Night Sky - Murder on the Greyhound

from SpinTunes 19 Round 2 by Spintunes

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Source: Murder on the Orient Express is a Hercule Poirot mystery by Agatha Christie. Spoilers ahead: On the Orient Express train from Istanbul to Calais in the early 1930s one of the passengers is found murdered in his first class compartment. The train is stuck in a snowstorm, so Poirot takes charge and solves the murder. He discovers a connection to a famous crime, the murder of the baby Daisy Armstrong. Daisy’s murderer had been found, but escaped justice at trial. Poirot discovers that each of the passengers on the train had a connection to the murdered baby. They had conspired to avenge her murder by killing her killer - each stabbing him once while he lay drugged but conscious of his fate. In the end, Poirot decides to let them go because he feels justice was done. We’ve moved the story to the much grittier Greyhound bus out of Toledo and to modern times (before 2021 when Greyhound went out of business).

lyrics

Drove my Greyhound blind in a blizzard
Lonely souls sat quiet and shivered
On the midnight route out of Toledo

Got a man up front twirling his mustache
A sleeper in the back behind a mask
Twelve poor wretches staring into the dark

If you got a score to settle or forget
This old dog can keep a secret
Hound’s a haven for tramps and thieves

Storm shut us down outside of Laramie
Howlin’ scream that you wouldn’t believe
Cell tower’s down no way to call for help

I put my hand out to the sleeper
Man I called out for a preacher
Blood all down his chest, death in his eyes

Someone had a score to settle but don’t forget
This old dog can keep a secret
Hound’s the site of murder intrigue

We had six hundred miles to go
Mustache man called himself Poirot
Bowed and said he’d find the miscreant

He pored over clues the whole night long
Twelve cuts and the name Armstrong
Twelve wounded souls hiding behind their eyes

They had planned an unlikely conspiracy
Vengeance for the wicked man’s misdeeds
Vigilante justice indeed

We are all running from something
Pain or fear or a guilty conscience
When the jury you get ain’t the one you need
You might just find your volunteer peers

There were no strangers on the bus you see
This man was the killer of beloved Daisy
One by one they plunged the knife into his heart

Mustache man spoke gravely
Rough justice on this cursed plain
Your verdict I accept, but can’t approve

We are all running from something
Pain or fear or a guilty conscience
When the jury you get ain’t the one you need
You might just find your volunteer peers

credits

from SpinTunes 19 Round 2, released April 4, 2022

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