About This Song (lyrics below)
This was a combined emotional reaction to a video I saw about the Vietnam Memorial in Washington DC by Maya Lin and the news of the Berlin Wall coming down in Germany. If I had been able to somehow get it out onto the radio it could have definitely been a “hit” (or so I thought).
The other piece that contributed to this song was my daughter quietly humming to herself as she was playing under the dining room table while I was working on this… and the fear I had about all of the “walls” I had built (a house of cards really) falling down around us as the real estate bubble of the 1980’s burst. I had bought 4 houses for nothing down (in the hopes of making money to record my music) and they were all worth a lot less than I owed on them.
Good times!
– Mark
Walls
Song # 143 | 11/22/1989 | CD: Feather On The Wind
There are good walls and bad walls
Walls that hold us and walls that divide us in two
There are walls that shatter our grand illusions
And walls that obstruct the view
There are walls as old as Gilgamesh
And there are walls with fresh new paint
There are walls that stretch a thousand miles
And there are walls that can make a grown man faint….
Refrain:
There’s a wall in Washington filled with names
Of loved ones who have gone
And there’s a wall in East Berlin, crumbling now
May we dance together on its remains
There’s a silence bigger than a prairie sky
In a darkness cut with stars
There’s a child singing her own sweet tune
As she learns to question why
Refrain:
There are dreams we’ve lived and dreams we’ve lost
And hope that refuses to die
And around the world the Watchman’s fires
Send sparks dazzling into the sky
Refrain:
And as the new year gathers nigh
We rise to sing Auld Lang Syne
Lest old acquaintance be forgot
Let’s sing it out one more time
Refrain:
Copyright 1989-2015 by Mark Shepard. All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission.
Mark Shepard: Vocals & Acoustic Guitar
Gene Moore: Bass, Electric Guitar, Keyboard, Engineer
Doug Brown: Drums