Single · 2024 · 4:21
Halfway House
Written across nine delayed flights in one tour season, Halfway House is for everyone living in transit — arrivals halls, night buses, the year between jobs, the month between homes. It is the longest song in the catalogue and the stillest: two chords, a ticking guitar, and a vocal recorded at 4 AM in an airport hotel.
The story
Each verse was written in a different terminal — Ellis kept the boarding passes tucked in the notebook as receipts. The song never resolves its two chords, on purpose: the whole point is the staying, not the arriving. Her mother calls it “the worrying song” and asks after it at every family dinner.
On tour it is played solo, house lights half up, with the audience asked to keep their phone torches off for once. It works every time.
“Halfway house between the gone and home,
plastic chairs and a telephone tone.
I'm neither lost nor found, just in between —
the ghost of every might-have-been.”
Chorus · words & music by Vera Ellis
Released
November 2024
Length
4:21
Written by
Vera Ellis
Produced by
Vera Ellis
Label
Static Room Records
Recorded at
Static Room, Studio B
