“I want you to see from behind those empty walls.” This is the underlining message form Serj Tankian’s first single “Empty walls” off his debut album Elect the Dead. But what does the esteemed former singer of System of a Down mean by those words? First I think it is important to take into context the sort of background Serj has with his writing, he tends to focus heavily on subjects pertaining to political and humanitarian issues in the world. As this single was released in 2007 I think a good place to begin is likely the biggest issue in that time, the war on terror. In fact it is very clear from the get-go as we will see as we unravel the meaning behind the words.
The song begins with a high level of energy, it is a bouncy, almost cheerful rhythm that is meant to perk your ears and catch your attention. Instantly it sweeps you in to the flow and pulls you along. Then as the ‘rapids’ die down to a steady stream, the words begin to pick up with a tone that continues the light-hearted feel on the surface. The words themselves hold heavier weight though, betraying that earlier mentioned light-hearted feel. His talk of pretentious attention and dismissive apprehension is a good example of the typical western view of the wars in the middle east. We acknowledge it, perhaps even disagree with it in passing but we don’t really give it much attention, or we are quick to dismiss it as it doesn’t pertain much to our daily lives. The mention “Don’t waste your time on coffins today” is so clearly a reference to the press ban during that time which prohibited showing military coffins coming home from Iraq. It is another hard jab at the ignorance cast over people, blinding them to the tragedy that is going on in the Middle East. Again it is all sang in a tone that is dismissive, just as the act would be.
When he hits the chorus the fast pace picks back up and those ‘rapids’ sweep you once again, getting you moving. Serj weaves words together to form a soft of appalling image of the wasted dead, both American and Middle Eastern. It isn’t just the hard words of bodies burning, he uses other striking phrases such as “Dying with anticipation”. Dying being one of the key words here, death is a negative in any way that you interpret it, but anticipation implies a longing. A desire for some sort outcome to unfold. We have all likely used the phrase ”the anticipation is killing me” before. I believe it implies that the dead were also people who had ambitions, this is backed by the previous phrase “Desolate and full of yearning.” They had hopes and dreams for the future. Yearning to go home to their families, to their lives. A hope to survive the war that is decimating their homeland, that they may actually see a sense of peace again in their lives. These were people, American sons and daughters, or simple Iraqi peoples caught in the crossfire.
There is one line in there I feel really catches the mark. “I loved you yesterday before you killed my family” sums up the whole conflict and why it began in the simplest way possible. I am not meaning political or strategic motives that would of sent us at war in the middle east. Not the ethereal weapons of mass destruction that were supposed to be there, or the oil fields we supposedly wished to conquer. I mean how it began in the hearts of the average American citizen. Love may be strong, but we at least cared little about the Middle East, we had no interest in the dealings there. Sure we had some conflicts in the past there, but the general consensus was never very favorable for it. Not until everything changed on September 11thand killed our friends and our families. People we didn’t even know but we felt akin to because they were our countrymen. Now everyone had a bone to pick with a whole realm of individuals all because of a select few. And it goes both ways. The young Iraqi boy who had no strong views or care about the nation a world away, that is until someone dropped a bombshell on his home. Or his friend’s or uncle’s home. Suddenly he is given all the reason to detest the western world, an entire culture of people based on the actions of one government, fueling the cycle to repeat again.
It would be unfair of me not to include the video in my analysis as well as it brings a great deal of context into what the artist is envisioning with his work. It opens with a mocking recreating of the United States’ “Terror Threat Level” rapidly climbing from low to severe. It is depicted in a way that relates it to children with an official seal emblazoned with the title “U.S. Department of Playground security” and the meter titled “Playground Sekcureity alert !!!” This is a theme that will remain throughout the rest of the video, as the scene takes place in a child daycare center. Right away it is clearly drawing an analogy between government and their role in the war of terror with the likes of children playing with their toys.
Like with the music, the video bolsters a high energy feel kicking off quite literally with a child kicking in the door of a playhouse, and immediately jumps right to giggling children hosing down other children with silly string. Resembling — as I feel it — the long jets of pepper spray used on protestors. There is a scene afterwards of a boy playing with a toy airplane, tossing it out over a playmat of city streets were a little girl is building two towers out of wooden blocks. The plane hits the tower as the boy and girl watch on in shock, then slowly the girl’s expression twists into a scowl and she turns her gaze to the boy just at the moment that the music dies down. There is no mistaking the intention in this reenactment here, he is drawing a parallel to the events of September 11thcomplete with the mood that sets the events to come off. The girl with that feeling of hurt, anger and inevitably a yearning for revenge.
Like our backlash for the terror attacks, the need for action is high, vengeance demands it. Children are rallied and they arm themselves with bubble guns, balloon bazookas and confetti-filled paper tanks, readying for war. Dancing around, giggling and shooting at each other they play out this mocking scene of combat, too naive to see it as anything but innocent, playful fun. The victors claim the center of the playroom, they gather up and pull the giant teddy bear down with jump rope leashes like the fall of Saddam Hossein’s statue marking the end of his regime in Iraq. One child stands in front of a blackboard with the colorful letters stuck on it spelling out “Mishin Akomplishd” and salutes the troops.
Much like the real event their victory mocks, in which President Bush stood on the aircraft carrier and announced “Mission Acomplished”, it was premature. The play war continues rage on, doors are once more kicked in and other children are rounded up, taken to be imprisoned in the ballpit. A play car slowly drives up into a group of children, exploding into confetti and they all fall down. The same back and forth that we know about, that continues with the real war in the middle east. One side lashing out at the other, retaliation after retaliation.
Finally towards the climax of the song the video starts to flash to something very real, marines marching a casket covered by an American flag to a hearse. Passing onlookers, grieving family members and it cuts back to the kids looking on as if they were watching as well. It shows the grim reality that none of this is a game. The conquest against terror has real consequences, that people are suffering from, including our own. We are not playing war, these young men and women aren’t getting back up when they are knocked down.
There has been a theme here that has followed through in both the song and the video. Light-hearted tones, child-like fun and excitement used to convey a subject that is in every right a heavy and terribly tragic course of events in our modern history. Something that becomes very apparent at the end. There is a strange sense of irony to it. I do not feel it is his intention to mock or make fun of these events, but instead he expresses it in a way that he feels the general public handles what is going on in a place so far away it is hard for the average American who hasn’t been there to perceive. If anything it is them who is mocked, those who see it as only some grand conquest, who do not perceive it as real. It isn’t immediate to them.
I posed the question at the beginning, what does Serj mean by “Empty walls”? I think I understand, I believe our empty walls are the delusion that we have given ourselves that we are safe. After the terrible events of September 11thwe needed an escape, we needed something to rally against and make pay for the tragedy that befell our people. Our empty walls, “for national security” is this false justification to do was felt to be necessary for the means of keeping us safe. To never face that tragedy again.. We needed a face — an enemy — to point the blame at, something to squeeze justice from. And I am not saying there was not enemies there, but perhaps we let it go a little too far in driving them out. After all that, we are left behind our walls, no safer that we were before. Meanwhile the middle east and the western world will be feeling consequences for generations to come.
