The Wall

The lyrics tell a story from the point of view of a prisoner who remembers a friend obsessed with escaping over a high wall. The friend has been betrayed by a woman he loved and committed crimes for; her note announces that she is marrying someone else. His determination grows into a desperate attempt to escape, which ends in his death. The narrator’s tone is sorrowful and reflective, especially as he reveals that the supposed jailbreak may really have been a way to die.

The wall is both a physical prison barrier and a symbol of a seemingly impossible way out. The friend’s promise to be the first to climb it suggests fierce hope, but also denial of the danger. The note from his former partner makes the phrase “crime don’t pay” bitterly ironic: his crimes have not brought him the life or love he wanted. The warden’s warning that he would be carried out foreshadows the ending.

The story leaves the friend’s exact motive uncertain. The newspapers call his attempt a jailbreak, while the narrator believes it was suicide; he cannot prove what his friend intended. The friend may have wanted freedom, or he may have felt that death was the only escape from rejection and confinement. That uncertainty makes the ending tragic rather than simply a tale of a failed escape.