i dig my hole, you build a wall

Bastion is a video game about ... mm. The gameplay is, it's an isometric action game, where you go into each level with your choice of two different weapons and beat things up, and you can improve your weapons as the game goes on. It's extremely well done, due to a) smooth gameplay and responsive controls, b) great art direction, brightly-colored and serious-yet-cartoony, and c) some absolutely fantastic voice work by Logan Cunningham as the narrator. The music is pretty good as well.

As for what the game's about... survival, and fear, and understanding, and empathy, I guess. At the start of the game[1] you think you may be the only survivor of some unexplained Calamity. As you go you meet a few more survivors, and you learn the truth about the Calamity, and why it happened, and maybe how to reverse it, or at least make sure it doesn't happen again. Maybe.

[1] "A proper story's supposed to start at the beginning. It ain't so simple with this one."

One of the survivors you meet is Zia, a girl from the next country over, the country that might have invaded, or threatened to invade, or something. She's singing a song to herself the first time you find her. It's a quiet, dreamy blues song, and the fragments of lyrics I could understand during the game were something about building a wall.

I realised this week that I'd gotten the soundtrack when I picked up the game, in one of the Humble Bundles. So I downloaded and listened to it. Most of it's frantic beat-stuff-up music, even for the more reflective bits of plot, so "Zia's Theme" stood out. I've been listening to it off and on the last couple of days.

I hadn't realised until today quite how... ominous... the lyrics are.

Gonna build that wall until it's done
Gonna build that wall until it's done
But now you've got nowhere to run

So build that wall
And build it strong
'Cos we'll be there before too long...