Treated to wall of protest and flawed by a door -.

(From Canberra Times)

T HERE is a whole generation of record-buyers out there who weren't even born when the Berlin Wall came down. Those of us who do remember it should remember, too, one of the great pop anthems of the Cold War, Miss Toni Fisher's West of the Wall. West of the Wall became the 101st Australian No1 when it outgunned Gene Pitney's The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance on July 7, 1962. It lasted one week on top before being stepped on by Cliff Richard and The Shadows with Do You Want to Dance? West of the Wall did not chart in Britain, but made No37 in the US. For such a short-term and relatively obscure hit, it's quite amazing how many people are still fascinated by West of the Wall. Was it the first 1960s ''protest'' song? Australian rock historian Glenn A.Baker declared it one of those rare, hard-to-find gems (it has since become available on the 1995 Ace compilation Early Girls, Volume 1: Popsicles And Icicles). Someone in Canada claimed Golden Oldies radio stations wouldn't play it because there was an unofficial ''totalitarianism wash-up'' ban on Cold War reminders. US conservative columnist Bruce Bartlett, in a speech to the Philadelphia Society in Cleveland, Ohio, last year, listed West of the Wall at No13 in his Top 40 of ''conservative'' (that is, embodying religious or patriotic themes) songs. He described it as being ''about a woman whose love is trapped on the communist east side of the Berlin Wall. She waits for him on the Western side, 'where hearts are free'. The song was prescient, as well, for the line, 'West of the wall that soon will fall'.'' Others continue to ask, ''What was the name of that song about the Berlin Wall?'' Who was the singer? Whatever happened to Miss Toni Fisher? Sad to relate, Fisher, a ''torch singer'' from the late 1940s, died of a heart attack in her native Los Angeles on February 12, 1999, aged 67. She was best remembered for another song, The Big Hurt, which reached No30 in Britain during a one-week stay in early 1960 but was No2 on Cashbox and No3 on Billboard in the US. And The Big Hurt is remembered not so much for Fisher's singing as for the fact it is believed to be the first record to use a revolutionary electronic integrated phase-shifting (or ''phasing'') technique. This modernistic, flanging effect introduced the ''recording studio as instrument concept'' and was to influence many psychedelic and synthesized bands of the mid-to-late 1960s. As with The Big Hurt, West of the Wall was written by Wayne Shanklin, whose diverse writing- producing career ranged to such hits as Jezebel for Frankie Laine and Chanson D'Amour (The Ra- Da-Da-Da-Da Song) for the Fontane Sisters. Shanklin, born in Joplin, Missouri, on June 6, ...