Story Behind The Song

Cities are places where people live on top of each other, and lightyears apart from one another.

Song Description

Two people live out their lives in quiet desperation only a few rooms from each other, neither one aware of the other's existence.

Lyrics

Urban Suicides ©1994 Words and Music by John Gahl

Ricky climbs the stairs to the roof of his building
Thinks he?ll try to get a glimpse of God
Takes a flashlight and a sandwich and the book of revelations
Expecting to be permanently awed.
All the sounds from the street falling upward like a prayer
Fill his mind with the fear that he will die
So he lays on the roof with his back up to the world
And his eyes looking upward at the sky.

All these urban suicides All these urban suicides
We? re running out of places we can hide... all these suicides.

In apartment one-eleven there?s a girl her name is Lucy
And she?s all alone and watching her TV
She is sectioning an orange very neatly and a Pepsi
In a can is sitting balanced on her knee
All the sounds from the street falling upward through the window
Like the fallout from a nuclear attack
Makes her worry she?ll go crazy all alone in this apartment
Like a subway car whose wheels are gonna jump the track

All these urban suicides All these urban suicides
We? re running out of places we can hide... all these suicides.

Half past two in the morning Ricky hums amazing grace
But he figures God will probably not show
He is not the least bit tired and he?s giving up his mind
In little pieces to the concept of the snow
Down below him or behind him Lucy wide awake and waiting
For the sign-off of another broadcast day
First the Star-Spangled banner, then the priest and then the target
And the absolutely quiet when there?s nothing left to say

All these urban suicides All these urban suicides
We? re running out of places we can hide... all these suicides.