On my new album, “Ticket to Mars”, the fourth track is “The Great Wall”.
The Great Wall
This song is about people 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 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 reach them.
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 ones are probably the Great Wall of China, though 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, and the ultimate border wall is of course the Stratosphere around Earth, which no-one can cross without being in a spaceship.
The Great Wall Visualizer Video
Lyrics – The Great Wall
Lyrics ©2024 Marthe Bijman
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.
Won’t you fly to me?