“Woman In The Wall” by The Beautiful South
“Woman in the Wall” centers on two characters, a male and a female, who as inferred may be a married couple, but such is not specified in the lyrics. In any event, the male in the equation is a drunkard. And as further implied, that destructive habit, on top of being some sort of a psychopath in general, contributed to him one day spazzing and murdering the female, even though she doesn’t come off as being the confrontational type whatsoever.
And what the title is based on is the plot point that in the name of disposing of her body without drawing any attention to himself, the male proceeds to bury the corpse within the wall of their home.
Initially, it’s like he doesn’t give AF. But as time progresses, most simply put his conscience starts to worry him. Perhaps, as depicted, some may say the spirit of the woman is haunting him. But regardless of how a listener may interpret the notion that he ‘hears her cry all day’, it’s as if lodging so close to the body of the person he murdered is slowly but surely driving the main subject insane.
In Conclusion
So all things considered, such as the fact that this is the first time we’ve studied The Beautiful South, it’s not abundantly clear what goal they were trying to achieve through this song. On one hand, it can be hypothesized that maybe they’re trying to draw attention to the plight of women suffering from domestic abuse, which in places like Europe sometimes reaches epic proportions of griminess.
Or maybe they’re one of those types of acts who likes to make songs about murderers. Usually with tracks like this, the artist at hand falls somewhere between those two extremes. And it does seem, based on a precursory glance, that The Beautiful South may have been one of a band who were sensitive to what many women go through, though opting to express such sentiments in somewhat of a brass fashion, i.e. “Woman in the Wall”.
The Beautiful South
The Beautiful South was a pop-rock act from England who were around for about two decades, from the late 1980s to the late aughts. Throughout that time they dropped 10 studio albums and were really successful in the UK during the early goings of their discography. (And to note, the group never took off stateside).
“Woman In The Wall”
This track (“Woman in the Wall”) is from their very-first album, a project called “Welcome to the Beautiful South”, which Go! Discs made public during October of 1989.
At the head of The Beautiful South were vocalists Dave Hemingway and Paul Heaton. At the time of this song’s dropping, they were backed by guitarist Dave Rotheray, bassist Sean Welch and drummer Dave Stead.
It is the aforementioned Heaton and Rotheray who wrote this song, and it was produced by one Mike Hedges.
There was a film about dead bodies being buried in the wall. Quite an old film I think 🤔 (may have been in black & white 😉)