Fire Escape

Album: All The Pain Money Can Buy (1998)
Charted: 86
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Songfacts®:

  • In this song, a guy is trying to explain his true self, probably to a girl. He knows he doesn't want to be Superman, and he's not sure where he's headed, so he settles on an abstract answer: he'll be the rain falling on her fire escape. He's more comprehensible at the end of the song: "I can be myself, how 'bout you?"
  • This was written and sung by Fastball guitarist Miles Zuniga, who along with Tony Scalzo did most of the songwriting in the band. It was released as the second single from the band's breakthrough album All the Pain Money Can Buy, following their hit, "The Way."
  • The video was directed by Francis Lawrence, whose credits include the films Constantine and I Am Legend, as well as videos for Audioslave ("Be Yourself") and Lady Gaga ("Bad Romance").

    It's one of the more unusual videos ever made: the band appear in it, but they're all dead. It takes place in an home of an obsessed female fan who is getting ready for work, casually ignoring their corpses. At one point, a TV news program comes on and Access Hollywood host Pat O'Brien announces that the band has disappeared. "If anybody sees them, they might want to show them the way," he says, referencing their hit song.

    The video is all one shot (well, not really - there's an edit when they go from a Steadicam to what is likely a crane), and breaks the fourth wall at the end when the woman breaks character and says, "Francis, I can't work like this."
  • The video was shot in Newhall, California on a sweltering hot day. According to Tony Scalzo, it took them about 10 takes to get it right. "The second-to-last one was almost perfect, and then the girl closed the door too fast and closed it on the camera, which upset everybody not just because the shot was ruined, but because it was a very expensive camera," he told Songfacts. "It's deathly hot. I'm in this bathtub so that's okay. But I gotta lie upside down in the water with my face under water. Well, it took all day, but we finally got it and it came out a pretty creepy, weird video. The only other shots we had to do were us walking out of the house, looking stupid, and the live stuff where you see a performance video that's on a TV in the house."

Comments: 1

  • Alice from CaliforniaWhat's the name of the actress in this video? She's so cute, and she looks familiar. I love her suit and bob, and she plays this perfectly. "Oh well, Fastball's dead in my house!"
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