"Weeping Wall" is an instrumental piece by David Bowie

David Bowie

David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...

 from his album Low, released in 1977.

The track has been described by Bowie as intending to evoke the misery of the Berlin Wall

Berlin Wall

The Berlin Wall was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin...

, being a portrait piece like the other music on Side Two of Low. The principal melody is an adaptation of the tune "Scarborough Fair

Scarborough Fair

"Scarborough Fair" is a traditional ballad of the United Kingdom.The song tells the tale of a young man, who tells the listener to ask his former lover to perform for him a series of impossible tasks, such as making him a shirt without a seam and then washing it in a dry well, adding that if she...

".

Bowie plays all instruments on the recording, the album's only solo track, including several percussion instrument

Percussion instrument

A percussion instrument is any object which produces a sound when hit with an implement or when it is shaken, rubbed, scraped, or otherwise acted upon in a way that sets the object into vibration...

s and synthesizer

Synthesizer

A synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing sounds by generating electrical signals of different frequencies. These electrical signals are played through a loudspeaker or set of headphones...

s. His voice is also present in a wordless chorus. Its minimalistic

Minimalist music

Minimal music is a style of music associated with the work of American composers La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass. It originated in the New York Downtown scene of the 1960s and was initially viewed as a form of experimental music called the New York Hypnotic School....

 rhythm has been seen as bearing the influence of composer Philip Glass

Philip Glass

Philip Glass is an American composer. He is considered to be one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century and is widely acknowledged as a composer who has brought art music to the public .His music is often described as minimalist, along with...

, who would adapt some of the music from Bowie's album for his Low Symphony in 1992.

While Brian Eno

Brian Eno

Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno , commonly known as Brian Eno or simply as Eno , is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.Eno studied at Colchester Institute art school in Essex,...

 and NME

NME

The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...

editors Roy Carr

Roy Carr

Roy Carr is an English music journalist. He joined the New Musical Express in the late 1960s and has edited NME, VOX and Melody Maker magazines...

 and Charles Shaar Murray

Charles Shaar Murray

Charles Shaar Murray is an English music journalist. His first experience in journalism came 1970 when he was asked to contribute to the satirical magazine Oz...

 have suggested that "Weeping Wall" began life as part of Bowie's aborted soundtrack to The Man Who Fell to Earth

The Man Who Fell to Earth (film)

The Man Who Fell to Earth is a 1976 British science fiction film directed by Nicolas Roeg.The film is based on the 1963 novel of the same name by Walter Tevis, about an extraterrestrial who crash lands on Earth seeking a way to ship water to his planet, which is suffering from a severe drought...

(1976), the composer himself maintains that the piece was composed especially for Low.