The Missing Songtext
von The Bug feat. Roger Robinson

The Missing

For the victims of the Grenfell Tower fire disaster

As if their bodies became lighter

Ten of those seated in the front pews of the church began to float

And then to lie as if on a bed
Then pass down the aisle as if on a conveyor belt of pure air
Slow as a funeral cortege
Past the congregants
Some sinking to their knees in prayer
One woman rocking back and forth muttered
"What about me, Lord? Why not me?"
The risen stream slowly, so slowly
Out the gothic doors and up to the sky
Finches darting deftly between them


Ten streets away
A husband tries to hold on to the feet of his floating wife
At times her force lifts him slightly off the ground
His grip slipping
He falls to his knees
With just her high heel shoes in his hand
He shields and squints his eyes
As she is backlit by the sun

A hundred people start floating from the window of a tower block
From far enough away
They could be black smoke from spreading flames
A father with his child on top of his shoulders
Men in sand-coloured galabeyas
A woman with an Elvis quiff and vintage glasses
A deep indigo hijab flapping in the wind
All airborne
Amongst the cirrus clouds floating like hair

They begin to look like a separate city
Someone looking on could mistake them for new arrivants to Earth
They are the city of the missing
And we now the city of the stayed