A thinking song,my type,thx,心中的圍牆:見仁見智 zt

zt

Well. Serj has recently been seeking residence in New Zealand where he plans to reside until the end of the Iraq War, and he often speaks publicly against violence and injustice in the world



Well Sabi420 if u know serj at all, u know he is not the one who would obviously give away the meaning of a song through his music video, Serj would be the last to do that. There is alot of meaning to this song, as it is usual with serj as well as system, there is no right or wrong answer.

But i think that This has a significance with the Armenian Genocide. "cant you see their bodies burning, desolate and full of yerning" was when the Armenians where being killed, and "dying from anticipation" would be the people that protest, and want the recognintion for that genocide.





For me the empty walls are narrowness of a mind-the first part is like you dream and never look at the present, at the crap that happens today. The chorus is asking you to open your eyes and leave behind the narrow mind. Maybe how we all operate in some part behind the closed walls of our minds. The last part with the chanting feels like he's cursing the walls and how we trust our minds but we all need to look back to fix the present before we can think about the future.

My interpretation of the song is one that requires background information, as most people would be confused with my interpretation unless they were well educated in history, or unless they were of Armenian descent. The Armenian Genocide, sometimes appropriately called “The Forgotten Genocide,” has never received the national attention it deserves. One reason is because of the Turkish government’s succesful campaign to erase history with threats and political pressure on countries like the USA (It works because of Turkey’s strategic location on the map). Thus, Serj Tankian’s masterful song, “Empty Walls” is an obvious allusion to the unjustified and brutal persecution that the Armenian people had been subjected to under the Ottoman Empire, espescially during the 20th Century.

“Your Empty Walls” is not referring to your empty walls, or my empty walls, but indirectly referring to the lives lost during one of the bleakest moments in history. If we dig down deeper, in a philosophical sense, Serj wants us to look past the real or concrete aspects of the world we live in, and reach out to the abstract, the spiritual world. By speaking to the dead, specifically to those who died in the unbearable heat of the desert, Serj is reaching out to the souls that still suffer and linger under the sand, their “Empty Walls.” These souls will continue suffering until they receive justification, until their wounds are healed and only then can they rest. Until then, they shouldn’t “waste their times on coffins today.”

There is no question the song is directly about the Bush administration's censorship of the Iraq war and specifically the choice to ban the media from showing caskets of American soldiers.

"Your empty walls,
Pretentious adventures,
Dismissive apprehension,
Don't waste your time,
On coffins today,"

About how we are just being forced to ignore reality whether or not we even conciously acknowledge so.

"
Don't you see their bodies burning?
Desolate and full of yearning,
Dying of anticipation,
Choking from intoxication,"

About both American and Iraqi casualties that the public is ignorant to.

The video which depicts the twin towers being destroyed, the statue of Hussein being toppled, and even prisoners being taken ends with the children staring at the casket outside. The children who played the war willing and enjoyed it are being seperated from the casket only by a window, an empty wall. There is nothing really there and they choose to see reality but censoring their vision would mean they still think of war as a type of game and run around enjoying it.

In summary, the song is about the government's false protections and how censoring the viewing of caskets decreases critcism of the war and helps Americans avoid the reality that people are constantly dieing from war because they are unable to view the atrocities. While I'm sure these themes can be taken into a broader scope there is no doubt Serj is directly speaking to the casket censorship. An incredible song and maybe the best video I have seen this year.

This song means that their are so many deaths in the world including Iraq that why do we bother burying them? Empty walls simply means I actually don't know what Empty walls means. But did anyone else notice from the video of the kid throwing the plane towards the towers the girl made. The 2 towers, thus symbolizing they know yet as bobthedog said, they realize when the coffins come home.

After seeing it a few more times, ive also come up with, kids are reenacting the war in Iraq, with the plane hitting the little block resemblance of the twin towers, the knocking down the teddy bbear, in resemblance to the knocking down the statue of husseim. And then also, when the toy bomb explodes and the little toy car flips over, a resemblance of the roadside bombs etc etc. after all this play and fun, they look outside beyond the "wall" and see realiity.
A coffin being mounted into the back of a car. The real thing is being left behind the wall.