"West of the Wall," Toni Fisher (1962)

Pop music for postwar Berlin

Peak: #37 on the Hot 100
Streams: 200,000

This song was requested by Lost Songs Project subscriber Rick E. You can request a song right here.

In 1960 Toni Fisher recorded a tune call “Toot Toot Amore,” and if this were a newsletter about the greatest song titles of all time, then I’d highlight that one every week. But even though that ditty has been swallowed by the bog of time — it’s not even on YouTube — we still pretty much know how it sounded. That’s because two years later, Fisher sang updated lyrics over the exact same melody and arrangement, only this time, instead of toot-tooting about her amore, she lamented the romantic challenges created by the Berlin Wall.

“West of the Wall” never actually uses the phrase “Berlin Wall,” but it’s clear what’s going on. Fisher sings about a lover she can’t reach because they’re divided by a “wall built on sorrow.” Since the Berlin Wall had been erected just the year before — and since sFisher knows the western side of the wall is where she’ll be reunited with her man — the math lines up.

I like this record because it makes a point without underlining it in thick black Sharpie. There’s a time for blunt message songs like “Abraham, Martin, and John” or “We Are The World,” but they won’t exactly lighten the mood of your spring formal. “West of the Wall,” meanwhile, has an oom-pah-pah pulse. If you don’t listen closely, you can spin around the floor and never even realize you’re dancing to a tune about a fraulein in distress. The deeper message waits only for those who seek it, which makes it more rewarding to discover.

And what of Toni Fisher, whose brassy bellow makes this song even more distinctive? A few years before this single, she reached #3 on the Hot 100 with “The Big Hurt,” a song that largely became a hit because of an accident in the studio. According to lore, when an engineer named Larry Levine was finishing the track, he mixed the mono and stereo versions slightly out of sync. That created an effect called “flanging,” which made Fisher sound like she was singing on a distorted radio signal, or maybe standing far away from the microphone. “The Big Hurt” was the first hit to use this effect, which means that even without her Berlin blues, Fisher is still a quirky part of rock history.

Thanks for the request, Rick!