Empty Walls

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.”