Get a Hotel

Lyrics

Get a hotel today (1)
Go get a hotel today 
Go get a hotel today
Before the idea slips away
Get a hotel
Go get a hotel today
That was the first question raised
There was a question raised
Get a hotel 
Wanna get in
Wanna get in
But this is not the place to bring it up
Go get a hotel today
Go get a hotel today

Before the bike siren calls 
Time's running 
Like butter dissolving 
Time's running, time dissolving
Time's running melting 
Time's running passing 
Its running passing (2)

Get a hotel today 
Get a hotel today
She says get a hotel 
Ne'er do well 
Get a hotel
Get a hotel 
Before the bike siren calls 
And the horn siren yells 
It says 
Get a hotel
Get a hotel
You better 
Go get a hotel today 
Go get a hotel today
Time's running 
Time's running and passing 
Time's running, 
Time'
s running and passing
It's running it's passing 
Like butter melting 
Time's running, passing, it's running passing 
Like flesh cut, melting 
It's running it's passing
Time's running and passing, dissolving
I was eating gravel when two cars put in
I was eating gravel when two cars put in  (3)

Headlights dousing
Broken warehouse
I just got out, uh
Dirt inhaled
The cinders told me
Ya shoulda got a hotel
Go get a hotel today
Go get a hotel today

Before the bike siren calls
And the blood-curdlers yell
Go get a hotel today
All thugs use the Burton ploy; (4)
The Lord acts 
Around my appeal
He says get a hotel
Shoulda! 
Go get a hotel today
Get a hotel
A little voice yells
shoulda got a hotel
Get a hotel
Go a hotel today
Get a hotel
Get a hotel

Notes

1. The Story of the Fall thinks this is about purchasing an entire hotel, but it seems just as plausible that the narrator just wants to stay in one. The idea expressed in the title takes on more urgency as the song goes on, as the narrator is portrayed as in a race with his own mortality, and needs to keep reminding himself to find a safe haven in which to weather the storms of time. By the end the story gets a bit sinister as the narrator is lying face down in a driveway outside a warehouse as someone pulls in, perhaps the police looking for the narrator.  

Nairng suggests this is about planning a robbery, and that seems plausible to me.

On the other hand, from harleyr:

"According to Terry Staunton, writing in the Uncut's Ultimate Music Guide to The Fall, Get a Hotel was 'inspired by Mark and his wife Brix overstaying their welcome, crashing at producer Simon Rogers' home."

So, "Get a hotel/Ne-er do well" would be the complaint of a disgruntled host.

^

2. From "Wolf in Sheep's Clothing" by Big Youth: "Time is running and passing and running and running and passing/ So you all better get right this time, cause there might be no next time y'all" (thanks to tom_regazzi and Robert). This may be an allusion to the Last Poets line "I understand that time is running out." The Beastie Boys quoted the Big Youth line on "Futterman's Rule" from 1994's Ill Communication, and Paris sampled the Last Poets line on his 1992 classic "Bush Killa." The line "time is running and passing and passing and running" has been sampled by A Tribe Called Quest ("Excursions") and was quoted by the Basement 5 on "Silicone Chip" (thanks to jonder).

MES quotes Big Youth's "Jim Screechey" on "No X-mas for John Quays," and probably paraphrases "Keep Your Dread" in "City Hobgoblins."

Karl B, who may be--but probably isn't--Karl Burns, says

I think Mark's description of time running passing melting like butter are highly suggestive of Salvador Dali's melting watch paintings. The arbitrary stock mechanism of the watch/clock is just a pointing stick to the real nature of time's flowingness.

(He does seem to be on a first-name basis with "Mark"--get Dave Simpson on the phone!)

^

3. Presumably lying on his stomach, trying to remain unseen...

^

4. My best guess is that this refers to Sir Richard Burton (1821-1890), the famous, in the words of Wikipedia, "geographer, explorer, translator, writer, soldier, orientalist, cartographer, ethnologist, spy, linguist, poet, fencer and diplomat," and notably the translator of a popular version of One Thousand and One Nights (often called The Arabian Nights in English). Burton was indeed famous for a ploy: he disguised himself as an Arab and a Muslim in order to go on the Hajj or pilgrimage to Mecca, entry to which was forbidden to unbelievers. Burton closely studied Muslim customs and rituals, and he even went so far as to have himself circumsized in order to avoid suspicion.  

^

Comments (15)

dannyno
  • 1. dannyno | 02/05/2013
I get "Brigadoon"-type vibes from this song...
tom_regazzi
  • 2. tom_regazzi | 19/06/2013
I think the 'running passing' lines are nod to an old dub record, "I'm running, I'm passing" ... possibly Big Youth? Or I might have heard the lines sampled at the beginning of a Beastie Boys track (possibly on Ill Communication)...?
Robert
  • 3. Robert | 05/11/2013
Yep, "Time is running and passing and passing and running" are lyrics from "Wolf in Sheep Clothing" by Big Youth. And sampled by the Beastie Boys.
Karl B
  • 4. Karl B | 16/11/2014
I think marks description of time running passing melting like butter are highly suggestive of Salvador Dalis melting watch paintings.the arbitrary stock mechanism of the watch/clock is just a pointing stick to the real nature of times flowingness.
bzfgt
  • 5. bzfgt | 23/11/2014
Yes, good comment!
Martin
  • 6. Martin | 27/04/2016
The Janice Long session version of the track (recorded 13 May 1987, broadcast 19 May 1987) omits the reference to "the Burton ploy" which may lead us to think that MES came across this idea between this recording and the studio one, although I have to say there's something to me less than convincing about the Sir Richard Burton theory, though I have no concrete evidence either for or against!
dannyno
  • 7. dannyno | 09/08/2016
"Burton" related news from 1987:

There were rumours (reported for example in the Observer of 27 April 1987, that there could be a Department of Trade and Industry investigation into Burton Group's 1985 takeover battle for Debenhams. The claim seems to have been that Burton acted in concert with Gerald Ronson's Heron group, which might be the "ploy". The Chief Executive of Burton was Sir Ralph Halpern. There were other headline about Burton that year. Not very convincing, I admit.
Jonder
  • 8. Jonder | 17/10/2017
"Time" by the Last Poets (1971) predates the Big Youth cut by several years. The lines "Time is running and passing and passing and running" have been sampled by A Tribe Called Quest ("Excursions") and were quoted by the Basement 5 on "Silicone Chip".
bzfgt
  • 9. bzfgt (link) | 18/11/2017
Yes I said Big Youth may be alluding to Last Poets which means the latter has to precede the former.
Nairng
  • 10. Nairng | 14/04/2019
I think this is about planning a robbery - from a hotel, obviously.
"Wanna get in?" An invitation to get in on the action, so to speak.
"This is not the place to bring it up" These walls have ears
"Time's running" There is some urgency for the narrator, who has been reduced to "eating gravel", but who lives in constant fear of the "sirens". He is already a notorious criminal, "headline scouser" (I don't think it's 'headlights dousing') (scousers are steretypically burglarious).
It was a good plan, but the narrator is a wrong-place-right-time sort of fellow "I just got out of the inhalt" (Inhalt is German for "contents" i.e. of a book - MES typically misuses the language to create an in-through-the-out-door impression.) (I seriously don't think it's 'dirt inhaled')
Ultimately he is plagued with regret over what might have been "should have got a hotel" (why does it read "should of" here?)
These are my thoughts, however misguided...
bzfgt
  • 11. bzfgt (link) | 28/06/2019
Nairng, good theory, and good suggestions--I don't know that I've ever checked these, I probably just took them from the Lyrics Parade. "should of" is embarrasing...I'll listen to it
bzfgt
  • 12. bzfgt (link) | 28/06/2019
I hear "headlights dousing"
bzfgt
  • 13. bzfgt (link) | 28/06/2019
Yeah, the lyrics are heist-y, for sure.
bzfgt
  • 14. bzfgt (link) | 28/06/2019
Argh, it does sound like "der Inhalt" kind of
harleyr
  • 15. harleyr | 11/04/2021
According to Terry Staunton, writing in the Uncut's Ultimate Music Guide to The Fall, Get a Hotel was 'inspired by Mark and his wife Brix overstaying their welcome, crashing at producer Simon Rogers' home.' I've no idea on what basis he makes that claim, but it feels plausible to me, and certainly casts the song in a different light to any of the interpretations above. (Me, I always figured it was something to do with Monopoly).

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