BUT WHAT IF THE WALL IS NOT LOAD-BEARING?:

In a far corner of YouTube, gathering cyber dust is a video of a concert in 1985. Although its 22,000 views hint that it's more significant than a video of your average high school rock band or birthday party, they certainly don't indicate that what you're watching is footage of tiny Latvia's mass defiance of its then ruler, the Soviet Union -- and the beginning of what would come to be known as the Singing Revolution. [...]

The Soviet fanfare had ended and a few state-approved Latvian folk songs were allowed. "Then the audience finally came to life," recounts Īvāns. "Everybody understood that this was the last chance to resist."

You can hear the crowd begin to chant, "Gaismas pils, Mednis!" They knew the famous Latvian conductor Haralds Mednis was among the spectators, and they called on him to perform "Gaismas pils," or "The Fortress of Light," a folk song that would become the anthem of the independence revolution. In front of baffled KGB and Soviet leaders, who didn't see such a spontaneous interruption coming, the Latvians sang about an ancient castle that sinks below the earth after a foreign invasion -- and then rises once Latvians speak its name. The metaphor for overcoming Soviet occupation was blindingly obvious, and the clip captures some Latvians singing loudly next to others who keep their mouths shut, afraid of the consequences such a public display of national loyalty might arouse.

The surprise finale went unpunished, and in the coming years, the Soviet grip on the country began to crumble -- almost as if the Latvian people had successfully invoked their castle that night. 

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