Songfacts®:

• Inspired by the Cold War, the US invasion of Grenada and the Lebanese Civil War, "The Walls Came Down" is a cynical take on geopolitics.
• I don't think there are any Russians
  And there ain't no Yanks
  Just corporate criminals
  Playin' with tanks
  
  The Call recorded "The Walls Came Down" for their second album, Modern Romans, a record notable for its political content. "There was a great deal happening politically - Grenada, Lebanon, or the government saying the Russians are evil and the Russian government probably saying the same about us," the group's lead singer Michael Been later said. "That kind of thinking inspired me to write the last lines of 'Walls Came Down.'"
• Well they blew the horns
  And the walls came down
  They'd all been warned
  And the walls came down
  
  Michael Been passed away from a heart attack in 2010. A Christian, he sometimes incorporated biblical references into his lyrics. Here, Been interjects the imagery of the Israelites led by Joshua during their siege of Jericho, as recorded in Joshua chapter 6. On the seventh day of the siege, the priests blew their trumpets made of ram horns, the people shouted, and Jericho's wall fell, enabling the Israelites to destroy the city.
• Garth Hudson of The Band played keyboards on this song along with the other Modern Romans tracks.
• "The Walls Came Down" reached #74 on the Hot 100. The Call's only other Hot 100 hit came six years later when "Let The Day Begin" peaked at #51.
• The Simple Minds covered "The Walls Came Down" for their 2022 Direction of the Heart album. Their frontman, Jim Kerr, told The Sun, "We toured with The Call a few times in the States and even though they were opening for us, we looked up to them especially the singer Michael Been. Michael passed away about a decade ago, but we covered a few of his songs. I remember the Berlin Wall coming down thinking that was the end of walls, but the last few years have all been about walls and divisions, frontiers, and borders. So that song has really found its time again."