There are three songs I love that have nothing to do with each other. But I’ve always imagined them as three viewpoints on the same tragic story about a woman who dies in a hit-and-run car accident.
Dreaming While You Sleep by Genesis tells the story of the driver, and their struggles dealing with the shame and guilt:
I can never understand what went through my mind
I didn’t stop to see what I had done
I had to keep on driving deep into the night
The miles between would somehow put it right[…]
I will never be free all my life
Trapped in her memory all my life
Till the day that you open your eyes
Please open your eyes
On Every Street by Dire Straits tells the story of the investigator on the case, and how it haunts him:
A ladykiller, regulation tattoo
Silver spurs on his heels
Says, What can I tell you, as I’m standing next to you
She threw herself under my wheels
Oh, it’s a dangerous road and a hazardous load
And the fireworks over liberty explode in the heatAnd it’s your face I’m a looking for
On every street
And then Hazard by Richard Marx is from the perspective of the boyfriend who got wrongly accused:
No one understood what I felt for Mary
No one cared until the night she went out walking all alone
And never came home
Man with a badge came knocking next morning
Here was I surrounded by a thousand fingers suddenly
Pointed right at me
If you want to listen to the story and imagine it with me, here’s a quick playlist of it:
