What is “Coyote Hour” about?
"Coyote Hour" lives in the sleepless stretch around four in the morning, when the narrator lies beside a cold pillow rehearsing words she never said, feeling like "a radio nobody tunes." The images are small and lonely: a humming streetlight, a moth pressing at the window, a ceiling fan turning over a thought. It closes with a string of hellos to the dark and to the stranger in the glass. As track fourteen, it is the most inward moment on Gasoline Hymn before the title track.
Coyote Hour lyrics
Four a.m. and the streetlight hums
Dog barking at something it cannot see
I am a radio nobody tunes
Sending signals to an empty sea
Moth on the window, desperate wings
Pressing for warmth on the other side
I know the feeling, I know the pull
I know how far a lonely heart can ride
This is the coyote hour
Nothing moves but the blood in my ears
This is the coyote hour
Nothing loves but the ghost of the years
Nothing loves but the ghost of the years
Ceiling fan turning a thought I can't catch
Pillow still cold on the other side
I rehearse every word I never said
To a face that can't be satisfied
This is the coyote hour
Nothing moves but the blood in my ears
This is the coyote hour
Nothing loves but the ghost of the years
Nothing loves but the ghost of the years
Hello to the hollow, hello to the dark
Hello to the small voice under my heart
Hello to the stranger I see in the glass
Hello to the nothing that won't let me pass
This is the coyote hour
This is the coyote hour
Nothing loves but the ghost of the years