Like brothers on a hotel bed-Death Cab for Cutie

[btunis9]

www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZWZo-rnciE


"Brothers On A Hotel Bed"

You may tire of me as our December sun is setting because I'm not who I used to be
No longer easy on the eyes but these wrinkles masterfully disguise
The youthful boy below who turned your way and saw
Something he was not looking for: both a beginning and an end
But now he lives inside someone he does not recognize
When he catches his reflection on accident

On the back of a motor bike
With your arms outstretched trying to take flight
Leaving everything behind
But even at our swiftest speed we couldn't break from the concrete
In the city where we still reside.
And I have learned that even landlocked lovers yearn for the sea like navy men
Cause now we say goodnight from our own separate sides
Like brothers on a hotel bed

[btunis9]

This song describes Mary's feelings of regret and nostalgia following the deterioration of her beauty and positive disposition. The song's first line, "You may tire of me...because I'm not who I used to be," describes Mary's belief that she is a mere shadow of the "shy convent girl" with whom James Tyrone fell in love. In addition to longing for her previous personality, Mary places particular emphasis on her good looks, pointing out, “Poor hands! You’d never believe it, but they were once one of my good points, along with my hair and eyes, and I had a fine figure too” (103). She also worries about whether her hair is disheveled, constantly inquiring, “What are you looking at? Is it my hair expressing the lyrics (28).“ Her diminishing self-esteem expressed in the song, because she believes she is “no longer easy on the eyes,” and has therefore been damaged by her life with James.
Mary most definitely regrets her marriage to James at times, as she comments on how much happier she was while living in her father’s home. The lyric, “these wrinkles masterfully disguise/The youthful boy below who turned your way and saw/Something he was not looking for: both a beginning and an end,” because when Mary married James, she abandoned her own dreams of becoming a nun or pianist in favor of, “One-night stands, cheap hotels, dirty trains, leaving children, and never having a home” (104). Part of Mary feels that her marriage to James inhibited her potential for success and happiness. Although Mary sincerely loves James, she at least partially blames his stinginess for her troubles. She attributes her morphine addiction to the fact that James refused to hire a decent doctor, and believes that he persuaded her to leave Eugene, ultimately leading to his death. Her desire to escape her loneliness by using morphine is reflected with the lines, “Leaving everything behind/But even at our swiftest speed we couldn't break from the concrete,” because although she is put in a fog by the drug, she is unable to truly escape reality, just as the rest of her family indulges in whisky.