San Bernardino

Lyrics

We got in your car and we hit the highway
Eastern sun was rising over the mountains
Yellow and blood red bits
Like a kaleidoscope

And flaming swords may guard the garden of Eden
But we consulted maps from earlier days
Dead languages on our tongues
Holding on to our last hope

And the day was bright and fine
And the highway sign said, "San Bernardino welcomes you"

I checked us into our hotel[1] and filled the bathtub
And you got in the warm warm water
I pulled petals[2] from my pocket
I loved you so much just then

And it was hard but you were brave, you are splendid[3]
And we will never be alone in this world
No matter what they say
We're gonna be okay

We were safe inside
and our new son cried, "San Bernardino welcomes you"[4]

Banter

• This is a song about a couple having a baby in a hotel room at the freeway near where I grew up. It's not at this one hotel, but there's a hotel out Route 66 in California called the Wigwam. It's wigwams. You see it when you're a teenager and you think, 'Man, someday I'm going to stay there and it's going to be hilarious.' And then you get old enough to stay in hotels and, 'I'm never going to stay at the Wigwam. That's not cool.' So I thought of that hotel when I wrote this song, but I should like to tell you it's not at the Wigwam, it's down the road a little ways from there. 'Cause what's good in this story would be less good if the baby had to be born at the Wigwam. (2009-03-20 Attucks Theatre)
• This song takes place in the Wigwam Motel. (2014-06-17 Mayan Theatre)
• I can play a song that betrays my naïveté as a guy who had not actually spent time in the labor and delivery room. This song has a birth in it in a motel room. Now, that’s all very romantic if you haven’t been at a birth. After I went to my first birth… well, the motel room would have a little less tenderness and probably a lot more screaming and police. Certainly the blood would be more prominent than it is in this otherwise very sweet little song that means well and comes from a position of relative myopia. [ed: police seems unnecessary but it is generally a bloody experience, moreso than, I would say, the majority of murders.] (2017-09-16)

Live Performances

• 2009-03-20 Attucks Theatre
• 2014-06-17 Mayan Theatre
• 2017-06-01 The Fillmore
• 2019-05-07 Mr. Smalls Theatre (encore - recording)
• 2023-10-02 Belly Up Tavern
• 2023-10-03 The Belasco
• 2023-10-06 August Hall
• 2023-10-09 Martin Woldson Theater at the Fox
• 2023-10-28 Longhorn Ballroom
• 2023-10-29 The Heights Theater
• 2023-12-01 Hangar 1819

Footnotes

• 1. "motel" instead of "hotel" (2017-06-01, 2019-05-07, 2023-10-02, 2023-10-03, 2023-10-28, 2023-10-29)
• 2. "rose petals" instead of "petals" (2017-06-01, 2019-05-07, 2023-10-02, 2023-10-03, 2023-10-28, 2023-10-29)
• 3. The curator of this website [who practices family medicine with obstetrics, and is not just delivering babies willy-nilly] has quoted this on multiple occasions to people who have just given birth, and it goes over well as a sentiment. Thanks, John. (Note: she actively does not recommend having a waterbirth in a motel. Please have a water birth if you want and you are medically eligible for one,, they're awesome, but do it somewhere with a blood bank and oxygen and shit available, things motels typically do not stock. Thank you for coming to this portion of the footnotes.)
• 4. "we welcome you" appended (2023-10-28, 2023-10-29)