The Fugitive
Inspired by America – Razorlight, Another Brick In The Wall (part 2) – Pink Floyd, Crazy – Gnarls Barkley, Born In The USA – Bruce Springsteen, Tom’s Diner – DNA featuring Suzanne Vega, The Power Of Love – Huey Lewis & the News, I Want To Hold Your Hand – The Beatles, American Idiot – Green Day, Sleep On My Pillow – Katrina & the Waves and Born To Run – Bruce Springsteen
Written by Steve Wallis, 17/3/2007
Dedicated to Ronda Prunty
There was Waco on the TV
Waco on the radio
It meant a lot to you
Twice in my life
Visiting America
Once in your life
You panicked in America
Oh oh oh oh
I met you in America
You wouldn’t keep your views to yourself
They said it affected your mental health
The FBI harassed you with weird phone calls
It was like a scene from Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”
In the wall, you weren’t just another brick
You had your wits about you; you were certainly not thick
You had a wonderful soul
You wouldn’t submit to thought control
I didn’t know you when they said you lost your mind
They said you were crazy
I know you were not crazy
You were not crazy
Born in the USA
You were born in the USA
Went up north to your sister’s house
’Cos you couldn’t be as quiet as a mouse
You were sitting at a table at the diner where the bus stopped
I was passing in the diner when I saw you at the table
And you gave me a good smile, then you started talking to me
We continued happily chatting on the back seats of the bus
The power of love is a curious thing
Make a one man weep, make another man sing
Change your heart to a little white dove
And it finally hit me: the power of love
Oh yeah, I’ll tell you something
I think you’ll understand
And I’ll say that something
I wanted to hold your hand
I wanted to hold your hand
I wanted to hold your hand
But you had had
A bad experience with another man
So you wouldn’t let me
You wouldn’t let me hold your hand
You wouldn’t let me hold your hand
You wouldn’t let me hold your hand
I took you
To see “The Fugitive”
And I tried to be very kind
I touched you gently on the hand
And I helped you get over
Your experience with another man
The film was apt for me and you
Because you were a fugitive too
Your experience prepared me
For when I was on the run more recently
When they said that I’d lost my mind
They said I was crazy
But I was not crazy
I was not crazy
I think that we were both prisoners political
Although you were a non-aligned radical
You didn’t want to be an American idiot
Didn’t want a nation under the new mania
You could hear the sound of hysteria
The subliminal mind for America
You experienced a new kind of tension
Up the west coast of the idiot nation
Everything wasn’t meant to be okay
Orwell’s dreams of tomorrow
Coming true yesterday after Waco
With the FBI, you’re not supposed to argue
We weren’t part of a redneck agenda
Not everybody swallowed the propaganda
And it’s healthy to have a dose of paranoia
In Portland, I offered you a place to stay
In the hotel’s swimming pool we found time to play
I said “Sleep, baby sleep, on my pillow”
The next day, to a conference I had to go
When I returned I said “Ronda, let me in”
I wanted to be your girlfriend
I wanted to be in your dreams and visions
For me to emigrate would have been a trap
Maybe even a suicide rap
Maybe I would have never come back
Baby, you were on the run
I panicked, I was getting in too deep
I even thought that you would leap
Out of the window of the hotel
Even though I’d rescued you from your personal hell
I called hotel security
But you had simply not heard me
I broke down, saying I had fallen in love with you
It had happened so quickly but it was oh so true
You left me and I didn’t know what to do
I phoned your brother and kept searching for you
Until you turned up at the hotel cleaning shoes
After returning to England, I received from you a nice letter
You had rejoined the Mormon church and were much better
I’ll never forget my time with you
I wish you well with whatever you have decided to do
I loved you!
I have recorded this song as a musical poem, now available as a Windows Media Audio (WMA) file or in MP3 format.