Dm F Eb Dm
What is this wall we ride along, father will you say to me?
Dm F Cm Dm
That goes from the morning to the night, far as my eye can see?
Gm A
Father do you remember?
This is the wall from sea to sea, that leads to the ocean shore
And the coasts are longer than the wall, with no sound but the ocean’s roar
A Dm
Don’t you forget, my son.

What is this thing that they call the sea? Is that the end of the land?
Is it greater than the river that rusts the steel of this wall cutting through the sand?
Father do you remember?
The sea was the place where the fish used to swim, and the ships came in with the tide
And the tide dropped the people who’d drowned in the sea, trying to reach this side
Don’t you forget, my son.

Why did the people want to reach the shores? How many came over the waves?
And why are there the crosses on the river banks? Who’s lying in those graves?
Father do you remember?
They ran from bullets, ran from bombs, ran from the butcher’s knife
But the waters that choke our land around, choked them from their life
Don’t you forget, my son.

Who sent the bomb and who sent the guns? Whose hand held the butcher’s blade?
These dead who crossed the desert and sea, what made them so afraid?
Father do you remember?
The men who were hired to keep them in line, who fought at their master’s call

Paid by the men who patrolled the shores, the men who built the wall
Don’t you forget, my son.

Who were these men who built the wall- to make all nations bow?
Where now stand their cities grand, what a nation have they got now?
Father do you remember?
Men who feared that the others would come, and take the work from their hand
Their work building walls to stop the ones they feared coming into their land
Don’t you forget, my son.

Where is the land they built it all around- their fields so rich and green?
For all this land along the wall is a country bare and lean
Father do you remember?
Down with the rains by the river banks, stripped of the marsh and tree
Past wall and border, flowing down- down to the silent sea
Don’t you forget, my son.