Build A Wall Lyrics — Shrek

Song Overview

Review and Highlights

Quick summary

• A late Act 2 solo that slams Shrek back into self-protection - the character vows to shut the world out and make solitude a policy.
• Music by Jeanine Tesori, lyrics by David Lindsay-Abaire; recorded at Legacy Studios and released on Decca Broadway in March 2009.
• Produced by Tesori with co-producer Peter Hylenski; the arrangement keeps a square pulse, clipped phrases, and brass stabs that read like exclamation marks.
• Motivic echoes tie the piece to the opening material, signaling that Shrek has snapped back to his original worldview.
• The parent cast album debuted at no. 1 on Billboard’s Top Cast Albums and earned a Grammy nomination for Best Musical Show Album.

Creation History

The cast had this one in their bones by the time the mics went up. The recording session captured the number’s purpose - not a lament, but a decision. The groove is straight, the rhetoric blunt, and the band refuses to sentimentalize the lyric. You hear how Tesori and Lindsay-Abaire design choices for character: verbs at the front of phrases, cadences that cut off clean, and a title hook that sits on one syllable like a slammed door. As reported in theater trade coverage at the time, the album’s rollout moved quickly from studio to street - and the chart response said the audience followed.

Highlights and key takeaways

1. The wall is double: It’s a barricade around the swamp and a barricade around the heart. The writing lets both meanings sit in the same breath.
2. March, not waltz: The square meter turns pain into policy. That’s the character beat - avoiding sadness by choosing certainty.
3. Motivic callback: When the lyric names the world’s contempt, the music flashes colors from the show’s prologue. We’re back where we started, on purpose.
4. Text-first vocal design: Short lines, tight rests, little vibrato. The voice leads like a drum major pulling a parade of bad ideas.
5. Plot placement matters: The number locks Shrek into a wrong conclusion so the next scenes can pry him loose.

Song Meaning and Annotations

Plot

After a misread moment and a tangle of pride, Shrek decides that openness is a liability. He’ll go home, raise the drawbridge, and manage the world by keeping it distant. The lyric catalogs the logic of retreat - if the world expects a monster, he’ll meet the expectation and stop risking softer truths.

Song Meaning

This is avoidance set to a march. The character tries to rationalize loneliness by reframing it as strength. The number flips the thesis from Act 1 back on: if “Big Bright Beautiful World” sold wariness with a grin, “Build a Wall” sells it with a rulebook. The trick is simple and effective - marry percussive prosody to hard consonants, then let the band underline his certainty. The listener can feel the false comfort. The rhetoric is clean because the feeling is not.

Annotations

“I’m gonna build me a wall, I’ll make it ten feet high”

The height sells the metaphor. As your annotation notes, he’s walling off land and feeling. The joke of the rhyme lets the truth slip in without apology.

“I was told the world would despise me”

That line reaches back to the show’s opening warnings. Even the brass tag feels like the prologue’s shadow, so the listener hears a loop closing. He has reverted.

“Gonna hide in my heart”

It reads softer than “harden,” which matters. He isn’t turning to stone; he’s pulling the shades. The choice of verb puts the wound in plain view.

Style and feel

March energy with pop edges. Snare and guitars ride the grid, brass punches the vows, and the melody sits near speech before stepping up on the title word. No rubato, no swoon - this is a policy statement.

Emotional arc

Resolve hardens, blame gets outsourced, then the last lines turn inward: “Gonna hide in my heart.” The tunnel narrows by design, setting up the reversal to come.

Cultural touchpoints

The score reliably puts character ahead of gloss. Here the orchestrations decline the temptation to paint the lyric bigger than the thought. As Playbill coverage at the time framed it, the album aimed to document the story as much as the tunes - which is why this track lands as narrative, not just a song.

Key Facts

• Artist: Brian D’Arcy James
• Featured: Solo, pit orchestra
• Composer: Jeanine Tesori
• Lyricist: David Lindsay-Abaire
• Producers: Jeanine Tesori - producer; Peter Hylenski - co-producer
• Release Date: March 24, 2009
• Recording Date: January 12, 2009
• Genre: Broadway - character song
• Instruments: Rhythm section, brass, reeds, strings
• Label: Decca Broadway
• Mood: defiant, guarded
• Length: approximately 2:41
• Track #: 16
• Language: English
• Album: Shrek: The Musical - Original Broadway Cast Recording
• Music style: mid tempo march with pop accent
• Poetic meter: conversational iambs with clipped anapests

Canonical Entities & Relations

• Jeanine Tesori - composed the score; produced the cast album.
• David Lindsay-Abaire - wrote the lyrics and book; co-created the number’s text logic.
• Brian D’Arcy James - originated Shrek on Broadway; performs the track.
• Peter Hylenski - co-produced the album; designed sound for the show.
• Decca Broadway - released the album in March 2009.
• Legacy Studios, New York - hosted the recording session.

Questions and Answers

Where does the solo land in the show’s arc?

Late in Act 2, after a misunderstanding and before the series of reveals that fix it. It’s the relapse you have to hear so the end can ring true.

Why a march instead of a ballad?

Because certainty - even if wrong - is the feeling. A square pulse sounds like a vow. A ballad would make it sound like a plea.

How does the text connect to Act 1?

It quotes the world’s scorn almost verbatim from the prologue. Musically, the arrangement flashes those early colors to underline the loop.

Is the “wall” literal or metaphorical?

Both. He imagines planks and a perimeter while also announcing a refusal to be seen. Two meanings, one beat.

What vocal approach works best?

Text-first. Keep vibrato trim, ride the consonants, and save lift for “wall.” Power comes from intention, not volume.

How fast and in what key do reference recordings sit?

Common listings place it near 87 bpm in F major on the album cut. Productions transpose to suit the voice.

Does the number stand alone outside the show?

It’s performed in concerts and auditions, but it lives best inside the arc where its stubbornness can be answered by the scenes that follow.

What breaks the wall in the plot?

New information - specifically, what Fiona is hiding - and the realization that his worst fear was shared, not mocked.

Does the cast album spotlight this track as a single?

No single push, but the album’s chart debut and later awards nods kept the cut in the conversation.

Awards and Chart Positions

The track itself wasn’t pushed as a single, but the album made an immediate mark. According to BroadwayWorld’s report from release week, the cast recording opened at no. 1 on Billboard’s Top Cast Albums. A few months later, trade sources and the Grammys’ own listings noted a nomination for Best Musical Show Album at the 52nd awards. Wikipedia’s entry for the show also tracks the album’s appearance on the Billboard 200 and the nomination timeline.

How to Sing Build a Wall

Think command, not complaint. The engine is a march with pop edges, so keep your internal eighths steady and let diction carry intention. Reference values for the album cut hover around F major and roughly 87 bpm. The tessitura sits in a comfortable baritone range with speech-adjacent phrasing and brief lifts at the title line.

• Key: F major on many listings; transpose to taste.
• Tempo: about 87 bpm - firm and square.
• Range & tessitura: mid voice; chest-dominant mix works well; stamina and cutoffs matter more than extreme notes.

Step-by-step HowTo

1. Tempo - lock the march: Count two or four and keep the click living in your shoulders. Comedy elsewhere in the show swings; this one does not.
2. Diction - ride consonants: Land the T and D of “build,” “get,” “hide” on the beat. Short vowels make the resolve read as resolve.
3. Breath - plan the vows: Inhale at punctuation, not mid word. A quiet pickup before “I was told the world would despise me” pays off the line.
4. Flow - keep the lid on: Don’t belt everything. Let the title word do the heavy lift and keep the rest in a controlled, speechy lane.
5. Accents - shape the hook: Give “wall” a consistent pop. If every “wall” lands the same, the aria of stubbornness feels intentional.
6. Ensemble - trust the hits: Brass punches are fences, not ramps. Stay planted and let the arrangement frame you.
7. Mic craft - off-axis control: Angle slightly to protect plosives. Step back a shade if you plan to lean into the title tag.
8. Pitfalls - beware tempo creep: Adrenaline will try to race. Hold the bpm so the last vow lands square.

Practice materials: The cast album is a clean reference. A metronome at 87 with click in cans will train the clipped phrases. Karaoke and piano-tracks vendors commonly offer versions in F and adjacent keys for audition cuts.

Additional Info

Album life: Playbill’s release coverage flagged the quick turn from studio date to store date, a signal that Decca Broadway wanted a crisp document while the production was still running hot. That timing helped the disc connect with fans who had just seen the show and with listeners who met it through streaming later.

Discographic notes: Credits lists identify Jeanine Tesori as producer and Peter Hylenski as co-producer, which tracks with the record’s clean, text-forward sound. The track sequencing puts “Build a Wall” at 16, so the vow lands just before the ensemble’s big turn and the final run of scenes.

Tempo and key in the wild: Data aggregators commonly tag the cut around F major and the high 80s bpm. That spread matches what singers report when they rehearse with click or audition cuts. The consistency across listings is handy for planning transpositions.

Sources: Playbill, BroadwayWorld, Grammy.com, Wikipedia, IBDB, Discogs, Apple Music, Tunebat, MTI.