This time 25 years ago the first single of Tracy Chapman’s self entitled debut album was making it’s way up the Irish charts and getting a lot of air play on local and national radio stations. I was turning 13 and so much of my memory of back then is tied in with that single which was Fast Car.

It speaks of a young woman’s search for love and a better life then she has seen her parents create. About being so desperate to get away from her life that she takes up with the first guy who has a fast car and try to get away to only unknowingly re create a relationship similar to what her parents had.

Talkin’ ’bout a Revolution was released at the end of the 80s when Ireland and so many places around the world had been struggling with the tough economic times. It spoke of hope and of the end of oppression.

25 years later it seems not much has changed.

While they’re standing in the welfare lines
Crying at the doorsteps of those armies of salvation
Wasting time in the unemployment lines
Sitting around waiting for a promotion
Don’t you know, they’re talkin’ ’bout a revolution
It sounds like a whisper

Even more so when you listen to “Behind the Wall”
The un accompanied vocal is stark and sad, as stark and sad as the story it is telling.

Last night I heard the screaming
Loud voices behind the wall
Another sleepless night for me
It won’t do no good to call
The police
Always come late
If they come at all

And when they arrive
They say they can’t interfere
With domestic affairs
Between a man and his wife
And as they walk out the door
The tears well up in her eyes

Last night I heard the screaming
Then a silence that chilled my soul
Prayed that I was dreaming
When I saw the ambulance in the road

And the policeman said
“I’m here to keep the peace.
Will the crowd disperse?
I think we all could use some sleep.”

Last night I heard the screaming
Loud voices behind the wall
Another sleepless night for me
It won’t do no good to call
The police
Always come late
If they come at all

This week there has been a very high profile case in the papers,
but it is one of many, too many. 25 years later there are too many men and women who are in abusive relationships, who are isolated, ignored, unsupported while too many of us turn a blind eye and a deaf ear and blame them reducing a very complex and harrowing situation to victim blaming.

Behind the wall had a profound effect on me as a young teen.
The scary thing is shortly my own daughter turns 13 and not enough has changed in the last 25 years.

We need again to start ‘Talkin’ ’bout a Revolution’,