Curtains stay
closed
But everyone
knows
You hear through the walls in this
place
Cigarette holes for every lost
soul
To give up the ghost in this
place
Give me
strength
Give me
wings
closed
But everyone
knows
You hear through the walls in this
place
Cigarette holes for every lost
soul
To give up the ghost in this
place
Give me
strength
Give me
wings
I blow you a
kiss
It should reach you
tomorrow
As it flies from the other side of the
world
From my room in my fugitive
motel
Somewhere in the dust
bowl
It flies from the other side of the
world
– Elbow, “Fugitive Motel” from the
album A Cast of Thousands
There are songs
that hit you in the gut and leave an exit wound in the small of your back, and
Fugitive Motel is one of them. It is solitude and longing bobbling like
tumbleweeds over the metallic taste of drums and the furtive beauty of piano and
strings.