Lyr Add: When the Wall Came Falling Down

Subject: Lyr Add: When The Wall Came Falling Down
From: GUEST,Simons
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 11:43 AM

Just looking for opinions on this, I'll upload a recording over the next week. (hopefully) I wrote it a few weeks ago, about the fall of the Berlin Wall.. As usual any criticisms or suggestions welcome, thanks.

Chorus:
I was almost too young to remember
That day in early November
When dust filled the Berlin air, and the wall came falling down

Verse 1:
Well they came from East and from West
For a finer day they'd never known, than
Seeing off the past and embracing the unknown

Verse 2:
Mothers, fathers, sons and daughters
Looked on, as the first waves began to fall
A thousand men with shovels and picks came to lend their all

Verse 3:
The martyrs turned away as the guards wept below
Now a red volunteer from the soviet sphere
Couldn't give the order to slow

Verse 4:
Forty years of bloodshed and tears
This city's heart had held, but
Over night they'd turn it down and all the world had felt it

Verse 5:
As the sun came up next morning
Nobody knew quite what to say
So we said nothing at all, we said nothing at all

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: When The Wall Came Falling Down
From: GUEST,Simons
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 11:44 AM

The mothers, fathers.. line is quite poor I know. Still working on that.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: When The Wall Came Falling Down
From: mg
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 11:54 AM

Very inspiring. I don't know how it would be as a song because it doesn't fit the standard rhythm etc. but as verse it certainly says a lot. I was there on the day after Christmas..There were still some sections standing and I helped take them down with my bare scratching hands. What was so strange is this wall was just soft rotten..not even cement..just gravelly rock in some loose binder. I wrote teh names of all my nieces and nephews on part and gave some chocolates to teh guards on the other side...I was the only person out there at first...then two more Americans..it was funny..we were both wearing the exact same kind of REI jacket...and then as the morning grew you could hear this chip chip chip sound as people started to come with their hammers etc. And then the procession of little cars (Yugos?? or the kind in East Germany they made out of washing machine motors I have heard) coming from the East. They really wanted to buy bananas for one thing. I was in a bathroom and an old woman encountered a pay toilet that was way out of her price range..fifty pfenig fifty pfenig she kept shouting. We let her in...I crossed Checkpoint Charlie as a free woman...it was an awesome day. mg

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: When The Wall Came Falling Down
From: GUEST,Simons
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 12:49 PM

Hi Mary, thanks for the comments and for sharing your story with us. It sure does sound awesome. I've just written from what I've read, some personal accounts online, books etc. The "I was almost too young to remember" line is true, I was only about 5/6. The rhyme scheme is a little different, tried to keep away from the aa,ab for once.

Thanks again.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: When The Wall Came Falling Down
From: GUEST,Simons
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 08:45 PM

Sorry to be a pain in the ass, but if anybody else has any comments I really would appreciate the help.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: When The Wall Came Falling Down
From: Grab
Date: 08 Apr 05 - 12:41 PM

On a historical note, I'm not sure about verse 3. The amazing thing about that time was that after all those years of repression, everything came down without any resistance, and everyone was united in thinking it was a Good Thing. The unthinking optimism is what I remember from back then. Sadly I was still at school (age 16-17) when it all happened so I wasn't free to head over there - had I been at uni at the time, I would have been over there like a shot.

Graham.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: When The Wall Came Falling Down
From: GUEST,Simons
Date: 08 Apr 05 - 12:46 PM

Thanks for that, do you think I should totally drop that verse, or maybe just rewrite it without first line?

----------------
Even a red volunteer from the soviet sphere
Wouldn't give the order to slow


Or lose it all together?

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: When the Wall Came Falling Down
From: GUEST,Simons
Date: 10 Apr 05 - 04:14 PM

Just bumping this one last time.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: When the Wall Came Falling Down
From: Brían
Date: 11 Apr 05 - 01:23 PM

That's a beautiful story, mary garvey. There's a piece of it in Portland, Maine. You can see it here if you scroll down: Berlin Wall

Although noone is sorry to see it go, let's hope for true democracy and not only in Berlin.

Brían