Two Grey Rooms

Mitchell wrote a wordless vocal melody and instrumental accompaniment for the song in 1982 during the sessions for her album Wild Things Run Fast.

She titled it "Speechless" as lyrical inspiration for the song escaped her until 1989, when she encountered the story of an aristocratic friend of New German Cinema director Rainer Werner Fassbinder, who, amid the repression of Germany's antigay Paragraph 175 laws, was left broken-hearted by a male lover in his youth.

So the aristocrat gives up his fancy digs and moves to these two shabby gray rooms overlooking this street, just to watch this man walk to and from work.

[1]A video for "Two Grey Rooms" was shot with Mitchell as the song’s protagonist set in a barren apartment overlooking a bleak urban landscape.

The sepia-and-white clip (perhaps an homage to Fassbinder’s occasional style) was included on Mitchell's 1991 video compilation release Come in from the Cold, in which she also discusses the inspiration for the song.