Song Description

A veteran CIA agent has been living in deep cover in Baghdad for years. The problem is, his cover is so deep that no one back at Langley seems to remember that he's still out there. Now he's stuck at the Al-Rasheed Hotel in the middle of Baghdad with no w

Lyrics

Out of the heat & into the lobby. There's some couple on a sofa arguing maybe in Turkish. My heart starts beating faster. Why does that always happen? I don't even speak Turkish. What do still I care what happens to these people? It's the timbre of my folks in that violent house I couldn't wait to escape from, those Sundays with the sun going down & the glow of WGN & the cans getting emptied & the going to bed early out of avoidance & the next room's sounds muffled by the crappily-dubbed tape of the Fugs & the Edgar Broughton Band & the bad dreams about school tomorrow. Rather a thousand times to go to bed without dinner than to die here all alone now at the Hotel Al-Rasheed.

It's strange the things you think of at a time like this,
The moments that you never thought you'd ever miss.
Born in a hotel & yeah now I'm dying in one.
Born in a hotel & goddamn it dying in one.

Out of the lobby & into the elevator. Two guys talking about the World Cup in Portuguese. At least I think it's World Cup. I heard "FIFA" in there somewhere. I thought the World Cup was over last June? Maybe it's code for something. The world is run by fanatics, sports & otherwise. They sound like my nephews at all those interminable family reunions: every year being flanked by Allen & Fred in lawn chairs & their enfilades of nauseating basketball scores & me trying to avoid talking to anyone by fiddling with some micro-prototype Super 8 the boys in DS&T cooked up for me. Rather a thousand times NBA trivia with my idiot nephews than to die here all alone now at the Hotel Al-Rasheed.

I'm like the Japanese stuck on some distant isle
Who never heard the war was over all this while.
Life in the shadows of the ghost of Bush & Sons.
Born in a hotel & goddamn it dying in one.

Out of the elevator, into my room,
I'm hit by a wall of Freon & perfume:
It's the smell that takes me back to America like nothing else can,
Feels like a drip-dry car wash fan.
Glided in smoothly like by angels, unaware,
Moving between the cool sponges of air,
I can hear my neighbors' TVs, those bulbous cathode tubes,
Grinning out ghosts & shilling the rubes.
Poor honeymooners from Samarra here for the weekend.
Now the roads are closed & no can leave &
They're locked between urges, befuddled in armchairs,
Pictures on their walls of places they'll never see. They're
Like that soft touch Woolsey with his slide shows
Watching the world from a Predator spy drone.
I was ripe for a desk job some years back,
But I couldn't stand hanging with Langley technocrats
Staring at the latest satellite telemetries;
I just had to do another stint overseas.
Rather a thousand times studying maps & fax machines
Then to die here all alone at the Hotel Al-Rasheed.

It's strange the things you think of at a time like this,
The moments that you never thought you'd ever miss.
Born in a hotel & yeah now I'm dying in one.
Born in a hotel & goddamn it dying in one.