Death On The Stairs

It's about drugs and addiction, and the excitement and romanticism around it.

The Eritrean maid is a reference to the Abyssinian maid in Kubla Khan, an opium-induced poem by Coleridge. That is in turn about the ecstasy, irreversibility and unholy nature of addiction. I'll just quote that whole section:

"A damsel with a dulcimer In a vision once I saw: It was an Abyssinian maid, And on her dulcimer she played, Singing of Mount Abora. Could I revive within me Her symphony and song, To such a deep delight 't would win me That with music loud and long, I would build that dome in air, That sunny dome! those caves of ice! And all who heard should see them there, And all should cry, Beware! Beware! His flashing eyes, his floating hair! Weave a circle round him thrice, And close your eyes with holy dread, For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise."

(Abyssinia became Ethiopia, and Eritrea split from Ethiopia. And Abyssinia doesn't scan. They obviously had an encylopedia, eh?)

The anglican bit I think is a pretty much unrelated jab at middle/upper-class morality - the Eritrean maid as an asylum seeker taken advantage of by an apparently selfless theology type, but she sees through him and runs away.

Bit of romanticism (punk rock kids with less than 50p, imagine!), then "bringing with a true love" drugs/alcohol to a friend (probably an ex-band member). The insistence it is out of affection ties in with the "stranded on this street that paved my only way home". They themselves understand the same insistent draw, and swing between feeling of it as a salvation, and realising the wretchedness of their situation. They act towards their friend as they do towards themselves, unsure of whether they are salving a wound or simply feeding an addiction.

The rest is mostly a repetition of the same theme, ecstasy against addiction. "Sweet like nothing, It's like nothing at all", "But don't bring that ghost round to my door I don't wanna see him anymore".

I don't understand the monkey and mouse bit, though the motel is a seedy and secret location for getting high. Even if you grow up and become respectable, you'd still have to go back and feed your addiction. It makes an indelible mark, like an awful crime from your past. If you want to keep it quiet you must pay it off.

Finally I think the title is a reference to overdosing in a tower-block stairwell, as the final limit, the lowest and most desperate end-point of a heroin addict who can’t escape.