The Great Wall Visualizer Video
Lyrics – The Great Wall
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