[Intro — low tremolo guitar, brushed drums fade in, streetlight haze] [Verse 1 — hushed, close] "Got a light?" — I asked it first, half past last call, collar to the wind. She stepped out of nowhere in a jacket full of winter, struck it on the second try, cupped her hands around my hands like we were keeping something small alive. Split the one between us — two strangers taking turns at dying slow and calling it a break. Talked about nothing — road salt, the jukebox, the cold — till the ember hit the filter and the minute let us go. [Chorus — warm lift, one voice] Got a light? The last polite way left to ask a stranger: stay. Got a light? Half these pockets already carry flame. It's the one thing you can hand somebody and not have any less — so yeah, I got a light. (I got a light) [Verse 2 — steady, conversational] Now I know the whole economy: the loading dock at 2 a.m., the parking lot outside the wedding, night-shift girls behind the diner splitting one against the cold. You learn the tell — that pocket-pat, patting down for something they could find with their eyes closed — and you strike yours up like you believe them. Cheapest thing in my pockets is the benefit of the doubt. [Chorus — warm lift, one voice] Got a light? The last polite way left to ask a stranger: stay. Got a light? Half these pockets already carry flame. It's the one thing you can hand somebody and not have any less — so yeah, I got a light. (I got a light) [Bridge — band falls away, dry close-mic spoken] Here's the part I never say out loud: that first night — there was a lighter in my jacket. Full. Worked fine. I wasn't out of fire. I was out of people. And she saw the shape of it through the denim — I'd bet what's left of my matches she did — and she struck hers anyway. Never said a word. That was the light. [one full beat of silence] [Verse 3 — quiet rebuild] Never did quit. Tried it one October — made it about a month. Missed the smoke a little. Missed the asking more: standing in the cold with nothing in my hands and no reason for a stranger to come stand in it with me. Man outside the taproom does the pat-down, does the trick — about the age she'd be by now. I clock the outline in his coat. I don't say a thing. Strike it on the first try — twenty years of practice keeping small things lit — then I lean in and light mine off the cherry of his. Borrowed it right back. [Final Chorus — widest, single voice centered] Got a light? The last polite way left to ask a stranger: stay. Got a light? Half these pockets already carry flame — I know. I checked. It's the one thing you can hand somebody and not have any less — so yeah, I got a light. I always got a light. [Outro — bass and one guitar, thinning] Every cigarette in this city lit off another, off another — somewhere back down the chain there's a match nobody remembers striking. Still going. [a voice from off in the dark] "...hey — got a light?" [one dry lighter-flick — hard stop]
