Louise Mosrie: Music
Baker Hotel 1929
This is just a simple guitar/vocal demo of a song I wrote this summer. The story behind it is that we were driving back to Nashville from TX and happened to drive through Mineral Wells, TX. In the middle of town is this huge building and I had to pull over and find out what it was. Turns out it's the old Baker Hotel that's been closed since the '60s. Built during the Great Depression in 1929, it was a haven for movie stars and the mega wealthy. There are lots of stories of it now being haunted, so I based my character on a woman who offs herself by jumping from the 7th floor window after a love affair ended. A seance held some years ago was reported to have contacted a woman by the name of Virginia who committed suicide at the hotel. So that's why I used that name. Google Baker Hotel Mineral Wells sometime - it's an interesting place.
cheers, L.
Baker Hotel 1929
(c) 2011 Louise Mosrie
Baker Hotel 1929
Rich folks came from miles around
To heal their ills with the crazy waters
That came right out the ground.
Mineral Wells northern Texas
Was booming when the country was bust and
Young Virginia’s there in her finest , and
Dreams of dancing in the courtyard at dusk.
And the moon on her shoulders
Soft silvery white
She’d swoon in the arms of a soldier
And the band would play all night.
And love would check in with a sweet heavy sigh
At the Baker Hotel 1929.
She came from a small sugar farm
Down along the Brazos River.
But she had plans for a grander life
That the Baker could surely deliver.
She took a job cleaning rooms
For Dietrich, Will Rogers and Harlow.
Fell hard for a tall navy captain
Said he’d take her away to San Diego
And the moon on her shoulders
Soft silvery white
She swooned in the arms of her soldier
And the band played all night.
And love checked in with a sweet heavy sigh
At the Baker Hotel 1929.
She woke in the morning alone.
Her new love was not what it seemed
She walked up to the 7th floor window
And stepped right out as though on the street.
They say you can still hear the music
And smell her rosewater perfume
Though the Baker’s been closed 50 years now, she’s still
Searching for love in the ruins.
And the moon on her shoulders
Cold silvery white
Marooned in a dream of a soldier
As the band plays all night.
Virginia lives here suspended in time
At the Baker Hotel 1929.